Limbaugh Renews His Contract, But At What Price?

[Nitram]

The campaign against Rush Limbaugh has not only worked against Limburgher, but has sent shock waves throughout right wing talk radio:

..struggling iHeartMedia is in no position to take any “financial risk” on Limbaugh, or anybody else. Instead, the once-dominant radio behemoth is saddled with $20 billion in debt, thanks to a misguided leveraged takeover engineered by Bain Capital in 2008.

Consider this:

Clear Channel stock value, April 2007: $39.

iHeartMedia stock price, July 2011: Approximately $8

iHeartMedia stock price at close of Tuesday: $1.30.

But even with a sturdy corporate parent, it’s likely Limbaugh was facing a pay cut thanks to the historic advertising exodus that has wreaked havoc on his business model. The widespread Madison Ave. rejection was sparked by in part by the talker’s days-long sexist meltdown over Sandra Fluke in 2012. With advertisers staying away, and ratings down, station owners were suddenly less interested in carrying his expensive program.

In key major markets such as Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis, Limbaugh has been demoted on the AM dial, onto often struggling, underperforming stations — the type of affiliates that Limbaugh was rarely associated with during his glory days as the king of talk radio.

Parks last week looked at Limbaugh’s most recent ratings in Boston:

Limbaugh’s show has been banished to WKOX-AM, a iHeart Radio owned station, and in June ‘16 that station ranked #23 with a 0.2. That’s just two tenths of a point away from a DNS or “did not show,” meaning not having enough listeners to show in the ratings.

Limbaugh’s show airs on a station in Boston that basically has no listeners.

The Buffalo News recently looked at Limbaugh’s local ratings and found that for the months of January, February and March this year, his audience declined “14 percent in age 12 plus, 16 percent in the age 25-54 category and 5 percent in the older age 35-64 demographic.” And that was during the height of the political primary season.

The paper also reported that the Buffalo station, like so many other Limbaugh affiliates, was having trouble selling ads on the program.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/limbaugh-renews-his-contr_b_11310088.html?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. He probably had to pay Clear Channel to keep him.

[Nitram]

2. Notice Bain Capital played a role in Clear Channel's demise.

[The Second Stone]

4. That's a company Romney's heavily invested in, isn't it?

Intentional, or poor management?

[UTUSN]

3. Yesterday (my 2 minutes of him in the car) he said he doesn't talk about money

He opened his carnival saying he had just renewed, had made the momentous decision for another four years, that he had been pondering for (6 months?) whether not to, that what decided it was that he has not reached perfection yet, so has to keep trying.

Really, what has stung him all these years is that he crashed and burned on t.v. Yesterday he mentioned t.v. again, this time as one of his options if he had decided to quit radio, with another option having been "or do nothing (at all. He doesn't financially need to work doncherno)".

But he addressed what we all want to know: Is he taking a pay cut? He said that that is the one thing he never does, is to talk about money, that his father or somebody taught him that people with real class never talk about money.

[underpants]

6. Thanks.

I listen in too from time to time.

[Nitram]

7. The article quotes him boasting of his enormous signing bonus and salary in 2008.

He only gets "classy" when it would be embarrassing to admit he has taken a huge pay cut. Believe me, no matter how much he has in the bank it hurts him to the quick to be losing market share and taking a pay cut. Prestige is what matters most to him, and that's why losing his TV thing hurt so bad.

[Initech]

5. But I thought he said he was going to retire when Hillary Clinton becomes president?

[bluesbassman]

8. He clarified that by saying he meant he will take his Bentley to Big O for some new treads.