This is a pretty big deal. Cumulus Media is dropping Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh from 40 major markets.
via Media Matters
Politico reports that Cumulus Media plans on dropping Rush Limbaugh’s show at the end of the year.
Cumulus has reportedly decided not to renew Sean Hannity’s contract either.
Cumulus carries Limbaugh and Hannity’s shows on more than 40 of its stations, including Limbaugh’s longtime flagship WABC in New York as well as stations in big markets like Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Dallas. [...]
Every quarter for the past year, like clockwork, Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey has hopped on a call with business investors and announces millions in financial losses associated with Rush Limbaugh’s show.
A few days before the May 2013 investors call, a “source close to” Limbaugh’s show attempted to soften the blow by denying that Limbaugh was having any negative effect on advertiser sales and warned that Limbaugh would walk if Cumulus continued to blame him. After announcing $2.4M in quarterly losses, Lew Dickey rebutted the assertion that Limbaugh wasn’t hurting ad sales, stating: “The facts are indisputable regarding the impact certain things have had on ad dollars.”
On second thought, it may not be okay for Limbaugh to use “nigga with an a” on his radio program.
As for Sean Hannity, he may want to reconsider comparing the president to Trayvon Martin because they both smoked pot and “did a little blow.”
Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of Hate Radio are obviously free to say whatever they want, but there may be consequences as the country becomes more diverse and less tolerant of the intolerant. And while Cumulus Media’s actions probably have nothing to do with ideology in a direct sense, they do in that this particular ideology (or at least this pair of spokesmen) is no longer profitable for them. It was okay up until the part where they began losing money on Limbaugh and Hannity.
The infallible free market has spoken and the resulting schadenfreude is off the scale.