For many years, I thought of Rush Limbaugh as the satirical version of a radical conservative. I assumed it was all a joke because that’s how his media rise began.
I know, because I was there working at a control board at an AM station in Central California.
Today, it’s hard to argue that talk radio didn’t contribute to the partisan divides in our country. The hosts who followed Rush to national syndication were increasingly worse for discourse. The list of toxic talk radio hosts is long.
Living in California, I heard the left-wing version of Limbaugh, too. They weren’t as entertaining and they didn’t really connect well to audiences. There’s a reason few hosts achieve national prominence.
Critics and many scholars misunderstand why Limbaugh was so effective and popular. They assume he was leading his listeners, via some special skills or mythical charisma. Though Limbaugh himself mocked his critics for not understanding what a “Dittohead” was, people still don’t recognize the trick Rush employed.
Rush did not lead his audience… he carefully followed them, saying what they wanted to hear.
Talk radio station managers track the books. They know ratings and rating trends better than many television executives. The tiniest move in ratings can cause euphoria or panic.
When callers started to tell Rush “Dittos to everything you just said!” they were thanking him for expressing their values. And rating rose because Rush also tracked the ratings. He knew when something worked and when that same material was starting to fade.
I’d argue Limbaugh was an amateur data scientist of radio ratings.
When parody songs worked, he played them over and over. As the value faded, he cut back on the parodies. From “caller abortions” to “Homeless Update” segments, Rush knew when to pull the plug on a routine.
These final years, he was no longer funny. He was angry. He was still channeling his audience, though.
What scared me most was knowing that Rush, like every talk show host I’ve met, followed the praise, the ratings, and the advertisers. He didn’t create a tone — he reflected it back at the audience.
Scholars would do well to remember that Limbaugh measured everything and followed trends.
It’s tempting to claim the rise of “conservative” talk radio was inevitable. Yet, even media insiders were caught by surprise by the popularity of a format presumed to be dead.
Limbaugh was the “fun” host on stations that covered state and local news. These were the stations of morning ag reports and evening local sports. Rush Limbaugh was just the absurdity filling a few hours on AM radio when everyone was at work listening to FM stations playing adult contemporary music.
His little niche was thought of as a corner in the shadows, the place where old-time radio remained popular alongside the “Music of Your Life” playlist of Big Bands and Rat Pack mono tracks.
During the summer of 1988, I interned at a news-talk radio station in Tulare, California. The owner dreamed of rivaling Fresno’s famed KMJ, a station old enough to have a three-letter call sign. Our little station was a local ABC affiliate, which allowed me to experience radio history.
I prepared morning copy from the wire service, placed the commercial “carts” into their rack, and made sure everything was ready for our morning duo.
Back then, the news wire was a Teletype Model 33, a device resembling a typewriter yet several times noisier. It was stored in a small soundproofed room. You had to dart in when a commercial started, tear off the wire copy, and rush out before anyone was on air again.
About midway through the summer, I was asked to stick around and “board op” for a new program. It was going to change radio, the manager assured everyone. Yes, it meant replacing local programming with a nationally syndicated show. However, this host was going to bring listeners back to AM radio.
And so, one summer morning in 1988, I sat at the controls and heard Rush Limbaugh for the first time.
Over “My City Was Gone” by the Pretenders, a booming and confident voice introduced the “Excellence in Broadcasting” network, which was just a few hundred ABC affiliates experimenting with syndication.
Before Rush, there was Larry King. Sally Jesse Raphael. I had grown up listening to KMJ, KNX, and KGO. Radio shows interviewed authors, gave relationship advice, and told people to invest cautiously.
Rush was different. No guests. Very few on-air callers. His sidekicks weren’t part of the on-air shtick. It was Rush, and only Rush, for several hours a day. Most stations replayed the shows at night, too. He did the national spots. Rush also recorded a lot of local commercials to build loyalty.
I came to dread hearing Rush, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and others.
