Rush Limbaugh's Ratings Have Fallen 30% In The Last Six Months

[Purveyor]

The just-released Arbitron report reveals that a lot less people are listening to right-wing talk radio.

With a lull in ratings since November, Rush Limbaugh had a 3.0 share of listeners for his radio time slot, which is a 33% slide from October and from last April, reports Crain's Business.

Meanwhile, The Sean Hannity Show was reported to be down 28% from its peak numbers in the fall.

MORE...

http://www.businessinsider.com/rush-limbaugh-hannity-imus-radio-ratings-2011-5

[SpiralHawk]

1. "We're sick and tired of the Draft Dodger's Republicon lies." - Decent Americans

"I mean, really. What honorable person wants to listen to a porky pill-popping, draft-dodging, multi-divorcee MORALIST who is getting $40 million RepubliCorp bucks a year to distort the truth and tell Americans lies? Screw that Republicon crap."

- Decent Americans

[4_TN_TITANS]

55. Well said Spiral......

hopefully people are full to overflowing with his BS.

[vanbean]

63. That was well said. Very well said.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Srsly, how long can even his most brain dead listeners be entertained

by the never-ending Obama bashing? It's like listening to bedtime stories as a child--comforting because you know the ending already, but eventually you get bored and grow out of it.

[tblue37]

15. No problem--as long as he is required listening on Armed Forces Radio,

he will always have an audience, while spokespersons for our side are banned from AFR.

[bahrbearian]

36. Exactly get him off Armed Forces Radio.

[freshwest]

37. Yeah, who the heck empowered that? Take him down!

[gejohnston]

67. He is? When did that start?

Thank God I missed it. I thought Ed Shultz was on AFR.

[SoCalDem]

71. Probably when Clear Channel took over most radio stations

I know we were griping about it here in 2001..

[gejohnston]

77. all of my trips abroad after that time were out of reach of AFR, but at least we had BBC and

the British equivalent.

[Art_from_Ark]

78. I heard Limbaugh on Eagle 810 at least as far back as 1996

Eagle 810= AFRTS out of Tokyo.
And last night I turned on Eagle 810, and there he was, bashing Obama because Obama didn't drop everything in Europe to come back and visit Joplin

"He won't be visiting Joplin until *gasp* Sunday"

[tridim]

3. I can't think of much better news than this.

Though I thought people would tire of Limbaugh's BS 10 years ago.

[sasha031]

4. anyone think Ed Shultze might have helped

Ed talks to the working man and takes on the drugster on a daily basis.

it is such a relief to see people finally waking up.

[madrchsod]

8. limpballs ridiculed big ed when he went national...big mistake

in a lot of markets both ed and limpballs are on at the same time.

[KittyWampus]

17. Possibly, a lot of DU'ers disliked and distrusted Ed but he does have a knack for cutting

through the nonsense without being ugly.

I miss Al Franken on the radio.

[sasha031]

25. I listened to Al and all of Air America all the time

he was wonderful, miss him too.

[NewJeffCT]

50. Ed's got a great radio personality

As much as I like Thom Hartmann and all of his facts, he is not nearly as entertaining.

[rucky]

68. Absolutely.

[madrchsod]

5. big ed is ripping the shit out of slant head,fat boy ,and others....

big ed in fine form today and is taking no prisoners...he`s calling out the stations and the advertisers about why they would stick with a 30% decline in advertising dollars.maybe people are finally realizing these guys are full of shit.

a station owner would be an idiot not to look at liberal radio to replace a 30% decline in listeners.

[southshore]

47. Happy to soak up the loss.....

Station owners are more than happy to soak up the loss. Right wing radio is not a business, it is a propaganda operation. The fact that they have been able to dumb down the American listener to the point that they can actually make a profit on it has just been a bonus.

[mwooldri]

65. Depends on how big the loss is.

Station owners are really looking at the bottom line these days. If Mr. Oxycontin isn't billing enough, he'll get kicked off if something else will make more money for the station - EVEN IF the audience figures for that station drops even lower.

That of course IMO is backwards thinking because terrestrial radio needs to engage its audience and ensure that it is relevant to its interests. Terrestrial radio can and still will work, but station owners need to take some risks in its programming in the short term to hope for a longer term outcome.

Bottom line: a radio station needs to make itself relevant to its audiences interests, otherwise there will be no listeners.

[Zorra]

6. This is really, really great news. You made my day with this post.

Thanks!
:hi:

[sufrommich]

7. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of Right Wing radio.nt

[KansDem]

9. That'll send him scrambling for his Oxycontin!

Hey, Rush! How many parking lots are you going to this time?

