RUSH: I want to ask if you will indulge me for just a brief few minutes for some inside baseball stuff before we move on to our review of the issues of the day, politics and so forth, Super Tuesday, the results, and where we are. The reason for this is, once again, so much misinformation about this program and advertisers is in the mainstream media. People are reporting things that, A, are not true, and B, I don't even think the people reporting it have the slightest idea what they're talking about, nor do they have the ability to understand it.
But I know that many of you are spending a lot of time -- God bless you -- on the Web doing what you can to express your support for the program. And judging from the reaction of my own brother, who sends me a note last night, "You really lost 28 sponsors?" No, we have not lost 28 sponsors. "Well, how can they say it?" Because they lie and because they don't understand how it works, and that's what I want to try and explain. In fact, folks, we have three brand-new sponsors that will be starting in the next two weeks. Now, obviously, I'm not gonna tell you who they are today, but we've got three brand-new, full-fledged sponsors starting in the next two weeks.
Two of the sponsors who have canceled have asked to return. We are being very careful about that. Not gonna give you any names here. One of them is practically begging to come back. Everything is fine on the business side. Everything's cool. There is not a thing to worry about. What you're seeing on television about this program and sponsors and advertisers is just incorrect. And let me try to explain how this works. Let's take the claim that we've lost 28 sponsors. Sponsors on this program are both local and national. We deal with the national sponsors on this program. We have 600-plus stations. They sell their own commercials. We don't have anything to do with those sponsors. We don't get paid by those sponsors. We have no idea who those sponsors are.
Let's make up a company, ABC Widget Company. And let's say that ABC Widget Company says, "We are no longer going to appear on the Rush Limbaugh Show." Well, ABC Widget Company isn't on the Rush Limbaugh Show. What happens is, advertising agencies order advertising buys on a series of local stations from market to market to market. A controversy like this erupts. They put out a notice to the stations, "By the way, for the time being we don't want our commercials run when Limbaugh is on." But they are not canceling their advertising on the station. They're just saying they don't want it running on my program during the local affiliate's commercial time, not ours.
So this 28 or 32 -- and I don't even know if that number's accurate, numbers are coming from Media Matters. There's no way anybody could know this, but I'm gonna put it in further perspective in just a second. What it means is there have been -- let's use the number 28 -- 28 advertisers who none of us are aware are even advertising on our local stations who had sent out orders that their commercials are not to run on my program. But that is not revenue to us. They are not our sponsors. They are not even canceling their advertising on the local station. They're just saying for the time being they don't want it run from noon to three. And let me tell you, this happens every day. It's been happening for 23-plus years. And it's not just to me. There are clients, advertisers, that tell stations, "I don't want this to run in Beck's show. I don't want it to run in Hannity's. I don't want it to run in Howard Stern's." It's all part of the business.
But because there's a focal point on this in trying to dispirit you and trying to present a picture of this program that doesn't exist and that's untrue, they're trying to make it sound like this is unprecedented -- that it's never happened before, it's at an all-time high -- and it simply isn't the case. We have not lost 28 national sponsors. There are not 28 advertisers who were paying us who aren't anymore. They are local commercial buys. Many of them may not even be running in my show to begin with. The advertisers are just saying, "If they are, pull 'em. We don't want 'em in there for now," but they're staying on the local stations. These advertisers are not abandoning EIB affiliates.
Nobody is losing money here, including us, in all this. And that is key for you to understand. They are not canceling the business on our stations. They're just saying they don't want their spots to appear in my show. We don't get any revenue from 'em anyway. The whole effort is to dispirit you. It's to make you think the left is being successful in its campaign when it isn't. In fact, the left is so fed up, they can't see straight. They thought they had me. They thought I would be off the air by now. They can't understand why I still am on the air. There is also another rumor going around that I am going to be suspended for a week. It is utter BS.
Read the rest here:
As I said previously, 23 milllion daily listeners have a force all their own, and the majority aren't going anywhere because of the Left's kabuki outrage over a left-wing agitator like Sandra Fluke. In fact, the current controversy will probably increase Limbaugh's ratings. I speak from personal experience here...I first started listening to Rush Limbaugh after the Clintons attempted to demonize him, just to see what all the fuss was about.
The latest move by the Left, spearheaded by cartoon character Gloria Allred is to try to criminalize the matter. ( h/t, Rhymes With Right). Apparently, there's an old defamation statute in Florida where Limbaugh lives that provides that '“whoever speaks of and concerning any woman, married or unmarried, falsely and maliciously imputing to her a want of chastity, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree."
First of all, since Ms. Fluke has already provided the numbers on the amount of contraception she cliams she needs for her apparently active sex life, the 'falsely and maliciously imputing to her a want of chastity ' part falls apart. And secondly, she is what the law terms a 'semi-public figure', and the SCOTUS has already ruled pretty decisively on that.
Just another excuse for Allred to try and milk a few headlines...pathetic.
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