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One year after calling activist Sandra Fluke a ‘slut,’ Rush Limbaugh revenues growing nicely

by Kirsten Andersen

NEW YORK, June 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rush Limbaugh may have lost advertisers due to feminist outrage over his calling political activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” last March, but sales are on the rise in 2013, according to Dan Metter, director of talk-radio sales for Premiere Radio, the conservative radio host’s distributor.

Fluke, then a 30-year-old Georgetown law student, testified before Congress last year in favor of forcing virtually all U.S. employers, including her own Jesuit-run Catholic school, to cover contraception.

Fluke claimed that her classmates have “faced financial, emotional, and medical burdens as a result” of the lack of birth control coverage, and that contraception “can cost a woman over $3,000 a year during law school…practically an entire summer’s salary.”
Advertisers fled Limbaugh’s show after he called Fluke a slut on the air and said her demand that “she must be paid to have sex…makes her a prostitute.” Limbaugh later apologized for his remarks, saying in a statement that he “acted too much like the leftists who despise me.”
But the media controversy surrounding his remarks persisted, leading to a major advertising boycott of the show. Even President Obama lent his support to Fluke, telling reporters that her activism on behalf of the birth control mandate caused him to think of his daughters.

“I thought about Malia and Sasha. And one of the things I want them…to be able to do is speak their minds in a civil and thoughtful way, and I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names when they’re being good citizens,” said Obama. “And I wanted Sandra to know that I thought her parents should be proud of her.”
Metter told attendees at that Talkers 2013 Conference in New York that the initial impact of the boycott on Limbaugh’s revenue was “dramatic,” but said that just forced the company to find alternative advertisers.
 
Metter said Premier’s ad department has shifted its focus from major ad agencies to smaller, more independent companies, like LifeLock and LegalZoom.
“They’re not buying an ideology, they’re buying an audience,” Metter told attendees. “They’re buying [airtime on political shows] because their audience buys tractors, their audience drinks soda, and their audience needs data backup. And that’s the place to get those types of customers.”
“So we’re doing very, very well,” Metter said.
Meanwhile, just over a year after it reversed itself and chose to provide funding to Planned Parenthood, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation canceled half its three-day races earlier this week after missing its goals.

Source: LifeSite News