88 universities that help Republicans deny global warming and minimize protests

[certainot]

The 88 universities listed below broadcast sports on 257 of 600 Rush Limbaugh radio stations.

The stations use the school logos, mascots, and community standing to attract advertisers to pay for partisan messaging on public airwaves. Any university supporting Republican talk radio is helping to defund itself and is undermining the interests of its students, faculty, employees, and surrounding communities.

The universities are legitimate places to protest any major issue until they begin looking for apolitical alternatives that are more consistent with principles and goals stated in their mission statements, which usually stress fairness, diversity, respect, honesty, justice, responsibility, and truth.

Urging these universities to broadcast their sports on apolitical alternatives represents a direct challenge to the Republican Party in those states. A community discussion of the issue will encourage advertisers to rethink their support.

The schools receive very little licensing revenue from radio compared with TV broadcasts but the associations are vital for the stations and the GOP. Most stations average 75 hours/week of partisan Republican talk (15 hrs/day x 5 days). If the GOP paid $1000/hour for that radio infomercial/advertising time each station is worth $75,000/week. 1200 Republican radio stations across the country are worth $18MIL/day or $5BIL/year FREE to broadcast Republican messaging.

That messaging is worth $Trillions in global warming denial, war, deregulation, tax breaks, swiftboating of Democrats, and passing extremist supreme court judges.

257 stations would be worth $19MIL/week, or more than $1BIL/year, and all that is being endorsed by the universities below.

Except for occasional innocuous programming they operate exclusively for the benefit of the Republican Party. They are coordinated nationally and locally with the GOP and their allied think tanks and are now being used to excuse Trump’s actions, attack his critics, and divert attention from Trump/GOP problems.

Protests at state capitols and other locations are often ignored by media and politicians because Republican radio stations can yell over them for weeks after protestors have gone home. Talk show hosts attack and mischaracterize protestors, their tactics, and their objectives. They also encourage local officials and police to break protests up and excuse violence directed at protestors. They will repeat fabricated stories of protestor violence, looting, etc.

The universities don’t owe the stations anything. Most of those university-radio relationships began when the stations broadcast music and general non-partisan programming. Their programming became partisan after 1987 when Ronald Reagan ‘killed’ the Fairness Doctrine and Republicans began buying up radio stations to create and protect a talk radio monopoly. Today there are more options for viewing and listening to sports.

Usually a licensing company like Learfield Sports pays the university for the broadcasting rights and either resells them to the radio station or pays the radio station to broadcast the games, such as with the University of New Mexico. In some cases there is no bidding process.

If a talk radio station wants to keep broadcasting university sports there is no reason they can’t convert to music or sports talk. In many areas a loud station might be replaced with multiple smaller stations. 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 and sell sports and sports merchandise, not politics.

If loss of licensing revenue is an objection, can donors be found to make up the difference? If there is a loss, how does it compare with the harm it is doing to its own students and community, or the damage from defunding public education? Is there an opportunity for an alternative licensing company that can find apolitical alternatives to reach similar or larger audiences?

Republican radio stations sometimes influence elections of university regents and selection of administration, including presidents and chancellors. Is there a conflict of interest?

Limbaugh stations that broadcast sports are among the loudest in the country. They are licensed to operate in the public interest but they all:

-deny global warming
-work to defund and privatize public education, demean teachers and lower their salaries, attack their unions, push voucher solutions and standardized testing, and obstruct efforts to lower student debt
-sensationalize and excuse militarism — they sold the Iraq ‘war’, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, and they will sell the next war
-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.
-oppose environmental regulation and support fossil fuel solutions over renewables
-oppose health care reform and have lied about single payer systems for 3 decades
-undermine free speech: they have sold “money is speech” and “corporations are people” memes for decades, arguing for media deregulation, defunding of public programming like PBS and NPR, and an end to net neutrality
-oppose campaign finance reform
-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, defund Planned Parenthood and other services, and excuse misogyny
-oppose efforts to increase minimum wage, and advocate eliminating it
undermine the economic and environmental interests of their communities
-work to privatize prisons
-use public airways to repeat propaganda that is demonstrably false and continue to lie after being corrected, use call screeners to exclude dissenting opinions
-coordinate with and provide free publicity for Republican politicians and think tanks when needed for elections, passing legislation, and attacking critics and opponents
-use monopoly power to avoid direct competition while pretending to represent an expression of free speech
-while railing against “political correctness”, they loudly demand regressive conformity

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. Some universities may have made changes recently.

From www.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

[sharedvalues]

1. This is so important! Tell college students you know, and contact college admins. K&R

Work on this. Conservative hate radio harms America more than any other right wing propaganda outfit.

