Rush's ratings numbers are staggering. As in, history-making. He has, as I understand it, a wider reach than any radio program in the post-war era. Why? He's free.
Most syndicated radio shows sell their programs to stations. Rush gives his program away for nothing. The affiliates are merely required to play all of his advertising, with about 2 minutes per hour allocated to the local stations. With tens of millions of people listening to his shows nationwide, he can sell those 30-second ads spots for RIDICULOUS amounts of money on long-term contracts to national accounts. So even if we were to kill off half of his advertisers, he's still rolling in hundreds of millions of dollars.
How do you *really* hurt Rush? You not only have to kill off his advertisers, you have to kill off his affiliates too. That's going to be hard.
Many major market stations have already dumped the Fat Boy. But what happens is, the smaller suburban or rural stations pick him up immediately, since it's free. So he still gets the reach, even if somebody big dumps him. His listeners just turn the dial and find him again.??Plus, for these small-market stations, Rush is a dream come true. A guaranteed X-thousand listener base for nothing? AND they get to sell ads for his time slot? It's a no-brainer for small-budget stations in red-neck towns: Rush is the Gold Standard.
Here's a suggested starting point. Very often these small market stations are VERY sensitive to negative press. The newspaper is usually a big influence in these little po-dunk holes, so getting an article --- not an editorial, not a letter to the editor --- into these papers will be the key to killing the Rush Limbaugh show in any given town. The newspaper runs a scathing story about Rush, the radio station is identified as the source of the evil in their midst, and all of a sudden the station is under considerable pressure to drop him. It will also help to scare away new stations who might think about picking him up.
Get on it, people. This has to happen also. It's going to be WAY more difficult than just scaring away advertisers; but if you want the drug-addicted, closet-gay??misogynist??off the air for good, this is going to have to be part of the plan of attack.
- Tim
