And yes, both of those puns were deliberate.
If you want to know just how powerful Rush Limbaugh actually is, consider this: Clear Channel is willing to go broke paying his salary.
Drowning under massive debt and desperate to cut more costs, Clear Channel took an ax to its payroll -- again -- and hacked hundreds of radio pros out the door. Program directors, morning show hosts, production pros, news anchors -- all of them tossed over the side. A "bloodbath," one newspaper called it. (In Albany, New York, the entire on-air staff at a Clear Channel music station was sacked; same with a radio outpost in Exeter, New Hampshire)
The most recent blizzard of pink slips (one industry report pegged it at "nearly 1,000") came in the wake of a January purge, in which 1,850 Clear Channel employees were let go. So already this year the company has shed nearly 3,000 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce. Also, last week, Clear Channel's parent company announced it was suspending its matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement programs.
Granted, CC has made some blithering-idiot-type management mistakes but the biggest one was believing that Limbo is some sort of cash cow who'd bring in enough $$$ all by himself to keep them going. He didn't.
I wonder about Limbaugh and the thousands of his laid-off Clear Channel colleagues, because the dichotomy is striking: Last July, just months before the radio economy went into free-fall, Limbaugh's bosses at Clear Channel, who enjoy deep ties to Texas Republicans and who have been at the forefront of promoting right-wing radio, rewarded the turbo-talker with the biggest contract in terrestrial radio history. The contract included an eye-popping 40 percent raise over his already gargantuan pay, despite the fact it's doubtful any other radio competitors could have even matched Limbaugh's old pay scale.
The astronomical worth of Limbaugh's eight-year pact: $400 million. The amount of money Clear Channel execs have been trying to scrimp and save this year as they lay off thousands from the struggling company: $400 million. Ironic, don't you think?
No, not ironic. Systemic.
Look, Limbo went for years without an audience, his paycheck picked up by his rich, ultra-right-wing employer even though he wasn't making a dime for his company. Now that his numbers are tanking and advertisers are pulling out, CC is doing the same thing and for the same reason: he isn't worth all the money he's being paid in terms of the audience or advertisers he brings in, but he's a mouthpiece for the ultraconservative, ex-investment bankers who run it. He has no other value since his show clearly makes nothing like enough money to cover its - his - expenses or they wouldn't be having to cut the exact amount Limbo is costing them.
Yet despite the financial trouble Limbo's way excessive contract has brought them, including the distinct possibility of bankruptcy, they were willing to pay him to get their message out. Which is what? Eric Boehlert has been tracking them for a while, let's see what he has to say.
In the late 1990s, while no one was looking, a corporate behemoth became the largest owner and biggest force in America's most venerable mass medium: commercial radio.
Radio stations that once were proudly local are now being programmed from hundreds of miles away. Increasingly, the very DJs are in a different city as well.
Want your record played on one of those stations? Be prepared to pay -- dearly -- for the privilege. Want your band's concert to be sponsored by a radio station? Be careful: If you pick a competitor, the behemoth might pull your songs off its playlists overnight -- from two, 10, 100 stations.
Looking for classy radio programming? Don't look here. The company is known for allowing animals to be killed live on the air, severing long-standing ties with community and charity events, laying off thousands of workers, homogenizing playlists and a corporate culture in which dirty tricks are a way of life.
Welcome to the world of Clear Channel -- radio's big bully.
And it isn't just about payola. There's this from Inside Music Media:
Believe it or not, the geniuses at Clear Channel are suing a local community group in Philadelphia to halt their annual Unity Day festivities.
Why?
Because Clear Channel has pulled out of the event this year -- probably due to money -- and (please sit down and don't hurt yourself) Clear Channel says it owns the term "Unity Day".
I wonder if they trademarked the term "Evil Empire" because now they sure own it in Philly.
So Philadelphia, the community they are licensed to serve, can't use "Unity Day".
Watch out for Clear Channel filing trademark rights for "Martin Luther King Day" next
Perhaps nobody told Clear Channel's brain trust in San Antonio that it is not nice -- nor is it good business -- to sue a community group in a public trademark fight.
Unity Day on the Parkway, Inc. is getting its butt sued by Clear Channel which goes to show it's not easy being a black station in a black market when your owners are seeing green in San Antonio.
This group wants to put on a Unity Day event.
The city and the community want this event.
Clear Channel actually loved this event when they could afford to be part of it. If you're not already sick to your stomach, here is how Clear Channel spun their public service spirit in the past, read this.
Of course, that was then and this is -- well, now.
CC's "Founder", Lowry Mays, was a Texas investment banker who was trained as a "petroleum engineer" when he started San Antonio Broadcasting, CC's first incarnation. CC's CEO is Mark Mays, Lowry's son. Unlike Horatio Alger or all the myths about how sons of rich businessmen start out at the bottom, Mark started pretty close to the top - as Vice President and Treasurer, Senior Vice President of Operations and later President and COO. But that's OK because Mark has a history. You know, chops.
Prior to joining Clear Channel, Mark worked for Eppler, Guerin & Turner, an investment-banking firm, and for CapCities, a broadcast company now a part of ABC/Disney.
Another investment banker and a broadcast exec who cut his teeth with Sumner Redstone's outright fascist CapCities, Redstone being yet another ultra-right-wing nutcase and greedy m..f-er. Between them, they have "transformed what appeared to be simply a radio business into an advertising company that continues to serve local communities and advertising customers." To them broadcasting isn't about making a profit from content; the profit is the content. Ads and lots of them.
And let's not slight second son Randall, the President and CFO. This kid's background is impeccable. Look where he worked right out of his stint as a Harvard Business School legacy: in the mergers and acquisitions department of the investment-banking firm of none other than our old friend Goldman, Sachs. Neat, huh?
Now with all this family-owned-and-operated, highly profit-oriented background, why would the Mays' be willing to see their huge corpo and massive investment in radio go down the tubes (yes, another pun) for the sake of an overweight fatmouth bigot's greed? Boehlert thinks it may have something to do with Limbo's politics - and the Mays'.
Keep in mind that Clear Channel has a long history of playing politics with its talk radio. Around the time of the Iraq war in 2003, when Clear Channel was paying to produce and promote pro-war rallies hosted by Glenn Beck (which the company insisted were merely "pro-troops" rallies), several on-air personalities claimed they had been yanked off the air for voicing anti-war opinions; that they were warned point-blank by their Clear Channel bosses to tone down the anti-war rhetoric or face professional consequences. Clear Channel's CEO has also personally defended Limbaugh's ill-advised rants in the past.
In February 2004, Clear Channel pulled superstar talker Howard Stern off its stations after he veered to the hard anti-Bush left. Yet, now, Clear Channel rewards superstar talker Limbaugh as he veers to the hard anti-Obama right. Even though the content of Stern's show hadn't changed much in years, Clear Channel bosses in 2004 insisted Stern's show was suddenly "vulgar," and that's why it was taken off the air. Yet skeptics couldn't help but notice that as soon as Stern began bashing Bush, the shock jock got yanked from all Clear Channel stations.
It seems the only thing that comes between a greedy, right-wing corporate exec and his profits is his hate ideology.
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