Pricks will still probably fall upwards:
In a major shakeup for the radio industry, Cumulus Media, the second-biggest broadcaster in the country, is planning to drop both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from its stations at the end of the year, an industry source told POLITICO on Sunday.
Cumulus has decided that it will not renew its contracts with either host, the source said, a move that would remove the two most highly rated conservative talk personalities from more than 40 Cumulus channels in major markets.
How much of a raise do you think they will get with whatever new deal they end up with?
MattR
Isn’t there some limit to the ability to fail upwards? Or, like peak wingnut, is that just a myth?
Gex
I’m sure someone will sign them or wingnut welfare will kick in. But still. I think it is an important sign that the downside to having those guys are starting to show up. At least I hope so.
PsiFighter37
Depends how much Fathers Scaife or Murdoch are willing to pine up. Put it this way, they won’t be hurting.
Violet
You missed the best part from the Think Progress version of the story:
Yep. Blame women for your own problems. Typical and both funny and sad.
Personally I don’t think he’ll fail upwards. I think his time is over.
Comrade Jake
Have ratings for these assclowns slipped?
JCT
@Violet: Hate conservatism? Why would that be? SO confusing. And why would they take it out on such a great guy like Rush? Somehow I suspect this is all Sandra Fluke’s fault.
Hilarious.
The Dangerman
I don’t know about Limbaugh, but Hannity was, at times, almost reasonable about the Trayvon Martin thing. Not always, not even a majority of the time, but occasionally, he actually treated Zimmerman with the contempt he well earned. I’m sure his audience noticed this, too. They especially noticed he wasn’t going 7×24 Benghazi and/or IRS, which he should have known were the only things worth discussing.
dmsilev
@Violet: So we should take this to read that Limbaugh’s dreams are haunted by an army of Sandra Flukes, remorselessly advancing towards him despite everything his dream self tries to do?
Good.
Ruckus
How many stations/markets are they being cut out of? From reading the link it sounds like there are others ready and willing to keep them on the air in most of the markets they would lose.
It will be important if it happens but it sounds like the overall effect will be minimal.
Violet
@Comrade Jake: Ratings for Hannity haven’t been good for awhile. I think I read that Hannity was a package deal with Limbaugh, so you had to play Hannity if you wanted Limbaugh. Ratings for talk radio in general have fallen quite a bit over the last couple of years.
Violet
@dmsilev: One can only hope.
Mnemosyne
I thought I was joking when I said their ratings were cut in half when my dad passed away, but now I’m not so sure it was a joke. If this ratings change dates to early January, you’ll know who to (inadvertently) thank.
Keith P.
I’m going out on a limb and saying neither Hannity nor Limbaugh will get raises. At the end of the day, they are beholden to market forces, and if Clear Channel doesn’t roll over at the last minute and give Cumulus what they want, the market value of those two goofs will drop. They’ll still get millions, but it won’t be the crazy money they’re getting now.
On a slight aside, that Sean Hannity makes as much money as he does makes me think I could leave my principles at home, just start spouting random boilerplate right-wing BS, and *someone* would pay me a million dollars a year for it. I mean, I can kind of understand Limbaugh, as he’s been doing this consistently for decades now, but Hannity is a total hack and an imitator. How on earth did he manage to fall into a place of right-wing prominence?
Violet
From a Daily Beast story in May:
Love that an industry guy describes wingnut radio listeners as all wearing Depends. Pretty accurate.
Gex
@Mnemosyne: And really, every day they lose members of their audience. I’m not sure they can pull in new listeners as fast as they are losing them.
Mark B.
I think the business plan of bilking ignorant racist anyigovernment old people on Medicare is kind of self-limiting. Your market slowly dies off. Or maybe not so slowly.
Jax6655
PaulW
I’m wondering if they would make more money on their own going to Internet podcasting or some kind of free-market syndicated deal.
Violet
@PaulW: Glenn Beck has done that and supposedly has made a lot of money doing it.
