Arkansas Blog

DeBunking Rush Limbaugh's "20 Million Listeners"

"Why don't we just pretend Rush Limbaugh has 50 million listeners?

by Eric Boehlert

snips
"a Paul Farhi article about the dubious nature of trying to measure the size of Rush Limbaugh's radio audience. Farhi stressed that trying to determine the total number of weekly listeners represented an exercise "in guesswork, slippery methodology and suspect data."
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Kurtz's sloppy reporting highlighted the media's perpetual soft spot for Limbaugh's ratings. As Farhi noted, nobody has specific numbers about what the talker's audience is and "Limbaugh himself has muddied the water with the claim that he reaches 20 million people a week, although there's no independent support for that figure."

Yet, for years, news consumers have been told 20 million people listen each week. It's a statistic that has become absolutely synonymous with Limbaugh.

But where did that ginormous number come from? From Limbaugh, of course. The first reported reference I could find came from the July 31, 1993, issue of the radio bible, Billboard magazine, which reported "Li mbaugh's show is now heard on 610 stations and reaches approximately 20 million listeners, according to [Kit] Carson," Limbaugh's "chief of staff."

According to Limbaugh's right-hand person, the talker had 20 million listeners. Was there any way to confirm that? Not really, but no matter: The media loved the nice round number, and soon it began to appear everywhere -- but often without the acknowledgement that the stat came from Limbaugh's camp. The following month, in August 1993, U.S. News & World Report announced: "Welcome, one and all, to Rush World, the one-man media theme park of the '90s. Over here, the Radio Show, reaching 20 million listeners a week on 616 stations."
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And how amazing is this: Limbaugh in 1993 claimed he had 20 million listeners, and in 2009 the press is still mouthing the same statistic. Meaning that, until recently, Limbaugh's audience hadn't budged -- not up, not down -- in 16 years.. Obviously that doesn't pass any kind of smell test.

...Arbitron, the overseer of U.S. radio ratings, has never tried to measure Limbaugh's audience. And it has no plans to since, as its spokesman told the newspaper, "There is no economic motivation for any objective third party to do that kind of analysis."
...........
As a radio trade reporter confirmed to MSNBC last week, common industry shorthand to determine the actual size of a radio audience at any given moment is to cut the cume figure down by a factor of 10, which would mean Limbaugh's 20 million becomes 2 million. Or, if you take the more modest cume number of 14 million, which some inside the industry have used to judge the talker's audience, Limbaugh's rating becomes 1.4 million, which is roughly the same size audience that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann get each night on cable TV. So why doesn't the press treat them as the ultimate kingmakers? "

The entire debunking is on eLwood. The Entire RW CON is there in a nutshell. They just make shit up.

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I have one question.

"What is the definition of HYPOGYCGOUDOLEBOISM that appears in HB2204??"

Cartoon Time # 1
Click on Cato

Cartoon time # 2
Click again....please.

Barny Frank wants pay for performance normal for all company's that accept federal funds. I wonder if he will require all employees on the government payroll to fall under the same requirements?

Life is unfair and sometimes recovery efforts can irritate.

Having purchased only 4-cylinder cars since 1973 that average over 30 mpg, I have watched Congress and Detroit ruin the American Automobile industry, our manufacturing economy and rape the idea of reducing oil consumption by loop-holing SUV's and pick-ups with light truck reduced CAFE standards for thirty years.

Ms. Sutton's (D-Ohio) bill to ". . . would give those trading in an old car a $4,000 voucher that could be used to buy a new car that was assembled in the United States and has a fuel efficiency rating of 27 miles per gallon. A car assembled elsewhere in North America would have to get 30 miles per gallon to qualify for the $4,000. And cars that are both assembled in the United States and rated at 30 miles per gallon would fetch a $5,000 voucher. . . . " ticks me off.

I am not happy to see the idiots (including my CCRRR family members), who have indulged in conspicuous consumption and waste for thirty years (Suburbans, Yukons etc. averaging a passenger load of 1.1 passengers per mile), rewarded for dumping their conspicuous consumption SUV's and pick-ups with my tax dollars and future tax burden.

I am just venting anger. I believe it is necessary to stimulate purchases of new vehicles and I want them to be intelligent "greener" choices. If the CCRRR minority was in charge, they would probably be loaning GM money to come up with a super-sized Hummer 4 or 15 passenger Chevrolet "Urbane." However, I am ticked that now they are benefiting from their previous bad choices.

Clik for the article

>>"What is the definition of HYPOGYCGOUDOLEBOISM

Good luck with that one jcd. I looked fairly extensively , including medical dictionaries,
and could find nothing. Is it possible the term is misspelled?

doc,
If you dig a bit deeper it is tax policy which provided the glut of gas hogs and for years the myth of cheap gasoline.

I agree with Proff Art Hobson that a $4 per gallon tax on gasoline would be a good starting
point. That may come close to reflecting the actual social and health costs of an automobile-based society.

