Local Rush Limbaugh Advertisers Are Sneaking Back

The left, led by the supposedly non-partisan Media Matters For America, launched a full-scale war against Rush Limbaugh by running a targeted campaign against his advertisers.  What a lot of people don't realize is that most of the advertisers who were run off by MMFA's campaign were advertising on local stations and not on the national level.  Only national level advertisers generate revenue for Rush, the local advertising goes to the local station.

A couple of national advertisers, like Sleep Train, tried to make a quick turn around and renew their campaigns. They were turned down and now their businesses are suffering from the combination of losing access to 15-20 million Rush listeners, and having conservatives turn the tables on them and run their own boycott of their products.

There were a bunch of local advertisers who requested their ads no longer appear during Rush's show, but those people are starting to have second thoughts and some are sneaking back.  Via Macsmind:

Today listening to the Rush Limbaugh I heard seven commercials from companies that Media Matters claimed were no longer advertising on the show. I’m a friend, and a former employee of the manager of the local radio station that carries the Rush Limbaugh show.

I asked him just how bad was this boycott on the show was, that is how much of a big deal was it? I might ad that my friend is a liberal.

“Not much at all” he said. “Actually we haven’t had too many advertisers specifically ask that their ads don’t run on during the show”. But he added, “Things this week have seemed to died down.” In what way I asked.

“Well three of the advertisers that asked to be removed from the shows airing time have now asked that we begin placing their ads again”. One of these whom I heard for myself was a Proflowers that ran midway through the show.

I’m not going to get specific about the other two, but I continued to ask why would these companies return.

“It’s simple, our greatest ad revenue time is during the 3pm to 11pm slot when Rush, Hannity, and Levin run.” “There is simply too many listeners for advertisers not to place their ads.

And Rush has gone on offense against MMFA too. He's activated his own Twitter handle, @limbaugh, and is now posting his own Tweets with information his listeners can pass on to their Twitter followers. It's a smart way multiply the impact of his words.

And Rush is still picking up affiliate stations. For my friends in North Dakota KRWK-FM in Fargo-Moorhead is switching from a rock music format to all-talk, with Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as major players. Given that Fargo is one of the most liberal parts of that state, this change will do them some good.

The War on Limbaugh has been a crashing failure.  The next ratings book that comes out will probably show that Rush gained listeners and as a result will be able to charge even more for his ads.  Thanks, MMFA!