"What I learned about Rush Limbaugh"

It's really not complicated as to why Rush Limbaugh is so popular that he has the largest audience in talk radio history. However, DUmmie boobooday has come up with a complicated conspiratorial reason for Rush's success in his THREAD titled, "What I learned about Rush Limbaugh." And what DUmmie boobooday supposedly learned about Rush Limbaugh is completely laughable. It's all part and parcel of the Barack Obama attack on Rush. Think about it. The President of the United States is now completely obsessed about one talk radio host. Does anybody remember Bush obsessing over Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann? Of course not because he ignored them and all the rest of the innumerable media critics. But not Obama. His obsession with Rush Limbaugh is matched by the DUmmies who now have several threads devoted to El Rushbo. So let us now watch the DUmmies provide their absurd theories about Limbaugh's success in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, noting that just a year ago the media pundits were writing Rush off as "irrelevant," is in the [brackets]:

What I learned about Rush Limbaugh

[From your post, apparently nothing. However, please deliver your laugh lines.]

I was having a discussion with another DUer about Rush, and referred to him as a failure. It was pointed out to me that he was the highest-rated radio talk show host. Why is this? I did some research on it for an academic paper a few years ago and this is what I found.

[A DUmmie and rational thought shall never meet?]

Rush is a product of a vertically integrated media market. His initial radio stations were owned by ABC (if you want to go even deeper, look at Reagan's CIA Director, Casey, who owned Capitol Cities Communications, which bought ABC). Now he is syndicated on Clear Channel stations by a subsidiary of Clear Channel. They own every station, and have the power to make sure that there is little competition at his time slot.

[How long did it take you to memorize the phrase, "vertically integrated media market?" And that explains why millions listen to Rush? Because he was FORCED on us? And where did you submit your "academic paper? Randi Rhodes University?]

Who told us, early on, that Rush was a media sensation/phenomenon?

[The Arbitron ratings?]

ABC's Good Morning America
ABC's 20/20
The ABC Evening news

[Yeah, like ABC is a well known rightwing organization. Time to get off your meds.]

Who published his book? A publisher owned by ABC. Who told us his book was great? You guessed it. Who owned the magazines that told us Rush was a phenomenon? That's right.

[Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!

Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do! We do!

Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!

Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do! We do!]

He is a manufactured phenomenon. He has high ratings because he was plugged so relentlessly that those who agreed and those who disagreed had to check him out. He has no major corporate sponsors other than the Sleep Number Bed, and really never has. How can this be the case for the highest-rated talk show host?

[Yeah, Rush is really financially hurting in Palm Beach from lacking major sponsors. Strange that there is strong competition just to become a sponsor on his show. ]

This is the story of Rush Limbaugh, a sad, pathetic nobody sportscaster who grew into a sad, pathetic tool of corporate media.

[This is the story of DUmmie boobooday, a sad pathetic nobody who grew into a sad pathetic poster from his Mommy's basement.]

My research was done via Lexis Nexis academic. The paper I wrote won a prize in 2005 at the Broadcast Education Association.

[I just checked out the Broadcast Education Association and it consists of a conglomeration of college professors angry at the conservative politics of Rush Limbaugh plus the fact that he earns more in a month than they will in a lifetime. Here is their self description from their website:

For over 50 years, the Broadcast Education Association has served as the critical link between the college professors who teach tomorrow’s radio and television employees and the professionals working in the broadcasting industry.

And now on to the other clueless DUmmies...]

All reasons why it is impossible to get rid of the cockroach

[Of course, it has nothing to do with his popularity with the radio audience since he has been foisted upon us by a massive conspiracy.]

Cross promotion is one of the perks about being a gigantic media corporation. It's pretty anti-competitive as well.

[So that explains why Randi Rhodes isn't the top radio talk show host in the country.]

Yes, my paper was about the consolidation of radio. I called it "The Canary Died."

[You should have called it, "Rationality Died."]

now would be a good time to offer that paper to the NYT

[I thought the NYT didn't have a comics section.]

I didn't say anything about Rush and Obama. Rush is the mouthpiece of the corporate shills. I really don't think Obama is listening to Rush.

[But he is sure obsessing over Rush.]

I would LOVE to go toe-to-toe with Limbaugh and Coulter and Hannity and O'Reilly....we have keith Olbermann and Rachael....like Limp-brain I am also from Missouri....can't be a coincidence!!!

[Posted the suicidal DUmmie.]

Imagine if you had that kind of media machine behind you! We can see how well liberals do when they get a major platform. Imagine if Air America and/or one of its hosts had the same kind of marketing machine!

[I don't have to imagine. Before Air America even began airing they had a massive marketing machine called the Mainstream Media hyping it. And yet they still failed because of incredibly boring hosts like Al Franken.]

Was ABC pushing/promoting him when he was KFBK? He was big here is the Sacramento valley and I am unaware of any promotion other than simple word of mouth. KFBK was affiliated with ABC, but not owned by them.

[Quit asking inconvenient questions!]

That's Ed Schultz's point, that Rush is sustained by ownership, not ratings.

[The same Ed Shultz who, if offered just a small fraction of Rush's earnings, would switch to pretending to be a conservative in a heartbeat.]

I had an offer to publish the original paper in an academic journal (I presented it at a conference, and it was very well received) and like an idiot, I didn't follow up. Now would be a good time to pull it back out and make it ALL about Rush, and look for a publication people (besides academics) read.

[Try the same vanity publishing company that Pied Piper Pitt uses.]

I don't buy the claim that rush is popular because of some conspiracy. ABC and other big media players invest in and launch shows all the time and some succeed and some fail. If rush didn't appeal to a certain audience, he wouldn't have a show. But the sad fact is that he does have an audience -- there are a lot of rw'ers out there that eat up his crap.

[No, no! It MUST be a conspiracy! Perhaps we can implicate Karl Rove!]

I'm not saying Rush was a psyops from the beginning. I'm saying he's using powerful and sophisticated persuasion techniques to do the work of the military industrial complex. He puts out what he's given from the core of the vast right wing conspiracy.

[Karl Rove! No vast right wing conspiracy is complete unless it includes Karl Rove.]

The fun is trying to track down Rushbo's numbers. Today I heard he either had 6 million, 12 million or 20 million listeners (depending on the right wing hag bag talking). Now how do they come up with those numbers? Besides out of their ass? It's taking the POTENTIAL audience a station can attract...a cumulative number rather than quantitative. It's a number derived by the people who happen to tune into the station as opposed to those who are specifically tuning into his show. Thus because you're in the newspaper, it's assumed everyone in town reads about you...this same game is played in radio.

[So why is Obama so OBSESSED with Rush Limbaugh if his audience is really low? BTW, even a 6 million audience is something that Randi Rhodes could only dream about and in actual fact it is well over 20 million listeners.]

I'm one of many (I would like to think a number of people did) who wrote the WH last week to suggest that Limbaugh be taken off AFR because of his unpatriotic stance, i.e. wishing Obama and his administration to fail. Someone here on DU suggested we do that and I followed through.

[Have the DUmmies ever considered what the TROOPS want to hear on Armed Forces Radio? If it were ever put to a vote, Rush's show on AFR would be expanded from one to three hours per day.]