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Oh man, is this shadenfreude-licious.
The above is the WABC feed--Rush Limbaugh's flagship station in the Big Apple--courtesy of Media Matters. Go to 2:32 into the video, following the local news and a PSA and listen. Do you hear it?
Dead air.
That's right, the biggest name in talk radio on the most popular talk radio station in the largest city in the U.S. and you just heard two and a half minutes of absolutely dead air. The rest of the time? There's an ad for Constant Contact (who had already announced they were pulling their ads) and some more PSAs. As in free Public Service (almost sounding socialist there, *gasp*) ads.
To date, fifty advertisers have pulled their ads from the Rush Limbaugh show. Limbaugh has made his typical bluster that he's turning away advertising (most notably from the adultery dating site Ashley Madison, who offered to buy up any available ad slots), but it's hard to buy that when you have dead friggin' air. Aravosis:
Assuming that Netflix and Constant Contact are telling the truth, that is a total shut-out. Rush has lost almost all of his paid advertisers on his flagship WABC show, at least judging by today's line up. His only remaining sponsor is The Small Business Authority which is currently locked into a year-long sponsorship deal with WABC.
The unpaid spots were all obtained from the Ad Council and all a broadcaster needs to run them is to register for an account.The AHA has already asked Limbaugh to drop their ads. A boycott is definitely working when even the unpaid advertisers are heading for the exits.
Adding to his woes, calls are now calling for Limbaugh to be dropped from Armed Forces Radio from VoteVets, the Service Womens' Action Network, Sen. Carl Levin as well as 18,500 signatures on a White House petition.
