Friday, June 7, 2013

Premiere: Limbaugh’s Fluke Comments Hurt Revenue

Rush Limbaugh’s distributor on Thursday said there is no denying the conservative radio host’s controversial comments about Sandra Fluke hurt advertising last year — but 2013 is apparently a whole different ballgame.

According to an article  by Mackenzie Weinger at Politico, this year, Limbaugh is drawing new advertisers and recovering well after the major boycott he faced in response to his broadcasts on Fluke, Premiere Radio senior vice president and director of talk radio sales Dan Metter told the Talkers New York 2013 conference.

There was certainly a dramatic impact on the advertising sales in the wake of Limbaugh’s comments, Metter noted, but he said that just drove the company to find new sources of ad revenues.

Metter, who repeatedly referred to the advertising boycott of Limbaugh as simply “the challenge,” said Premiere, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Media, focused its efforts on getting ads on air from entrepreneurial-based companies not handled by major ad agencies, such as LifeLock and LegalZoom.

“They’re not buying an ideology, they’re buying an audience,” Metter said. “And many of whom are advertising with our progressive radio hosts and our conservative radio hosts and everything in the middle. They’re not buying Rush’s ideology or Randi Rhodes’ ideology. They’re buying them because their audience buys tractors, their audience drinks soda, and their audience needs data backup. And that’s the place to get those types of customers. So we’re doing very, very well.”

They’re pacing ahead of this time last year, Metter said — and while January was a bit slow, the second quarter is picking up for the company that distributes Limbaugh and other talkers such as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

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