[sita]

10. That is stunning!!! But are you sure about those numbers?

It just sounds so high. I wonder if progressive radio is making inroads? I have recommended Thom Hartmann and Ed Schultz to some more conservative types I know because I think they would enjoy it. I am friends with a woman who is a fundamentalist Christian and she like Alan Combs but not Rush and Sean.

[KharmaTrain]

11. People Meters...

More and more markets are using these little devices that measure the actual listening time rather than the old recall/diary method. It works against the talk/hate stations as diaries were easier to write down you were listening to someone for the full hour while the PPM showed you only were tuned in for 10 minutes.

Overall radio audiences have been falling for the past several years. Ipods, internet radio, satellite radio and cable teevee have eroded radio's audience and AM has taken the biggest hit. All that's left is Rushbo, sports talk and bible thumpers...

[Ikonoklast]

26. You got it.

And advertisers are PISSED that the pencil and paper method was ripping them off all those years.

People weren't recording what they actually listened to, they just wrote in what was easiest to remember.

Terrestial radio for the most part is a dying medium, as you noted, other electronic media will soon relegate it to a backwater.


Seems that the big right-wing radio media companies that consolidated their position through acquisitions in the last twenty years or so are on the financial decline. They are still getting bigger and bigger, and getting a smaller and smaller slice of the ad dollars as listeners flee the medium.

Not a very good business model.

[madrchsod]

12. they give his show away for free!

the last few paragraphs from this salon article...http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/05/24/limbaugh_ratings/

[LTR]

54. That's common in radio

It's called barter, where the network sells some of their own advertising time, and in turn, the local affiliate gets the show in return for airing those spots (already built in). They also get their locally-allotted ad time as well. Most syndicated shows and networks work this way, aside from some of the big guns (like Lowbrow and Howard Stern, when he was on terrestrial radio).

Lowbrow started off by offering his show via barter, and he struck at the right time, in the late '80s, when AM was dying and had no cheap syndicated programming. As he got bigger, he started to charge all the stations to carry his show.

It works in reverse too. When Bill O'Reilly launched his late radio show, they paid big stations like WOR a lot of money to clear it. When wingnuts scoffed at Air America for doing this, I was quick to point out this example.

What's interesting is that they now offer barter to the smaller-market stations. Guess it didn't used to be that way. Should be interesting to see if the really big affiliates (like WABC, WLS, etc.) start doing barter for his show instead of forking over the big bucks.

[mwooldri]

64. In small markets, yes.

If you're in Market # 100 or downward, then Mr. Oxycontin would come cheap to these stations.

Larger markets still have to work out money deals though. I'm in the GSO market, and in the last year or two, Clear Channel swiped Mr. Oxycontin and Mr. Insanity from the heritage AM stations and stuck them on their own stations on FM. Their main competition is from the NPR stations, notably WUNC in the main but WFDD hammers away at them too. WZTK is an oddity in our area that it is relatively "fair and balanced" when it comes to its politics: AM drive is hosted by a conservative and a liberal; PM drive is hosted by a guy who consistently gives both sides a fair hearing.

[eleny]

13. Blood in the water!

[RavensChick]

20. And the sharks are smelling it!

Good, I'm glad the ratings are falling, but that's a small number. Someone somewhere will find a way to keep fat boy yapping until the real Rapture hits!

[DemocracyInaction]

14. Reality tends to sober one up

It was grand to listen to his crap, blame all your troubles on the people fat Rush told you to hate, and get all jacked up on issues that really don't touch your life----but how many rednecks woke up when their incomes and needed programs like Medicare and SS are under attack and the realization that they will go from the little house with the Mrs. to being out on the street with the people they were told to hate. THEY are now victims and Rush isn't going to bullshit them into destroying what little they have left to survive. They now are realizing that the rich are not trickling down on them but pissing on their heads!

[Rozlee]

40. Especially when he constantly yammers about all the "unfairness" to the rich

How the rich need more tax breaks; how Americans have gotten so lazy with their entitlement programs; how unfair Congress was being to BP. He lives in an alternative universe where he doesn't understand that most of his listeners struggle to pay their mortgages. Since the Rethug wins in the mid-term elections when they've gotten so emboldened, he has, too. Their true colors are showing brighter than they ever have before. And his audiences are seeing it.

[JohnnyLib2]

16. Best news all week.

Has he tried to spin it yet?

[RavensChick]

21. It'll happen eventually.

Just give him a big plate of meds and he'll be snortin' and spitting out the garbage from that big ass piehole of a mouth of his, sure enough!

[sita]

18. I also think Rush's demographic are lower-middleclass White men

and they have been hit very hard in this "new economy." And after awhile, they get it. They realize that El Rushbo sits in a mansion in South FL and they don't.

