Students can amplify protests at state capitols and town halls w/out leaving campus.

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When Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 Republicans bought up as many of the loudest radio stations in the country. They put carnival barkers on every corner and stump in the country to lie about liberals — that our sisters are whores, our brothers are thieves, and our ideas are treasonous. Liberals ignored them and now we have Trump.

Protests at state capitols and other locations are more easily ignored by media and politicians now because Republican radio stations can yell over and reduce their impact and effectiveness. Talk show hosts get a free speech free ride to attack and mischaracterize protestors, their tactics, and their objectives. And they encourage local officials to break the protests up. Like they did with OWS.

Protests at universities to stop them broadcasting sports on right wing talk radio stations will be aimed directly at an essential component of Trump/Republican messaging dominance. Trump will rely heavily on RW radio to sell and excuse his words and actions.

If any university begins the process of looking for apolitical alternatives, others will be shamed into following.

Why do Americans allow 88 universities to support 257 Limbaugh talk radio stations?

The 88 universities listed below broadcast sports on, and endorse, 257 of Rush Limbaugh’s 600 radio stations. They are some of the loudest radio stations in the Republican radio monopoly.

Those universities mock their mission statements and undermine the interests of their students, faculty, employees, and surrounding communities.

As long as they help Republican talk radio attract advertisers they are legitimate places to protest any issue related to the Trump agenda. They have no excuse not to begin looking for apolitical alternatives for broadcasting sports.

Suggested tactics

Most verbal or written complaints to universities are probably be routed to the sports department where they would have little effect.

Letters to the editor of local newspapers may help alert a community.

A predictable and hypocritical complaint from public education-cutting Republicans will be “The school needs that revenue.” If there is a loss, how does it compare with the harm the school is doing to its own principles, students, and surrounding communities? Not to mention the damage from defunding public education. That complaint can be eliminated by finding out how much the university receives from the Limbaugh station(s) for broadcasting rights. It is probably very low relative to TV licensing revenue and can easily be replaced by donors. A fundraising effort may attract media attention.

Protests at the universities may be most effective. They will be seen by Republicans and being directly offensive. All progressive groups and activists can benefit by ending public university support for RW talk radio. Students can maintain them continuously. Whatever the university ultimately does, local GOP will become alarmed merely at the prospect of a university looking for alternatives and media will notice. Advertisers for RW radio will look for alternatives and amplify ongoing boycott efforts.

If a few universities begin the process of looking for apolitical alternatives, others can be shamed into following.

Protests will increase awareness of what those stations are broadcasting. Their effectiveness for the last 30 years has depended on their invisibility to those they harm the most. Ignoring them has been the biggest political mistake in history.

What those radio stations do

Except for occasional innocuous programming, all of those stations operate exclusively for the benefit of the Republican Party, essentially for FREE.

If Trump was to pay a cheap $1000/hr for radio infomercial time, each station, at 15 hours/day x 5 days/week would be worth $75,000/week. 257 stations would be worth $19MIL/week, or more than $1BIL/year.

They coordinate with national and state GOP and their allied think tanks. Those 257 stations will play a critical part in Trump’s ability to push his policies, attack his critics, keep Republicans in line, enable and intimidate media, and force compromise from Democrats.

Those stations are licensed to operate in the public interest but they all:

- deny global warming
- fight environmental regulation, and always support fossil fuel solutions over renewables
- fight health care reform
- want to end net neutrality
- fight to defund and privatize public education, attack teachers and work to lower their salaries, attack their unions, push voucher solutions and standardized testing, and obstruct efforts to lower student debt
- use public airwaves to sell voter suppression legislation with lies and exaggeration about voter fraud, millions of “illegal aliens” and dead people voting for Democrats, etc.
- use and excuse racism, misogyny, homophobia, and hate to divide communities and push voter suppression and other anti-democratic Republican legislation
- work to deny reproductive rights for women and access to contraception, and defund Planned Parenthood
- fight efforts to increase minimum wage, and advocate eliminating it
- undermine the economic and environmental interests of their communities
- use public airways to repeat propaganda that is demonstrably false and continue to lie after being corrected, use call screeners to exclude dissenting opinions
- while railing against “political correctness”, they loudly demand regressive conformity and lock-step voting from Republican representatives

Many of those relationships began prior to 1987 when the Fairness Doctrine was still enforced and those stations broadcast music and general non-partisan programming. If school administrations miss the irony and argue they can’t make business decisions based on politics, they could be asked this:

If the Gulf Stream stopped or slowed enough to radically lower average temperatures in Europe and North America, would they continue to support the global warming denial from those stations? If a radio station went to KKK programming would the university still allow its mascot and school brand be used to sell a KKK agenda?

Why wait?

There seem to be two versions of the relationship between university, licensing company, and radio station. A licensing company pays the university for the broadcasting rights and then a station may pay the licensing company for those rights. In some cases the licensing company pays the radio station to broadcast games. Sometimes there is no bidding process.

The station then gets to use the school logos, mascot, and community standing to attract advertisers.

There are many sports talk stations around the country that want to broadcast those sports events and would be more appropriate. They talk sports all day, not politics. They sell sports and sports merchandise.

Is there an opportunity for a licensing company that can find apolitical alternatives to reach similar audiences?

Since those stations sometimes weigh in on elections for university regents and selection of administration, including presidents and chancellors - is there a conflict of interest?

Is a university that supports Republican radio violating its 501c3 tax exempt status? The universities are allowing their logos, mascots, and brands to be used exclusively for the benefit of one party.

Here’s the IRS: “Political activity. If any of the activities (whether or not substantial) of your organization consist of participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office, your organization will not qualify for tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3). Such participation or intervention includes the publishing or distributing of statements. Whether your organization is participating or intervening, directly or indirectly, in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office depends upon all of the facts and circumstances of each case. Certain voter education activities or public forums conducted in a nonpartisan manner may not be prohibited political activity under section 501(c)(3), while other so-called voter education activities may be prohibited.”

FREE SPEECH? Defenders of RW talk radio often characterize it as an expression of market forces and free speech but it is really a subsidized and protected monopoly propaganda operation coordinated at national and local levels. It is a 95% to 5% monopoly that protects itself from competition. It dominates the ‘market’ because in most parts of the country there are no free easy alternatives to it. Most of the people in those areas have never had a choice between Limbaugh and an ideological alternative on the AM radio dial. The stations are licensed to operate in the public interest but their talk show hosts routinely use call screeners and dump buttons to avoid being challenged. Their talk show hosts seldom if ever stray from the talking points and ideological boundaries set by national headliners like Limbaugh.

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Here is the list of universities with the number of Limbaugh stations for each school and the total for each state.

The list is incomplete. It does not include stations that do not headline Limbaugh. For instance, the University of Wisconsin broadcasts on 5 Limbaugh stations but also on 2 stations that headline Sean Hannity.

From republiconradio.org:

ALABAMA 8 Auburn 3, Alabama 2, Southern Alabama 2, Troy 1
ARIZONA 2 Arizona St. 1, Arizona 1 ARKANSAS 3 Arkansas 3
CALIFORNIA 5 San Jose State 2, USC 2, Fresno St. 1
COLORADO 4 Air Force 2, Colorado 1, Colorado State 1
CONNECTICUT 1 Connecticut 1
FLORIDA 20 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
GEORGIA 14 Georgia 7, Georgia Tech 5, Georgia Southern 2
IDAHO 7 Boise St. 4, Idaho 3
ILLINOIS 7 Illinois 7
INDIANA 11 Notre Dame 6, Purdue 4, Indiana 1
IOWA 5 Iowa 4, Iowa St. 1
KANSAS 4 Kansas St. 2, Kansas 1, Wichita St. 1
KENTUCKY 3 Louisville 2, Kentucky 1
LOUSIANA 3 LSU 2, La.-Monroe 1
MARYLAND 2 Maryland 2
MASSACHUSETTS 1 Boston College 1
MICHIGAN 19 Michigan St. 11, Michigan 7, Western Michigan 1
MINNESOTA 4 Minnesota 4
MISSISSIPPI 6 Mississippi St. 3, Mississippi 2, Southern Miss 1
MISSOURI 6 Missouri 6
NEBRASKA 6 Nebraska 6
NEVADA 1 Nevada 1
NEW JERSEY 2 Rutgers 1, Seton Hall 1
NEW MEXICO 3 New Mexico 2, New Mexico St. 1
NEW YORK 7 Syracuse 6, Army 1
NORTH CAROLINA 16 North Carolina 8, North Carolina State 3, Duke 3, East Carolina 2
OHIO 10 Ohio St. 6, Toledo 1, Dayton 1, Bowling Green 1, Xavier 1
OKLAHOMA 5 Oklahoma St. 3, Oklahoma 1, Oral Roberts 1
OREGON 12 Oregon St. 7, Oregon 5
PENNSYLVANIA 14 Penn St. 11, Pittsburgh 2, Temple 1
SOUTH CAROLINA 4 South Carolina 2, Clemson 2
TENNESSEE 7 Tennessee 4, Memphis 3
TEXAS 16 Texas A&M 9, Texas Tech 4, Texas 1, Texas Christian 1, Baylor 1
UTAH 1 Utah St. 1
VIRGINIA 6 Virginia Tech 5, Virginia 1
WASHINGTON 6 Washington 5, Washington St. 1 WEST VIRGINIA 2 West Virginia 1, Marshall 1
WISCONSIN 5 Wisconsin 5

There is no excuse for any school to support Trump radio.

[Fast Walker 52]

1. holy crap, I had no idea

thanks for the info