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When are we going to find out the fired GM CEO made a campaign contribution to Obama. That's got to sting a little.

Yes, "L." There were other factors.

However, without the light truck CAFE exemption, the SUV's and Pick-up's would not have been manufactured for sale in the numbers we see today. If they aren't there for purchase without expensive penalties for the auto manufacturers, then the numbers on the road would not be as ridiculously high. The American auto manufacturers would not be in such dire straits. For decades, Detroit was like an addict and SUV/Truck sales were their opiate fix.

>>"What is the definition of HYPOGYCGOUDOLEBOISM that appears in HB2204??"

One of bill's sponsors said this:

"Say the word real slow over and over about three times and it will come to you as to what system it references."

HB2204 is on blue clicky

Yeah, but doc, let's not forget American's addiction to great big cars, trucks and SUVs. The Big 3 built what Americans wanted to buy and I suspect if Google had Google Car maps, we'd see lots of giant American behemoths trundling around the rest of the world. I don't think them rich towelheads are bounding over the sand in little Toyotas.

Human nature likes big, bigger, biggest. Not only in automobiles, but in houses, yachts, private jets, boobs, asses, and penises. In only a few instances does smaller equal better. Transistor radios, electronic circuit boards and chips, iPods, cell phones, laptops and so on. I excuse my taste for big cars by not driving far or often and not buying a new car but once every couple of decades.

Personally I think Chrysler has been putting out the most exciting products for years now, but having owned a couple of them, they don't hold up or last very long. GM must have shot all their designers years ago. Only lately has Buick becoming slightly interesting and I like that little Pontiac 2 seater convertible. I like Fords, but except for the new Thunderbird they've already killed, I can't say they've set the styling world on fire either. The Big 3 workers are taking home about what the Honda and Toyota workers take home in their American plants and sure, unions are always trying to get more money out of the companies, like companies are always trying to pay less for labor. (Ola Juan!)

I think the major problem is the cost of health care for current and especially retired workers. My wife and I were talking tonight about Sparks Hospital selling and how it will be a for-profit hospital starting in June and how none of that makes jack to us since we can't afford to go there now.....much less in June. I hate blanket statements...but here comes one...the banking and Wall Street problems are based in pure greed. The automakers and the rest of us are having problems due to the outrageous cost of health care or the cost of insurance to get you some health care...that and high utilities..which seems like bargains when you compare them to going to the hospital for a day or two.

Sparks is going bankrupt because not enough people can afford their services. People with no choice in a medical emergency go there, get treated and know ahead of time they'll never pay their bill because poor folks can't do nothing but run from a 20 thousand dollar hospital bill. So a few blue-hairs with Blue Cross Blue Shield are the only people paying Sparks Campo De No Fumar....and they're 53 million in debt. But lets not forget they just completed building a giant new emergency building with scads more state of the art operating rooms and a total rebuild of their 7th new main entrance in the last 45 years. I'd say they just spent about 53 million on all this new construction. It's lovely.....but it's like A.I.G.....when you're busted you don't give out big bonuses and you don't build a new wing on your hospital.

I don't feel sorry for Sparks, though they're just a reflection of about every other hospital in America today. Way back in 1991 when a crazy man jumped me and told me he was going to shoot me and made his point by conking me over the head with the butt of his pistol....and I got no xray, no pill, no shot, and one lousy stitch on top my head....and later a bill for 200 dollars from Sparks....I knew we were in the crapper.

The other hospital in town was treating my iron overload problem by taking a liter of blood out each week, the same thing you do when you give blood at your local blood bank, I kept asking how much all this was costing and no one had a clue. Well....forget my blood problem...I nearly had a heart attack when I found out 3 months later they were charging me 264 dollars every time. I'm sorry....for 5 thousand dollars of treatment or death, I am forced to chose death.

OK...end of lecture....why do I never get sleepy like normal folks? Health care in America is crazy and criminal and if you think Wall Street had a melt down....just wait a year or 2 when our entire medical system collapses and we're setting our own broken arms with sticks we hunt up in the garage. Obama has to fix everything.....and he better have his long Jesus hair up under that black wig and a Superman suit under his clothes cause really.....we're too FK'ed up for one man to save.

'HYPOGYCGOUDOLEBOISM'

goudoleboi

the 'GYC', totally uncalled for.

Thanks for the in-depth reporting, eLwood. I'm ashamed of our legislature even more today than I was yesterday.

If the legislature wants to waste our time and money with little jokes like this in committee, they could at least do a little better on the comedy. I recommend not using medical terms anymore, because the way one would actually pronounce this word does not bear any resemblance to "good ole boy"-ism.

I could see with all the pressures of urgent and urgent non-issue legislation the need for a good

April Fool's Joke.

On a scale of 1-10(best) this one gets a 4.

At least they tried.

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