Category Archives: entertainment and popular culture

Rightie Radio Lumbers Toward the Tar Pits

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Ninety-eight major advertisers are pulling all of their ads from “controversial” talk radio programs. John Avlon writes at Daily Beast:

Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”

This is big. According to the radio-industry website Radio-Info.com, which first posted excerpts of the Premiere memo, among the 98 companies that have decided to no longer sponsor these programs are “carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm), and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).” Together, these talk-radio advertising staples represent millions of dollars in revenue.

Avlon suggests there’s a little more going on here than just disgust with what Rushbo said about Sandra Fluke. This is significant:

…this latest controversy comes at a particularly difficult time for right-wing talk radio. They are playing to a (sometimes literally) dying demographic. Rush & Co. rate best among old, white males. They have been steadily losing women and young listeners, who are alienated by the angry, negative, obsessive approach to political conservations. Add to that the fact that women ages 24–55 are the prize advertising demographic, and you have a perfect storm emerging after Limbaugh’s Sandra Fluke comments.

One suspects that if these advertisers believed they were getting a good bang for their advertising buck on talk radio, they’d ignore the controversy. The way this episode has played out makes me think at least some of these companies were already losing interest in advertising on talk radio before Rushbo went overboard slut-shaming Sandra Fluke.

Avlon goes on to say that in the end, market forces made rightie talk radio viable, and now it’s possible market forces will kill it. Rush’s recent antics just hurried the process along a bit.

Update: See also Digby.

Update: See also Clarence Page. Like Page, I am skeptical we’re seeing the Twilight of Rushbo. If nothing else, Wingnut Welfare will kick in somehow and see to it he stays on the air. However, I wouldn’t have anticipated that so many major advertisers would suddenly decide to pull out of rightie talk radio.

Also as Page says, Limbaugh’s antics are hurting the Republican Party more than helping it. So maybe it’s OK if he stays around awhile longer.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

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Recently there’s been a substantial swing of women voters toward the Democratic Party. Gee, I wonder why that happened?

In other entertainment news, I see that comedian Louis C.K. was invited and then dis-invited to appear at the Radio and TV Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner, because a couple of years ago he tweeted some naughty things about Sarah Palin.

Now, this is no where in the same ball park as what Rushbo did to Sarah Sandra Fluke. But I’m not sorry some rightie “correspondents” like Greta Van Susteren complained about Louis C.K. It really is not OK to use sexual “jokes” to slam any woman, no matter how much you don’t like her. It’s as bad as using the “n” word to insult, say, Michael Steele. Sexually aggressive language puts down all women, because it suggests there is something substandard about being a women. And truly, Palin’s gender is probably the least objectionable thing about her.

So call Palin a twit, but not a tw*t, please.

Update: Some newspapers pulling next week’s Doonesbury.

Update: A Louis C.K. video that’s kind of on topic.

Pam Geller Doesn’t Know How Women’s Birth Control Works, Either

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I have to assume she’s never needed the pill — I pulled this off Geller’s site (to which I do not link)

A 30-year-old poses as a 23-year-old, chooses a Catholic University to attend at $65,000 per year, and cannot afford ALL the birth control pills she needs… so she wants the US taxpayers to pay for her rampant sexual activity. By all accounts she is banging it five times a day. She sounds more like a prostitute to me. She must have an gyno bill to choke a horse (pun intended). Calling this whore a slut was a softball.

Do these people have any brains at all? Do they think, ever? Or do they honestly believe that women who have frequent sex have to take more pills than those on a strict once-a-week schedule?

I’m starting to think the entire American Right needs to be sent to a Masters and Johnson therapy clinic, if there are any around any more.

Charles Johnson quotes some of the comments — apparently Ms. Fluke is also a Muslim-lover.

Anyhoo — do read Dennis G., “You could hear the fear.” He thinks the loss of advertisers could really be putting some fear into Rush. Apparently most of his ads are “multi-level marketing deals with referral kick-backs for anybody who mentions the show when placing an order. And others—most of them it seems—were straight up grifts to fluff up Rushbo’s wallet and fund this or that aspect of the wingnut money machine.” If enough legitimate businesses drop out … well, we can hope. And join the fight …

Check out this “boycott Rush” site and also this one. Still go to — AOL, Sears, eharmony, Oreck Vacuum Cleaners, LifeLock, Tax Resolution, and Lear Capital. And Get Rush off of Armed Forces radio.

[Update: AOL is out!]

Update: Cenk Uygur believes Rush’s ratings claims are a lie, and that he couldn’t possibly have 20 million listeners as he claims. Also —

But one thing is for sure — he’s hurt, dog! That’s why we see the unprecedented apology from him on Sandra Fluke. When this controversy first broke, I predicted on our show that more advertisers would drop him (at the time, only two had). Advertisers are much more likely to drop a controversial guy if his numbers are already down. They’ll ride it out if he’s still delivering the goods. This is the same thing that happened to Imus. His ratings were miserable already, so advertisers didn’t have enough incentive to stick with him when trouble arose.

So, Rush is in big trouble now as more and more advertisers peel off. He’s in a tail spin. Why else would you triple down on the “slut” comments from Wednesday to Friday and then issue an apology on Saturday? He has over-reached (in his offensive comments) and undelivered (in his ratings). That’s a lethal combo.