Rush Limbaugh, Bloomington Program Cancellation

'POPULARITY DECLINING'

What's The Real Reason Behind Limbaugh Station Loss?







While other syndicated radio hosts routinely see affiliates come and go, for talk titan Rush Limbaugh, that's simply not the case. Though many stations would love to grab El Rushbo away from crosstown competitors, few willingly give up the top- rated program.

That's despite Limbaugh's relatively high carriage fees, while most other national radio programs are offered on a barter (free if you run network advertising) basis.

As a result, on the rare occasions when Rush is dropped somewhere, it tends to make headlines. Beyond the "man bites dog" nature of the story, mainstream media types salivate at the thought their number one enemy might be in trouble.


That's why news that a small Bloomington, Illinois station is canning Rush after many years has the potential to generate MSM coverage this week, especially for the reasons given by WJBC's station management:

The Rush is no longer going to be on the air on WJBC. Radio Bloomignton General Manager Red Pitcher announced this afternoon the syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show will air for the last time March 2, 2007. Pitcher tells WJBC's Steve and Beth on The Drive, local programming will replace Rush.

Pitcher believes Limbaugh's popularity is declining becuse of controversial remarks that are offending even his Republican fans. He pointed to today's show in which Limbaugh compared players in the NFL with gang members.

Details of the local programming line-up that will begin on March 5th will be announced in coming weeks.

Hey, more local programming sounds great, doesn't it? Your Radio Equalizer has been fighting that battle for years. If that were the real reason, it would be tough to argue against, as long as an even better program is waiting in the wings.

But in this case, there apparently isn't one.

And what about the claim El Rushbo's popularity is declining? We've seen no indication of that. In fact, Rush led a huge fall 2006 talk radio ratings surge that saw his audience double in Boston for the key 25-54 adult demographic target group.

And in San Diego, he was up 68% in the same category, with a single- digit gain in New York City, an even performance in San Francisco and a small loss in Chicago. At this point, we're still awaiting detailed data from several other cities.

In Bloomington itself, WJBC just turned in record ratings, rising from a 9.7 to a huge 11.3 share of the audience. While we don't have the breakdowns, it's really hard to believe Rush was a drag on the station's obviously significant popularity. More likely, he helped to fuel it.


How about the station manager's claim that Limbaugh is offending even his Republican fans? Would WJBC care to provide an example?

And to top it off, the comparison between NFL players and gang members was apparently made by a caller, not Limbaugh himself.


So what's the real issue? Our guess is that Limbaugh's fees simply became a bit more than WJBC's parent company was willing to pay, hence a termination date that coincides with the beginning of the second quarter. Programming with this long track record of success isn't cheap! Should it be?

A second theory is political: many news- talk station managers have liberal political tendencies and secretly salivate at the thought of dumping the conservative movement's primary voice. This has occurred a few times in the past.

And elsewhere, WJBC parent Regent Communications recently became one of the only companies to place Jane Fonda's Greenstone feminist network on one of its stations.

By cooking up a bunch of excuses for cancelling Rush, WJBC is hoping to head any significant listener revolt in advance. Will it work?


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