Jax6655
ibtimes.com/rush-limbaughs-radio-decline-no-fluke-twitter-fueled-advertising-boycott-could-usher-end…
Can’t post this link. Limbaugh is toast
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
I don’t think there are enough young angry white guys to keep Limbaugh and Hannity going. My brother is a Reagan-worshipping conservative, but he doesn’t listen to either of them as far as I know, and definitely not on a regular basis.
Zifnab25
Increasingly monopolistic radio channels begin consolidating their content around a handful of syndicated shows. Audiences have fewer and fewer options to choose from in terms of radio content. The handful of syndicated shows see their ratings improve as they become virtually the only thing on the AM side of the dial, and a healthy chunk of the FM side of the dial.
I bet you that whomever Cumulus puts in Limbaugh/Hannity’s place will magically become “One of the top rated radio shows in America” within a matter of weeks. Why? Because that’s the only damn thing on the radio.
Davis X. Machina
Remember Rush Rooms?
michelle
I used to listen to both when I had a day off and sometimes at work online. I haven’t for at least a year or so. As far as Limbaugh goes, he’s just not that interesting anymore. He rarely makes it onto memeorandum. Hanity has always been just bad radio.
Don’t worry, there are plenty of angry white men to take their places on those stations who are ramping up the ugly.
There was a commenter on here the other day/night from Houston who used a quote from one of the ugliest people in radio: How yu durrin? Or something like that. It’s from Michael Berry’s friend who can be seen here. Don’t go there if you can’t handle in your face racism. It’s ugly and Michael Berry plays something from him every day. I was surprised to see it here on BJ.
Jax6655
@Mnemosyne:
And no ad dollars. Can’t say it enough. Lack of ad $$ are killing Rush.
balconesfault
I am constantly amazed, when I stray over to the Limbaugh show for any amount of time, that he can retain any kind of audience.
Not because he plays to the wingbaggers. There’s always going to be a market for that.
Rather, because his show is just so bad. Too much dead space. Too much time spent on self promotion. Too much redundancy. If one were to listen to two hours of Limbaugh, I suspect (not that I have the stomach for that experiment) you’d get 2-3 minutes worth of “content” … and the rest of the non-ad time spent talking about how briliant that content is.
It’s impossible to fathom a liberal pulling that off, and having anyone still tuning in after a week.
Liberty60
This just proves that older white male Christians are the real victims in America.
karen
I’m actually surprised he didn’t pull a Howard Stern and go to Sirius or XM. It seems like that’s where all the DJs I loved growing up have gone and where music lovers have gone. Unfortunately I can’t afford to pay for another service so I’m not one of the listeners. No Cousin Brucie for me.
Redshift
@balconesfault:
I’ve always believed that the reason talk radio has been so successful for conservatives but liberal talk has never really gone anywhere is that conservatives enjoy being told things they already believe over and over again, but most liberals quickly get bored with that.
The only liberal radio show I’ve ever really liked is Stephanie Miller, and that’s because it’s basically a morning drive-time comedy show only with politics instead of music.
Mike G
Conservatives are willing to effusively praise absolute drivel if it echoes their ideological slant, witness not only rabies radio and Fox News but Christian Rock, transparently phony televangelists, Regnery books, the Left Behind movies, their anti-Michael Moore screeds and that lame right-wing ripoff of The Daily Show that lasted about two episodes. They have the old Soviet “All art must serve the state” mindset that the primary purpose of all their art and entertainment should be plugging their ideology crassly and repeatedly, like a huckster used car salesman.
ruemara
@Redshift: I’d have to disagree. There’s some very good liberal talk out there, but not many outlets. I enjoy Stephanie Miller and love Randi Rhodes. They get me through my workouts and work, respectively. Only now I work with a wingnut so I can’t listen to radio at all anymore.
forked tongue
I’d love to see these cobags lose their audience, but there won’t be any real justice until their accumulated wealth is expropriated to pay for universal health care and they’re reduced to blowing strangers in alleys for $5 + tips.
dr. luba
@Mike G: And don’t forget going to see Atlas Shrugged over and over again, or that horrible Christmas Carol parody.