[Myrina]

66. ... and lower-middle class white men who think they're upper class ...

... I work with alot of 'low level execs' who aren't particularly bright or well educated, but they happened to be in the right place at the right time 15 or so years ago to now end up as middle-managers/low level execs (low to mid $100k's/yr) ... they seem to lean center-right on social issues but ridiculously-hard-right when it comes to 'protecting their money' ... because they really think that they're in the same club as the CEO.

[Ganja Ninja]

19. They changed the rating system.

Turns out they likely never were all that popular, the old system just made it look that way.

[qb]

22. I hope this turns free Limbaugh programming from a cash cow into a detriment for radio stations.

As ratings go down, more people are changing channels & not coming back.

[Johonny]

23. I wonder what they'd be if they had to compete in every market

[Chris_Texas]

24. yeah

After a while you wake up and realize that the extreme from either side (including ours) probably doesn't have all the answers -- that they twist the facts to best suit their agenda while ignoring anything that fails to promote it.

Rush's message is simple:

1. Democrats are all radical liberals (regardless what they believe or do). Radical liberals, also known as marxists, communinists, fascists, america and jesus hating lying fools, WANT to destroy this country. They want all that is evil in the world, the worst that man can imagine. They hate everyone and everything, from the american flag to the american family. their only love, if one can call it that, is for those who share their hatred for all that is right and holy: Muslims, Criminals, Athiests, College Professors, Unions, Minorities, Gays. Liberals want to steal all your money and give it away to fat lazy minority welfare bastards who sit around smoking crack and knocking out more babies.

2. Republicans, while often flawed, stand in the way of these hell-spawned gay-loving sociopaths. They love America and Jesus.

3. America's super wealth elite are the backbone of this nation. They provide ALL the jobs. YOUR job is dependent upon them. They would hire more, but the damn liberals stop them with their anti-social laws and regulations and minimum wages. They would pay you more, if you earn it (because millionaires love to reward effort) only they can't afford it with the liberals standing in the way.

4. Bootstraps, a solid love of Jesus and republicans, and a "Can DO" attitude are all one needs!

The problem, again, is that eventually people wake up. Generally this happens when their own survival depends upon it.

[jtuck004]

27. Followed closely by his center of gravity. eom

[NightWatcher]

28. people are growing sick of the teabagger shit (see below)

Jacksonville, FL just elected a Democrat for Mayor for the first time in twenty years. Oh yes, and he's also the first African American mayor in the history of Jacksonville.

The special election for New York's 26th Congressional district has a Democrat leading the repuke and teabagger. A Democrat has not won that district in how many years? Some say this is a referendum on what the teabaggers and repukes want to do to Medicare, and the people are not taking it lying down. Only 3 Democrats have held this office in the last 100+ years.

So yes, people are getting sick of what the teabaggers and pukes are selling.

[Mariana]

39. The fundies are infiltrating the Teabagger groups

and are pushing their "social" agenda, which is getting crazier all the time. That's what I've heard from my teabagger parents, anyway, and they aren't happy about it at all and they say their friends don't like it either. If that's true, I'm sure that's part of why they're dying out. I think most teabaggers are like my folks and their friends - ordinary racists who also don't want to pay taxes. Most of them aren't fundie nutcases. They just aren't going to get on board with prohibiting ALL abortions and outlawing contraception, they don't obsess about homosexuals, they don't want Genesis taught in science class, and so on. Teabaggers talking this shit puts them off big time. Fucking around with SS and Medicare may very well be the coup de grâce for them.

[defendandprotect]

29. Nothing like a bit of reality on jobs, health care to wake up people -- and let's hope

that is going to extend to the realities of Global Warming which is bringing

increasingly chaotic weather --

droughts/floods

cyclones, tornados, storms, hurricanes --

more of them and more severe --


and that includes earthquakes!!

[kentuck]

30. He's on a one-man crusade against Obama...

Lies and innuendo strung end to end for three hours at a time, five days a week.

[The Backlash Cometh]

31. Maybe it's because his audience is dying off by natural attrition?

[stubtoe]

62. That's what I think as well.

[Angry Dragon]

32. that is 'ass pus boil' to his friends

[pacalo]

33. What he needs for big ratings is a Democratic version of GW who'll give Oxy a trove

of blunders, lies, & corruption to gripe about.

And that ain't gonna happen! The Democrats don't have a sleazy agenda to hide with lies & deception.

People can see through all the blathering when Oxy's subject material involves one of the few adults left in the political spectrum who happens to be, thankfully, our president.

