The Rush Limbaugh Show is down to 1 sponsor on its flagship station WABC in New York. Over 90% of his advertising is now unpaid PSA's and in a sign that will surely strike terror into the heart of anyone who's dealt with advertising, his show had 5min 33 sec of dead air today. Nothing. Empty airtime. A vacuum of empty space.
via Media Matters:
At least 50 advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Rush Limbaugh's radio show in the wake of his misogynistic attacks on Sandra Fluke.
Here are his March 8 advertisers, in the order they appeared on WABC, the flagship station for Limbaugh's show. Audio clips of the ads have been provided to help make advertisers aware of the placement of their ads on the program. According to our coverage:
A total of 86 ads aired during WABC's broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show today
77 of those ads were public service announcements donated free of charge by the Ad Council
Of the nine paid spots that ran, seven were from companies that have said they have taken steps to ensure their ads no longer air during the program
WABC's online feed included about 5:33 of dead air when ads would normally have run.
Advertisers with links on their names have already stated that they have asked to have their ads excluded from Limbaugh's show.
John Aravosis at
Americablog gives his take:
Right now, Limbaugh is too radioactive even for the scam artists. This is probably a smart move on their party as the last thing a company with a shady history wants is to attract attention. Lifelock came out in Limbaugh's support but seem to have thought better of it after people started to mention that $12 million settlement they just made with the FTC for deceptive advertising.
For all his communications skill, Limbaugh is an entertainer. And as Michael Vick found, advertisers don't want to associate with entertainers who have turned themselves into public figures of hate.
DISCLAIMER: It now appears that Media Matters were recording the internet stream which is significantly different than the over-the-air version in terms of ads. This would make sense of the "dead air".