FlyingToaster
@Keith P.: this.
Unless a sugar daddy steps forward who isn’t blowing all of his money on a presidential candidate, these guys will not be getting pay raises. They’re not bringing in the listeners anymore; or, more likely, their listeneners are dying faster than they can attract new ones.
My mom (who is elderly, and lives in a “damn Republicans” part of Florida, noticed that some of the local shops that used to always have Limbaugh on have moved to sports/talk.
Which was always my trick to get the bar tv switched from FoxNoise, “any chance you can tune it in to espnNews? Missed the scores this morning.” Which coming from a zaftig white chick musta been weird, but it got the channel changed, so who cares?
Howard Beale IV
@Violet: When Limbaugh has to sell his Gulfstream, then you’ll know he’s toast. But I got a feeling el Rushbo will wind up on SiriusXM-and if that happens, SXM just pained a big old target on themselves. It was bad enough that Dr. Laura’s over there, that may just be the thing that’ll push me over the edge and dump ’em-especailly given how badly they’ve been treating many of the on-the-air talent with zero raises over the years.
Yessir, Limbaugh on SXM will give ol’ satellite the shiv once and for all.
Violet
@Howard Beale IV: Limbaugh has made enough money over the years he’s probably got plenty of investment money to live off. Maybe he’ll need to sell his Gulfstream, but I doubt it.
If Limbaugh goes to Sirius, I wonder if the boycott will continue? I don’t have Satellite radio–do they have ads, or is it all subscriber-funded?
PeakVT
@Violet: Mostly subscriber funded. There’s some channels on XM that have ads, they are partnerships with terrestrial stations. If Sirius had any, there wasn’t a lot of them either.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
Limbaugh will be knocked out of New York City, at least temporarily. That’s pretty big.
GregB
Every Limbaugh post must include a link to this song parody.
He’s a Nazi.
LosGatosCA
Predictable repetition is balm to a closed conservative mind and people get more conservative as they get older.
Maybe El Rushbo can reinvent himself as the Medicare motor scooter guy – a latter day Larry Welk pushing Geritol-like products.
I can definitely see him trading in class and race warfare for intergenerational resentment. Repackage those scooter ads like ambulance chaser ads:
“Did some damn kid trip you up at the store yesterday? Are you afraid these ruffians are going to cause you to break your hip? Don’t let the irresponsible parents with their juvenile delinquent kids curtail your activities. Get our scooter paid for by private Medicare funding rightfully provided by those same irresponsible parents. We guarantee you will be able to get your scooter in a timely fashion -complete with onboard camera to catch underage thugs interfering with your shopping and an alarm system to protect your property from illegal immigrants trying to steal it to make cross border drug runs. Now the camera and alarm cost a little more, but we have testimonials from countless satisfied customers who have thwarted criminal activity with their help. Act now, and you can get a side mount for your cane or walker and a front mount for your heat seeking 9M that allows you to Stand Your Ground even in the dark or with failing eyesight. Walking assistance instruments and firearms not included, but are available at reasonable additional cost. Call, go on line if you have a relative you trust to use a computer, or visit us at a local gun show to avoid embarrassing questions or delays in getting your firearm shipped with your scooter.”
MattF
Radio and cable TV are both ripe for big changes, probably sooner rather than later. And I could not care less about what happens to Limbaugh and/or Hannity. The tide, as a would-be sage once said, goes in, and then it goes out.
Joel
@Mike G: It’s too bad the numbnuts can’t even pull off art even remotely as good as the worst Socialist Realism. I mean, when Red Dawn is the pinnacle of your art…
jl
I hope some one is working on a graphic of their descent to public access channels. Someday I would like to look at that.
pseudonymous in nc
@Violet:
He was asking for it.
