Rush Limbaugh, 2006 Election Results, Talk Radio Industry

UNDERMINING RUSH

Industry Insiders Rewrite History






From deep within the radio industry, the effort to undermine Rush Limbaugh's political legacy continues. For the reasons why, keep reading.

Last week, we mentioned a Boston Herald piece featuring Talkers Magazine's Michael Harrison, where the oft- quoted trade publisher went out of his way to dismiss Rush's past accomplishments:

“Talk radio only has a slice of the general public listening to it,” said Michael Harrison, publisher of the Springfield-based Talkers Magazine. “Rush Limbaugh beat up Bill Clinton for eight years and Clinton got elected twice.”

Harrison said it’s not the role of talk radio yakkers to get people elected - or unelected. “It’s the role of talk radio to have listeners and to make money,” he said. “Healey might lose by less than she would have. Can talk radio turn an election? Only if it’s close.”

Harrison said there’s a “tremendous conservative element in current news talk radio. . . . but you cannot make the public change its mind if the public is set on something.”

Our point was that effective, entertaining and ratings- generating talk radio can in fact change minds, with Rush Limbaugh's role in the 1994 Republican Revolution as Exhibit "A". But now, there's a concerted industry effort to pretend that never happened.

Why? Because Air America couldn't do it for the left! As a result, Rush Limbaugh's past success must now be undermined.

Coming now from longtime talk radio programming consultant Holland Cooke, here's another shot at Rush, via an interview in yesterday's Inside Radio:

Talk radio is unquestionably a useful place for dialogue but Cooke maintains, “Rush Limbaugh is overestimating the extent to which he is influencing public policy. I applaud what he’s done, taking his music radio skill-set to Talk radio.

The problem is once you start reading your own [press-clippings], you change. This high school graduate has lunch with Clarence Thomas a few times and thinks he’s influencing public policy.

Zealots who seem to be running [liberal Air America] into the ground have a political agenda – as does Rush. What they don’t have that Rush does is the know-how about the way radio works. They have some talented on-air people but [the network] seems to be [established] to run like a rant rather than a business. As long as someone is willing to shovel money into it, [Air America] will be there but it hasn’t taken on a life of its own as Rush Limbaugh has.”

But wait, you say, aren't these guys also attacking Air America's liberal talk fiasco? Sure, now they are, but only because it would look foolish to do otherwise. For almost three years, industry insiders were defending Air America at every turn.

With libtalk going down the drain, it's obviously time to poison the well by pretending Rush never made a difference.

Keep in mind that even after all of these years, many behind the scenes are still seething at El Rushbo's success, with additional ongoing railings against the "Rush clones" featured on local talk stations. Cooke, for one, recently convinced a traditionally- conservative Providence station to go liberal in mid- mornings, despite the spectacular failure of "progressive" talk on its crosstown rival.

And despite the huge ratings he was generating for that particular station, your Radio Equalizer once knew a programmer who openly dismissed Limbaugh as "just a jock" (as in disc jockey).


As the new Democrat Party Congress gears up for their takeover, watch for more of these slams against a person who has without a doubt been more influential than just about anyone else in recent political history.

At the same time, as stations continue to drop their programming, we find the real truth: if radio execs thought libtalk had a future, they would stick with it for the long haul.


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