2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRushbo enters brave new world
A very well-written article that puts a lot of things in perspective...
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/07/2681534/rush-enters-brave-new-world-of.html
They bought small, struggling AMs that couldnt compete with more powerful FM signals sometimes two or more in one market. They vacuumed up individual radio and TV stations and clusters and entire media companies. They even started a concert company, LiveNation, later sold. By the time the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore, Clear Channel owned more than 1,100 radio stations, almost two dozen television stations and some 700,000 outdoor billboards worldwide.
For Limbaugh, and his advertisers, it meant a guaranteed national audience his mythic (though likely mythical) 20 million listeners. Clear Channel owned the product, the syndicator Premiere Radio Networks and the distribution outlets. They were literally selling programming to themselves. It was a brilliant business model that by 2006 attracted a buyer: none other than Mitt Romneys old company, Bain Capital, and Thomas Lee Partners. Two years later, Rush signed an eight-year, $400 million contract that reportedly includes a stake in the ad revenue.
And what Rush offered the traveling salesman, the truck driver, the working stiff faithfully tuning in as the decades rolled by, was a straightforward message: They think theyre better than you. The black family moving into a bigger house than you could afford. The immigrant whose kid got into a better school than yours did. The women too liberated to give you the time of day or who have been brainwashed by the Hollywood elite to believe theyre too good to stay home and raise your children. The pointy-heads sneering at your Christianity by teaching evolution in public school. The unions, the gays, and the gals who run to human resources over a harmless pat on the fanny. They all think theyre better than you. But I know were better than them.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/07/2681534/rush-enters-brave-new-world-of.html#storylink=cpy
Discuss...
liberal N proud
(60,347 posts)ladjf
(17,320 posts)day. If that is true, then Rush will only become more popular. He is pandering to the dumbest and least educated among us.
CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)I hate to say it, believe me. He makes Goebbels look like an amateur.
As others detailed how Clear Channel gobbled up the small stations (to drown out
majority voices and local voices) and put Rush on every station (to infiltrate our
country with Rush's lies and tripe)--you can see that this was planned.
Clear Channel might not have had Rush in mind--but they knew they needed
to use right-wing liars to catapult the propaganda. When Rush and others began
the era of right-wing radio lies--the media hadn't entirely capitulated. There were still
honest and uncorrupted voices speaking truth. Radio helped these psychos gain
a foothold. Corrupting television took decades. National talk radio was a relatively
new medium--in terms of propagating political opinion on a mass scale. So, they
went after a new medium and they broke through.
The right wing/the neocons/the corporatists now control radio and some tv (Fox) and
if you listen to the main right-wing radio host, their talking points are absolutely identical.
This is not a mistake. They all get their talking points from a central source that determines
what talking points must be drilled into the heads of listeners. It's surreal when you
really pay attention to this, and it's just so obvious that talk radio is a tool of messaging
strategists working for these neocon/corporatist causes. They don't just all talk about similar
macro issues on the same days. They're actually all repeating the same key talking points on
specific topics. It's propaganda and shady public relations at its most evil.
I'm sure Rove has his hand in all of this.
So, I don't think Rush is going away anytime--at all. He's too much a part of this sick, orchestrated
marketing wing of the psychopaths. Clarence Thomas officiated at one of Rush's weddings and
Thomas and his wife are frequent dinner guests of the Limbaughs. Seriously. It's a rigged,
corrupt game and Limbaugh is an integral part of it. Those in power will make sure he
stays and they're counting on the country's long-term memory problem.
TBF
(32,111 posts)Not sure if they will continue to use Rush as a spokesperson because he is clearly tainted goods now, but no argument that even if they did replace him it would be more of the same just in a prettier package so to speak. This is what we're up against.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)the people he makes fun of all day are becoming the majority in many parts of the country.
not only are most of them not listening to him --they resent him.
Bgno64
(339 posts)Sheer demographics are aligned against him. And as alluded to in the piece, new media, social media is in the process of overrunning old media.
Twitter and Facebook beat talk radio. That's not a one-off - that's the way it is from here on in.
No, Limbaugh isn't off the radio after this. Sure, his fans will stand behind him. But this is --the first time-- that he, and the stations that carry him, have taken this kind of financial hit.
The Lion of the right has been humbled, defeated. It may be momentary but it's also highly symbolic. Don't think the wingers, with their desperate rear-guard actions - "Oh yeah what about Bill Maher or Ed Schultz etc." - don't realize that.
Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)I have been trying to remember when I heard the local commentator say, "This is the end of the political scene as we know it."
I was driving home from work and can even recall where I was at the time I heard that comment. He was talking about a Republican-connected group or company that had purchased a bunch of radio stations/franchises, whatever you want to call them, to spew their style of political rhetoric to poison the minds of their listeners. He was sure right.
Looking back, my gut reaction to that comment was spot-on.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)That's another company that operates a large chain of primarily AM stations featuring hate spewers such as Laura Ingraham, Bettamillion Bill Bennet and Dennis Prager. They supplement their poorly rated stations by selling air time to preachers and or snake oil salesmen.
Here's the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Communications
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)The debt load put on them by Bain and their partners is unsustainable.
They are going to either get broken up, piecemeal, and sold off, or fail as a whole.
This is not speculation, this is a dead certainty.
Another Bain Capital success story.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)Bain also bought at the height of the market...paying inflated prices for properties that have since seen their value come crashing down and will never recover. There have been several rounds of firings...the last just before last Christmas...and they've divested of small markets. The ticking time bomb are large debt notes (compiled over 20 years of defering payments) come due in 2013 and 2014 that will be shit or get off the pot time for Bain. I'm sure when the bills come due Bain will once again stiff the investors and liquidate what they can where they can...in turn destroying the value of the other corporates with them.
You are right...this isn't speculation, this is certainty. Rushbo's days are numbered...his world is gong the way of the rotary phone...
Cheers...
wyldwolf
(43,870 posts)the very demographic Rush insulted is the ratings lifeblood of those FM stations. If Clear Channel could somehow be targeted on that front as well...
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)What's the goal here? Finally lancing the boil that is limbaugh or bankrupting Clear Channel? I think CC has done a marvelous job in doing the bankrupting all by themselves. The focus needs to stay on rushbo and the hate networks that he feeds. Those are what are creating a lot of misinformation and outright hatred that is sure to get even shriller as this election season goes along. I think we also need to educate people as to the elaborate propaganda machine that is already in place to attempt to destroy this President and anyone who dares to get in their crosshairs. Enough is enough. Here's where the occupy movement could find a valuable purpose and goal and do it on a very local and personal level. Just my .02.
Cheers...