[certainot]

3. thanks. rcon radio keeps kicking liberal internet ass and it keeps getting ignored

that's unfortunate because ignoring rw radio reduces the effectiveness of all other progressive activism - the dem party and progressive groups are wasting our donations and voluteerism and letting a pack of ignorant liars take free pot shots at our ideals and reps - and then they scapegoat the reps for not sticking their necks out far enough or being effective enough.

biggest political mistake in history

[GulfCoast66]

2. Don't many states require that the winning bid wins?

And if a government agency based contacting decisions on ideology would that not be a violation of the 1st amendment by punishing them for what they say?

Don't get me wrong I hate the SOBs but seems this could be a double edged sword.

Just curious about the legal aspects of it.

[certainot]

4. couple of things there...

30 years ago the rw put screamers on soapboxes on every corner and stump in the country yelling liberals are whores thieves and traitors and liberals chose to walk by with their fingers in their ears. that more than any other factor is why trump is in the white house. can americans continue to ignore that because they think the corporate-coordiated and scripted asshole on the corner is just exercising a free speech right? it's gone way past yelling fire in a theater.

it's not always by bid - it's at the discretion of the licensing company. i talked to a sports talk station manager who was pissed that the licensing company didn't get bids but automatically gave it to the loudest station in the state - so they never had a chance. and in this case the licensing co paid the station.

on the ideology point - most of these relationships between unis and stations began before 1987 and the start of the rw radio monopoly. what if a station went all out KKK instead of half-assed subtle racism that limbaugh makes acceptable? would it be alright for a uni to tell the licensing co it will look for a better licensing co that won't broadcast their sports on KKK stations? it is the licensing co that makes the choices and the uni merely chooses a licensing company.

and what about the conflict of interest when the station helps elect republican regents and choose chancellors and other admin?

but that's still not the issue. if the uni community/students complain enough and maybe protests, the gop will notice and complain and make points like you make, and media will notice, and advertisers will abandon them. maybe real boycotts will start, and the stations will have to decide what's more important - lying and hating all over the community for the gop and trump, or broadcasting uni sports and doing music or sports talk instead. maybe they'll try to offer balance. whatever happens it increases awareness of what the stations are saying and reduces advertisers to those who like trump. the biz is already bankrupt and when the monopoly dissolves the gop/trump will lose their most important media weapon, and that can open up stations for liberal talkers as well, accelerating the end of this corrupt talk radio version of the republican party, a party so afraid of and influenced by the talk radio gods there are no moderates left and it can't even acknowledge global warming.

the talk radio monopoly couldn't survive if a few unis started a trend. and the 2018 elections would be very different, and trump would be gone a lot faster.

[GulfCoast66]

6. Do not necessarily disagree...

Last edited Fri Apr 21, 2017, 11:50 PM - Edit history (1)

But you really did not answer my question. If a government entity openly uses ideology to make contracting decisions are they not opening themselves to 1st amendment complaints?

Let's say a KKK guy wins a billion dollars in the lottery, buys a radio station and then wins the bid to broadcast a major universities football games. Along with racist shit on other programs. What would be the grounds to legally deny that?

I hope it could be denied but suspect it might be hard to do. That is why I hope a lawyer chimes in.

Have a nice evening.

[certainot]

7. but is it a legal decision or a business decision?

is the university obligated to go with the highest bidder even if the highest bidder is bad for the university 'brand'?

as i pointed out there isn't always a bidding process but in the best case scenario the university would go with a licensing co that operated in the unis best interest. it may be that's dollars, but at what point does honoring a mission statement come into it?

ideally there'd be a licensing co that offered more licensing revenue while not requiring the uni to crap on its mission statement and hasten the demise of its students and the planet.

but that's irrelevant. the community complains, says the university is crapping on its students and faculty and athletes and community, advertisers look elsewhere, and the station changes to more responsible programming to keep broadcasting the games.

[sharedvalues]

9. University does NOT have to go with highest bid

Procurement process can easily take into account factors besides highest bid.

This is certainly true at most private companies and also true for governments.

[sharedvalues]

8. The hateful lying highest bid? Govt has standards

This is not ideology this is propaganda.

The legal way to fix it is to restore the fairness doctrine which would require a balance of ideologies.

In the meantime these radio stations are destroying America. I don't say that lightly. The deportations of peaceful American residents we have seen are on Limbaugh. Any woman who gets hurt because of restricted access to abortion -- it's on Limbaugh. If Trump starts a war and people get killed -- Limbaugh is as much or more responsible as any single American.

