Days of Change

Day 1242 – Lack of Ratings

Famous virtually unknown Youtube personality Cenk Uygur issued a challenge to Rush Limbaugh to produce information about the actual numbers of listeners to his program, citing the flawed Arbitron system that could give him 20 million listeners. The truth is that Rush doesn’t need to have this data at all. His affiliates pick up his show to sell local ad time. Rush makes his money from national advertisers and the ones who were smart enough to stay seem to be happy. I suspect Uygur has time to add up all the Arbitron books for 600 stations because his Current TV show probably has the audience of one Rush Limbaugh affiliate.

Oh, and by the way, it happened again. Current TV learned the lesson that MSNBC was taught twice. You will eventually fire Keith Olbermann. They didn’t learn from CNN, though, and put in Elliot Spitzer to take his place. Can Kathleen Parker be far behind? Luckily, Current TV fires for annoyance, not low ratings. Otherwise, Cenk’s show would be out of the network.

As for Rush, the liberal thrill is gone. The advertisers who quietly walked away a month ago are slinking back. The ones who made a public break and not welcome back and are getting creamed, according to Limbaugh. Unsurprisingly, his ratings are up. He and others should raise a glass to Andrew Breitbart for that. When Media Matters coordinated this AstroTurf boycott shakedown of advertisers, their involvement was identified immediately and the narrative of a groundswell of support never took hold.