Perhaps truckers and people who drive for their work do, or it’s background in certain workplaces (Skeeter’s Gun Emporium, etc.) but it’s not meant to be listened to in big chunks. It’s sound that coalesces mometarily into slogan and insult in 12-minute chunks. Think about Orwell’s telescreens. That’s why Media Matters actually made a difference here, because it gave some poor fuckers the job of transcribing it, and it looks like shit on the page.
David Foster Wallace’s piece on talk radio understood that.
Anyway, this may resolve itself like the frequent spats between networks or cable providers, or Pud and Spud may find themselves taking over a spot on different stations.
But Faux News is eating into the feed-me-pablum demographic, and AM radio ain’t where the money’s at.
eldorado
@FlyingToaster:
zaftig is one of my favorite words of all time
cwolf
@Steeplejack:
When Limboo lost New York, he lost the country.
WABC is a big deal in the NYC market & no other station in the city is going to give big $$$ to the leaky old barge known as limbaugh.
He’s finished,,, stick a fork in him… and twist it.
Jess Sane
Don’t start celebrating just yet – they’ll just be replaced by Michael Savage and Mark Levin and Mike Huckabee.
Fort Geek
@balconesfault: When I was an auto-parts delivery driver, there were a few wingnut shops that had the Round Mound of Sound or Mannatee shows running out in the garage. I don’t know how much they could hear, other than to maybe hear the talking points or “grumble grumble Obama warrgarrbl Muslim.”
It was pretty good odds, though, that I’d see the same crap being spouted by wingnuts almost verbatim online later in the day. Maybe that’s what “trickle down” means?
Another Halocene Human
@Violet: Our local Limbaugh/Hannity (and Levin!) station got quietly sold this summer and turned into an electronic dance station.
If they get back on the air here it’ll be a lower power station. Everything higher powered than that station was very popular music genres.
Another Halocene Human
@michelle: The quote is from NORBIT. It’s an Eddie Murphy movie. My coworkers all but sat me down and made me watch it.
Also, too, we don’t get much New Orleans anything in North Central Florida, not even the same hurricanes.
Another Halocene Human
@Jess Sane: Mark Levin SUCKS. He’s just this abusive, snivelly nasal whiner… he is completely incapable of infuriating me like Limbaugh does and he’s not in the least entertaining. His self-promotion is hilarious, though.
Never listened to Michael Weiner (Whiner) but my understanding is that he’s just an abusive jerk. At least Levin didn’t try to change his name to something more “badass” (ie the real life surname of the most famous gay in publishing–well, he did try to launch a bio-warfare attack on a Republican primary candidate once… that was pretty bad, and made him look like an ass).
StringOnAStick
This is good news for my Monday morning!
I don’t even hear these two losers on the Fed Ex truck guy’s radio anymore; is it possible that reality finally ran over their BS sky-is-falling-evil-black-man meme humping?
I know what my wingnut dad will say though: ebil demoncrats forced this to happen. Heaven knows it can’t be the Invisible Hand, because ol’ Handy is on their side!
Boots Day
I can’t imagine Limbaugh being much of a success on satellite radio. His cranky old white guy audience isn’t going to (a) pay money and (b) get new high-tech equipment to listen to his crap when they can still get plenty of Rush imitators for free on the AM dial.
Redshirt
Even if they continue to broadcast, the diminishing influence of Hannity and Limbaugh is an unquestionable GOOD THING for the state of this country. If for no other reason than to deprive the Evil Hive Mind direct access to the minds of blue collar workers the country over.
West of the Rockies
Well, if someone thinks they’ll make a dollar, they will sign up Rush & company for more talk drivel. Still, it would be lovely to think that maybe, just maybe, the appetite for Rush’s ideological crap sandwiches has dried up. He’s 62 and probably worth 62 million dollars. Maybe he’ll pack it all up soon and go on an extended sex-tourism trip that will result in his final sweaty demise in a sad bordello. Yeah, pretty dark, I know, but I’m so tired of this person spewing hatred for profit.