[certainot]

14. i don't think a new FD is possible until after liberals destroy the

monopoly, maybe using this universities angle.

another tact is giving limbaugh the credit he deserves for this disaster as you say.

i would love for someone to discover his last contract in 2016 or some free lance money he might be getting might have a cyprus bank acct address on it. or that trump paid him directly or indirectly. there are still a lot of cruz and bush supporters and 'moderate' republicans who'd be pretty angered to find something like that out.

maybe some photoshopping would help.....

[img][/img]

[Fast Walker 52]

5. terrible

[sharedvalues]

10. NYT article: how conservative radio brainwashes people

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/opinion/sunday/why-nobody-cares-the-president-is-lying.html

Former conservative radio host discusses his former lies and how they have hurt America.

He can do this because members of the Trump administration feel confident that the alternative-reality media will provide air cover, even if they are caught fabricating facts or twisting words (like claiming that the “ban” on Muslim immigrants wasn’t really a “ban”). Indeed, they believe they have shifted the paradigm of media coverage, replacing the traditional media with their own.

[certainot]

11. thanks for the link. sykes was a main gov scott walker enabler

there were various references in the first batch of walker emails to walker using and coordinating with charlie sykes.

the fact that the left /dems ignore talk radio makes it a major enabler for the radicals in the gop right wing - it is what enabled rove cheney to attack iraq, withold aid for katrina, and many other crimes.

they know they can get away with it in the minds of enough people

[Sancho]

12. I've brought this up with a local university athletic department and AD.

..and it's a school on this list: University of S. Florida.

It's not simply the university's decision. Most of the broadcast rights are 5-10 year contracts with promotion agencies obtained by low bid, and also in coordination with the conference (in the USF case, the American Athletic Conference). Some of those contracts include athletics, and also a wide variety of entertainment events, speakers, and coordinated things like fund-raisers (Susan G. Coleman, etc.). DUers would probably agree with some of those events and disagree with others - the agencies organize, promote, and generate as much revenue as possible that cover the costs. Profits go to appropriate places (some non-profits, athletic foundations, etc.) and are governed by a variety of state and federal laws.

Even then, the university administration has little control over decisions of the BOT (appointed by Rick Scott in this case) or the athletic foundation (usually independent) or the local sports authority who own the stadium (Tampa Bay Sports Authority; Bucs, Raymond James Stadium).

A percent of the proceeds come back to the university through the conference or bowl games, while the majority of the money comes from ticket sales or donations. The percent from broadcasts are not contracts in the direct control of universities - but a web of deals with a dozen companies and entities. Sometimes there are separate contracts for concessions, local vs national advertising, endorsements (athletic apparel), and travel. The radio network is just one more overlapping part of a complicated mess.

A few universities might have enough clout and independence to negotiate national network contracts (Notre Dame?), and many have so little coverage that it doesn't matter (there's no national audience or revenue in rural South Dakota), but most just go with whatever their contracted agency or conference has in place. The radio station or network that pick up particular games or conferences change from time to time and is controlled by the contracting agent. The networks go with demographics, advertisers, etc. that they think will generate money and make bids to broadcast to the promotion agencies of the school or conference.

At least that the story I heard...

[certainot]

13. thanks for the detail and perspective relative to the

business end of this. i've talked to people too and it's all a mush. they don't want to mess with it and the republicans know what side is buttered.

basically, it's complicated and there are a lot of variations. they're all in different time zones in those contracts, and the radio parts are probably entwined in the TV parts.

the objective should be to get a public discussion to get the school to pledge not to renew with the same licensing company unless the licensing co looks for apolitical alternatives. however long that takes, advertisers will get the message immediately and it might trigger boycotts.

once the community finds out the radio portion is minor compared with the tv portion of those revenues and donors can be found to make up the difference the lost revenue argument can essentially be eliminated.

the hypocrisy of the mission statement can be held up in from of them

comparable and more appropriate stations can also be found as alternatives. local gop can't seriously argue the school can't make political decision out of this, and as sharedvalues points out above

University does NOT have to go with highest bid

Procurement process can easily take into account factors besides highest bid.

This is certainly true at most private companies and also true for governments.

[sharedvalues]

15. If students protest and create bad press they can get Limbaugh out

Yes, the powers that be are counting profits and losses and yes media corps bundle products and use long term contracts. And if there wasn't a profit justification for Limbaugh he wouldn't be on.


Students or alumni protesting can create bad press which changes that profit equation.
If you can get student activists involved you can fix it.

[Kath2]

16. That is just plain wrong!