[Mr. Jefferson]

34. Even so...

http://www.talkers.com/2011hhindex.html

Thom Hartman has moved up...but Hannity:boring:and Beck:crazy: , I will never understand.

[socialist_n_TN]

35. Either way (more proper accounting or

an actual drop in listeners) this is good news. BUT don't expect him to just go away. Rush provides a valuable service for the capitalist exploiters by dividing the working class.

As long as he continues doing his MAIN job of division, he'll be on the air whether he makes money for the capitalists or not.

[certainot]

76. he's going to keep getting subsidized - but if LOCAL sponsors of his stations are shamed enough his

stations will have to think about changes to be able to pay overhead.

[Lugnut]

38. Bummer.

:nopity:

[Initech]

41. Since we can't outlaw him, we can at least ignore him, and it seems we are.

:woohoo:

[caseymoz]

42. Wouldn't be too encouraged yet.

Things tend to be cyclical.

But I think after the attack on Medicare and public unions, people might be waking up and realizing that conservatism in practice looks a lot worse than in fantasy.

[divvy]

43. Hey, an anal cyst is serious.

[Hubert Flottz]

44. Those Bullshit preventers must be working.

[spicegal]

45. Maybe people are finally getting sick of his lunatic

mean spirited dishonest rantings.

[deacon]

46. Him and the others cried wolf one too many times. Their passe'. n/t

[Mosaic]

48. It's time for this outdated chump to quit

Ratings are down, as well as conservative thinking. Most Americans are socialists, like Last Word said last night.

[madokie]

49. Hate can only last so long and its about run its course.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

51. Last Fall was election time, so I'd assume that at least accounts for some of the dropoff.

[Hubert Flottz]

52. Rash Lamebutt and Glenn Beckerhead have about shot their wad.

I guess the GOPers are starting to be finally ashamed of being so damned stupid for so long.

[liberal N proud]

53. That would be enough to cancel most programs

But this one will live on to profess the hate.

[AnnieK401]

56. Love It!

This is great! So glad I found DU to get news that is pretty much buried elsewhere.

[jeremyfive]

57. High School Dropout

Could it be that people have caught on to the fact that they really won't learn much from a high school dropout?

[colorado_ufo]

58. Made my day!

[Politicalboi]

59. Hmmm November

Did these ditto heads feel used? Did they finally wake up?

[barbtries]

60. it's good news

maybe this country will find itself sane again one of these days. as usual the right is stuck in the ancient past.

[otohara]

61. New Rating Meters

are finding all the right-wingy stations are not being listened to as thought.
The old way of the diary was really horseshit. I worked in radio and in between jobs had access to Aribtron books TWICE.
I helped the local alternative station have it's best book ever once.

[rucky]

69. interesting.

Are they using passive monitoring?

[otohara]

75. Yep, Very Sensitive, Picks Up

station info everywhere you go!

http://www.arbitron.com/portable_people_meters/ppm_service.htm

[SoCalDem]

70. It's the lull before the storm

When the election season really gets going, his ratings will go back up..

or maybe a meteor could fall on his hot tub while he's soaking, and put us all out of our misery over him:)

[certainot]

72. way past time for left orgs to challenge RW radio, here's how to put an end to RW radio dominance

all remedies for this mess we're in are much harder as long as the left continues ignoring the right's most important weapon- we have to stop giving them a free speech free ride

left orgs and dem party need to finally mount a real challenge against the right's most important weapon- 1000 right wing think tank-coordinated megaphones that are the propaganda mechanism most responsible for creating the alternate reality in which 2 + 2 can equal 3.

picket those limbaugh megastations and shame their LOCAL sponsors - those are teabagger (dittohead- GOP base) headquarters.

shame universities that mock their own 'mission statements' and goals by broadcasting sports on stations that sell anti-science global warming, make excuses for torture and racism, and lie about and attack all things liberal/american.

now is the time for blue communities to convince many of their biggest radio stations that the hate, racism, and lies are unacceptable, until those stations lose enough of their local sponsors that they have to begin to offer balance.

this needs to happen this year, before the huge money bomb from the right and the dirty tricks that can only be sold on unchallenged radio, hit us

[FailureToCommunicate]

74. Reasonable ideas!

[GSLevel9]

73. Dishonest info.

Look at the ratings over a longer period of time. Right wing radio NORMALLY fluctuates in listeners depending on the topic de joeur. During the ObamaCare legislation BOOM big ratings, in election season BOOM big ratings. Check the ratings next year and I bet that this FALL'S Limbaugh ratings will be at an all time high.

Do I like Limbaugh? No. He's an opportunistic vulture in fact...

But I REALLY hate news stories that deceive to make a FALSE point.