Hey, where’d my advertisers go?
Lush Dimbulb is trying to pretend that he is not to blame
for the huge revenue loss resulting from his relentless hate speech
against then-Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, but Stop Lush and
Flush Lush have had a definite negative impact on Cumulus’s ad revenue.
Cumulus Media CEO Lew Dickey
blames Lush for the stunning loss in revenue
that is impacting other talk shows, “We’ve had a tough go of it the
last year. The facts are indisputable regarding the impact certain
things have had on ad dollars.” Those “certain things” are the
successful advertiser boycotts against Lush Dimbulb, also known as Lush Dimbulb’s refusal to be civilized. Dickey made his point.
Cumulus released its quarterly earnings figures on Tuesday morning,
reporting a 1.3 percent decline in revenues. Media Matters reported that
Cumulus reported a $2.4 million dollar decline in revenue in a first
quarter in their first quarter earnings call with investors. But it’s
not just the latest quarter.
Media Matters pointed out, “Dickey has reported millions in losses associated with Dimbulb in previous quarters as well.”
Things are so bad that Lush’s losses are taking down other wingnut shows.
Media Matters explained, “Dimbulb has become so toxic that he’s hurting other wingnut hate speech shows.” In March of this year,
Media Matters
explained that due to the structure of radio ad buys, the loss of
revenue wiped out other national talk shows, resulting in forcing talk
radio to move away from wingnut hate speech:
At a Talkers forum last year, Norm Pattiz, CEO of
Courtside Entertainment, summed up the destructive effect Limbaugh has
had on the entire industry, noting that a “tremendous chunk of
advertising revenue was wiped out in terms of support for national talk
radio programs.” Pattiz added that “the movement in talk radio to some
degree is moving away from conservative talk radio and into other
genres.”
Lush is threatening (promising?) to leave Cumulus over their
suggestion that he is to blame for their losses. Jason Easley reported
Monday for
Politicus,
“Lush Dimbulb is considering ending his affiliation agreement with
Cumulus Media because Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey has blamed the advertiser
boycott of Lush’s show for the decline in advertising revenue… Dimbulb’s feelings are hurt because Dickey had the nerve to point out
that calling women sluts is bad for business.”
No matter how Lush stomps his feet at Cumulus, the truth is other
media companies blame Lush as well. For example, Dial Global blamed
millions in losses on Dimbulb in November of 2012, according to the
Huffington Post.
Dial listed a whole host of factors for its financial
straits. But one of them was “advertisers’ response to controversial
statements by a certain nationally syndicated talk radio personality in
March 2012.”
Mediaite got
an insider scoop on Monday confirming that Lush is indeed to blame as
the vast majority of national advertisers refuse to advertise on his
show now: “The vast majority of national advertisers now refuse to air
their ads during Lush Dimbulb’s show.”
What this means is that the activist groups that took a stand against Lush Dimbulb have been successful beyond their expectations. By using
the free market to hold Dimbulb accountable for calling Sandra Fluke a
slut and worse, they defunded wingnut hate speech radio.
Lush Dimbulb is indeed free to spew all of the hate he pleases. But
airing that hate and expecting to make a profit off of it is no longer
looking like a viable business plan.
With
hundreds of millions of dollars in production costs, it's no wonder that
Hollywood studios worry about whether their movies will be hits or flops.
Will the viewers like that particular fight scene or should the studios
tweak it to maximize the statistical probability of success? That's where
script doctor and statistician Vinny Bruzzese steps in, with the art and
magic of script analysis:
