Citing Rush Limbaugh’s current self-inflicted woes, John Parikhal, CEO of Joint Communications, a 30+ year old media consulting operation, tells radio industry publication NTS Media Online that the future may be gloomy for folks in the talk radio “attack” business.
He charges that “out of touch” Limbaugh “is the proverbial canary in a coal mine” as Americans who have “been in ‘attack’ mode” for 15 years are beginning to realize “that attack has gained them nothing”…
That’s one big canary. Don’t know if Parikhal has nailed it or not, but his thoughts are certainly of note, as what has happened to Limbaugh — Clear Channel-owned Premier Radio’s $38 million/year baby — has also served to put other RW talkers on pins and needles at the moment, while they watch to see how thinks shake out for poor Rush, whose big advertisers are now trampling each other to run away from.
On KFI, the 50,000-watt AM blowtorch which has been carrying Limbaugh out here in Los Angeles for decades, commercial breaks are now largely filled with local-only spots, campaign ads for the GOP Presidential primary (usually from Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC), with almost every break punctuated with what could be a stinging foretelling of Rush’s future: An ad from Glenn Beck and his online-only GBTV venture.
In a related story today, Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert looks at the precarious place in which Clear Channel (as currently owned by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, LLC) now finds itself — thanks to the less-than-conservative all-in bet the media behemoth has banked on Rush, in “Struggling Clear Channel And Rush Limbaugh’s $400 Million Payday”.
There is some “oops” going on according to Daily Kos, who says that the New York Times ads have continued.
Yup, I think Brads thoughts are certainly of note…extrapolating…it is just a matter of weeks before Rush is off the air…never to be heard from again.
RIP
“In a related story today, Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert looks at the precarious place Clear Channel (as currently owned by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, LLC) now finds itself in”
Oh my…those terminating prepositions. Perhaps I should give way to the 21st century NewSpeak…tweeteratedanythingoespeak.
Have a good weekend everyone…a little warm in Texas…AGW I suppose.
Has anybody noticed any changes in Clear Channel programming?
In Portland, Oregon, where Clear Channel is actually the PROGRESSIVE station, they have been pre-empting for college baseball.
I wondered if this is happening in other cities where Clear Channel is the progressive station. Does anybody know?
We always get basketball in the early afternoon, evening. Pre-empting Randi Rhodes. In Seattle area.
more like a toad in the hole…
Davey Crocket @ 2 said:
That’s not “21st century NewSpeak”. That’s just bad writing and grammar. I’ve corrected that in the article above, and will be firing my editor — as soon as I get one!
Much appreciated.
There is nothing wrong with a preposition at the end of a sentence. That is a rule made up by people (grammarians?) trying to justify their existence and not part of English as it has evolved through the centuries. The best refutation is attributed to Winston Churchill, supposedly in reaction to a reworking of something he had written to “correct” this “mistake”: “That is something up with which I will not put.” Did you know it’s OK to split infinitives, too? Check out Fowler’s “Modern English Usage” for more.
The problem goes well beyond Rush Limbaugh or public revulsion over the poisonous propaganda he and so many others spew, propaganda which reverberates across a privately-owned, right-wing echo chamber, which dominates our supposedly “public airwaves.”
The core of the problem lies in the fact that we have permitted the one percent, through their corporations, to dominate the media landscape.
One only has to follow the money to understand that corporations do not place much stock in the core purpose of the First Amendment — democratic accountability insured by a truly informed public.
At a time when newsrooms across the nation faced budget cuts and shrinking staffs, Limbaugh-the-toad was rewarded for his fact-free invective with a $50 million/year paycheck.
Limbaugh-the-toad furnishes what “The Party” in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four regarded as essential to the maintenance of elite mind-control — “Three minutes of hate”.