Talk radio was a lot like what we’ve experienced with the Internet. The syndicated shows let a few people scattered across the nation feel connected to each other. Listening together at the same time, the tribes of talk radio increasingly represented an “us versus them” mentality, with the hosts leading from behind.
Remember, that’s the trick: lead from behind in talk radio.
When Donald Trump rose from joke to possible presidential nominee, the likes of Hannity and Rush followed along. These white male college drop-outs were speaking for the Trump base, embracing someone who appealed to their audiences.
It isn’t another Rush Limbaugh that concerns me, but that there’s an audience demand that will create something even worse. Much worse, judging by the last five or six years.
New York Times Obituary: Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was born on Jan. 12, 1951, in Cape Girardeau, Mo., the older of two sons of Rush Jr. and Mildred (Armstrong) Limbaugh. His father was a World War II fighter pilot, a lawyer and Republican activist. His grandfather was a goodwill ambassador to India under President Dwight D. Eisenhower . An uncle and a cousin became federal judges.
As a boy Rush was a pudgy loner who disliked school and longed in vain for popularity. He liked radio and made up play-by-play baseball broadcasts. During the rebellious 1960s, he never dated. At 16, he took a summer course in radio engineering and, with a broadcaster’s license, got an after-school disc jockey job at a local radio station.
After graduating from Cape Central High School in 1969, he enrolled at his parents’ insistence at Southeast Missouri State University but flunked most of his courses, including speech and dance, and dropped out after two semesters.
In 1971, he became a disc jockey for WIXZ-AM in McKeesport, Pa., and in 1973 for KQV in Pittsburgh, using the name Jeff Christie. Over several years he worked at music stations before settling in Kansas City, Mo., where in 1979 he became director of promotions for the Kansas City Royals baseball team.Mr. Limbaugh tried radio again in 1984. His irreverence irked his Kansas City employers but drew the attention of KFBK in Sacramento, where Morton Downey Jr. had just been fired for making an ethnic slur. Mr. Limbaugh replaced him and was soon developing his ad-lib style — but one constrained by the Federal Communications Commission’s fairness doctrine.
The doctrine, which required stations to provide free airtime for responses to controversial opinions they broadcast, was repealed in 1987, and Mr. Limbaugh proclaimed himself liberated. He moved to New York City in 1988 and, in partnership with Edward F. McLaughlin, a former president of the ABC radio network, began his nationally syndicated show on ABC’s radio stations.
Mr. Limbaugh tried radio again in 1984. His irreverence irked his Kansas City employers but drew the attention of KFBK in Sacramento, where Morton Downey Jr. had just been fired for making an ethnic slur. Mr. Limbaugh replaced him and was soon developing his ad-lib style — but one constrained by the Federal Communications Commission’s fairness doctrine.
The doctrine, which required stations to provide free airtime for responses to controversial opinions they broadcast, was repealed in 1987, and Mr. Limbaugh proclaimed himself liberated. He moved to New York City in 1988 and, in partnership with Edward F. McLaughlin, a former president of the ABC radio network, began his nationally syndicated show on ABC’s radio stations.
“Greetings, conversationalists across the fruited plain,” he began in one of his stream-of-consciousness perorations from the bunker, an American flag dangling in the corner.
“This is Rush Limbaugh, the most dangerous man in America, with the largest hypothalamus in North America, serving humanity simply by opening my mouth, destined for my own wing in the Museum of American Broadcasting, executing everything I do flawlessly with zero mistakes, doing this show with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair, because I have talent on loan from God.”
Remember, his listeners were in on the joke. They reveled in the absurdity as much as Rush Limbaugh did. In reality, he was an insecure follower who knew how to read ratings books and deliver an audience to advertisers.
We dismissed Limbaugh as a joke. We made the same mistake with Donald Trump. Successful entertainers can read the room and give the people what they want. It’s actually a talent people from abusive relationships also develop.
If people hadn’t agreed with Limbaugh, there wouldn’t have been 15 million listeners in his audience. Never forget that.