Message Fatigue Dooms Rush Limbaugh's Business Model [View all]

[hue]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/25/1287201/-Message-Fatigue-Dooms-Rush-Limbaugh-s-Business-Model?detail=facebook

Speaking on the Ed Schultz radio show, industry insider Holland Cooke recently broke down the precipitous decline of right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh's popularity and profitability.

Cooke noted that Limbaugh has been moved to the #36 rated station in Los Angeles and the #17 ranked station in San Francisco.

Asked by Schultz whether Limbaugh's slump was related to format, content, burnout, or technology, he acknowledged that all those factors played a part, but the primary reason was a public which has had enough of Limbaugh's hateful rhetoric:

HC: I believe that this message fatigue is driving it as well, and you can peg it to Leap Year Day, February 29, 2012, when Rush Limbaugh started calling Sandra Fluke unthinkable things on the radio. It has never recovered since.

Ed: It hasn't recovered?

HC: No, it has not recovered, and the whole format is tarred. You have a radio show, and you've suffered as a consequence of what Rush Limbaugh has done because dollars left the format entirely.

Ed: Yeah, there are agencies out there across America that are saying, "I do not want to be on a news talk station; it makes us too vulnerable. We do not want to be associated with possibly some disparaging talk."

The Flush Rush Facebook community has played a major role in the changing fortunes of the Rush Limbaugh Show as well. More than two years after the incident Cooke mentioned, the activist community continues to notify advertisers that their ads are being aired on the controversial program. Many immediately act to remove their ads.

Yesterday, when notified by a Charlotte StopRush monitor that his nationwide company had aired an ad on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Bike Source president Marc Eisenberg sent this emphatic response: