It took SIX YEARS for this Limbaugh affiliate to figure out "Rush Radio" has a dirty word. [View all]

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Darryl Parks, a former radio program director, writes:

WRNO-FM, which many believe stands for the “Rock of New Orleans,” but actually stands for “Westbank Radio New Orleans” (don’t ask me why I know this stuff), ended its rock music era on November 13, 2006 in a fitting way – playing the Doors’ song “The End.” It then became a talk station. For a few years the station floundered and was then rebranded as “Rush Radio 99.5.” That was April 1, 2008, over 6 years ago.

Back in those days, Rush still had the ability to launch a new talk station. When a radio listener heard Rush Limbaugh was on a radio station, they immediately knew it was a “conservative talk station.” Good to gather that tribe of conservative listeners who Rush led and spoke for. Bad because it drove away a big portion of the available talk and collective radio audience Rush didn’t speak for.

It’s 2014 and some of the same thoughts were used some months ago to launch KEIB in Los Angeles and re-launch WOR in New York, along with a few other stations.

“Rush will bring a huge audience over to the new radio station,” it was misguidedly concluded. “His show will create a new and viable station. Instant success!”

But, a lot changes in 6 years and a lot has changed for Rush and conservative talk radio, as by the day the format becomes more and more disconnected from the generational changes happening in America.

Now WRNO-FM in New Orleans is no longer called “Rush Radio.” It’s called “News-Talk 99.5 WRNO. The News and Talk of New Orleans,” a moniker it should have been using immediately following the November elections of 2008. Almost 6 years later the station is now pigeon-holed as the mouthpiece of the extreme right-wing in the French Quarter.