So Clear Channel Media Holdings (owned by Bain Capital), the folks who signed a $400 million 8 year deal with Rush Limbaugh four years ago, are having an absolutely terrible time lately, posting a $200 million loss in their Q1 earnings report. While not entirely due to the actions of the Flush Rush organization, their success in eliminating over 2,600 sponsors from Limbaugh’s hate-filled show is certainly having an impact. There’s a great post at DKos today summarizing the mess Clear Channel finds itself in, you can read it here:
StopRush Contributes to Worst Drop in Advertising in Radio History
These foks have set up an easy web-based database to use for finding Rush’s sponsors in your area – just type in your zip code and a search radius on this page and you’ll find a list of advertisers and several easy contact methods:
I found 12 advertisers within 25 miles of my zip code, so I clicked through to their Facebook pages and posted this on their walls:
Did you know your ads are playing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show on WRKO? Did you know he made pressure cooker jokes on the air the day after the Boston Marathon bombings? Are you ok with your brand being associated with the hateful invective Rush spouts on the air every single day? Please contact WRKO and tell them to pull your ads from Limbaugh’s brand of hate radio.
I also sent it to them through the Facebook message system, to make sure they see it. Some of the advertisers had removed their Facebook pages, but the database provided a customer service email address, so I sent the message that way. All in all, it took me about ten minutes, and I felt a whole lot better after I did it!
Here’s some more links if you’d like to join the effort to defund Rush Limbaugh:
Join: The Flush Rush Facebook community
Visit: The StopRush sponsor database
Tweet: #stoprush Twitter campaign
Fact Check: Limbaugh Lie Debunking Site
Install: ThinkContext StopRush browser extension–notifies you as you browse which companies advertise on Rush
This is trivial shit. You don’t like Rush? Don’t listen to him. It sounds like Clear is just losing tons of money on the show an the irony is, the capitalism Rush loves so much will likely doom his career.
But progressives should spend what limited time and money they have getting Markey elected to the US Senate. Leave the trivia to the right, as they waste their time and money trying to find that missing Kenyan birth certificate, the smoking ATF gun that killed Brietbart, and convincing US Senators to vote against legislation 90% of Americans support. Progressives put their time and money into getting shit done, not on letting shit get to them.
This is not trivial. It’s time to stop hateful and false radio announcements. We should know who is supporting Rush Limbaugh, and we should tell them that we don’t like it.
Besides, we don’t need to work for Markey every minute of every day. We can more than one thing at a time.
I tweeted a number of companies within 25 miles of me complaining about Rush, using text similar to johnt001’s. Doing this didn’t keep me away from a Markey canvass.
Rush’s antics clearly benefit right wing politicians. Heck, there are numerous occasions where a Republican threatened to be moderate only to face the wrath of Rush on the air. By making the right wing noise machine less profitable, we diminish their impacts on our politicians. A good outcome methinks.
Getting Rush off Clear would be a huge boon to progressives (and the country), and is something people can do just a little bit and still help achieve. Even if they pick one or two companies in their area that advertise on his show and send that copy and paste to them, it would help and take all of 5 minutes.
Lest anyone think Rush is no big deal, remember that he’s still the most powerful person in the country when it comes to the GOP. GOP politicians fear him like few others.
If he was booted off his network, it would make it that much easier for the few GOP politicians who could go across the isle every once in a while to do so. It would also de-legitimize him, just in case anyone stumbles on his show without realizing just how crazy he is.
He’d probably be replaced by someone else, or find a new channel, but whoever would replace him would have fewer channels and much less clout… and if he found another network, it would be significantly smaller than Clear Channel, deeply frustrating any potential for damage he could do.
Rush is dangerously close to the edge with his show on Clear Channel. I wouldn’t oppose anyone taking 5-10 minutes to give him an extra nudge.