Rush gone from WRKO

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Wed, 20 May 2015 14:54:34 -0400 (EDT), Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> said:


> I'm not sure of that. My impression is that most advertisers don't 
> particularly care what someone does on the air as long as it attracts ears 
> to their messages. The people in the "boycott Rush" movement are not, as 
> far as I can tell, in his target demographic, which is working-class white 
> men. He never did anything to alienate his target audience or give them 
> any reason not to patronize his sponsors.

You have to keep separate the two different kinds of advertisers:
general-audience advertisers, who are just looking for impressions,
are the ones who would be affected by any sort of boycott -- the
Unilevers and MolsonCoorses and Walmarts of the world.  Advertisers
who don't target a general audience anyway are the ones least likely
to care, because they're not losing any sales.  (They might even gain
sales, in that target demo, by continued association with a
controversial host in the face of an organized boycott.)  Which brings
me to:

> I think the most likely explanation for Limbaugh's decline is that his 
> listeners are now too old. Younger men seem to prefer sports talk to 
> politics.

This, I think, is actually correct.  There simply are not enough
advertisers specifically interested in the older male demos who still
listen to Rush -- and with PPM measurement in the top markets, it's
become clear that even those demos aren't listening as religiously as
was previously thought based on diary reporting.  Even older people
have competing demands on their ears and new ways to entertain
themselves.

-GAWollman