For over 60 years the University of Colorado broadcast football games on AM 850 KOA, the loudest radio station CO. After Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 KOA became a ‘Limbaugh station’ and CU, in a situation common to at least 87 other universities, kept renewing that relationship.
In September 2019 KOA demoted Limbaugh to minor station AM 760. Instead of being associated with the Broncos, Rockies, and Buffaloes, he’s moving in with Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and a guy named Buck Sexton.
There has been low level activism to get CU off KOA for many years. In the past local KOA talkers have weighed in on regent elections and president selections and this year a CU alum friend says there were many complaints about the hiring of another Republican president for ‘liberal’ CU. If CU told the radio station it was feeling increased pressure and protests were coming and didn’t want the issue to get too visible it might have told KOA it was going to have to start looking for alternatives to broadcast football on.
In another situation I’m familiar with, the University of New Mexico actually broadcasts recruiting advertisements on the loudest Limbaugh station in NM, 770 KKOB, along with football and basketball. I recently met a UNM regent who was with friends and leaving so it was brief. I mentioned the absurdity of advertising UNM’s diversity and scholarship on a radio station that makes excuses for ignorance and racism, attacks immigrants, and denies climate science and asked if he thought it was possible to get UNM to end that advertising and move sports broadcasts to another station. He was very certain there was no chance because it would cause a huge uproar from the right.
That is one of the reasons those 87 universities are the best places to protest and start a cascade that will force the GOP to cut Trump loose. On Tuesday students can protest right on campus — without traveling to capitals etc.
Denver’s KOA would have realized the implications caused by media attention stimulated by protests at the university. CU would look like it was crapping on its mission statement. The Broncos and Rockies would be drawn into a discussion of black athletes being used to support pro-Trump and racist talk shows.
Advertisers would head for the hills.
KOA would have to choose. Buffaloes, Broncos, and Rockies — or Rush Limbaugh.
That could happen for more than 260 Republican radio stations before the senate trial.
Cascade:
1 Protest at university with possible AI-enhanced boycotts of the associated stations (it doesn’t matter what the university administration does or can do)
2 Local GOP and RW talk radio notices, freaks out
3 Media notices
4 Protests at more universities
5 Advertisers and advertising industry notice
6 In order to be able to use those very loud radio stations the ad industry finally applies market demand to the 20-1 monopoly and it collapses as radio stations have to alter programming or offer balance
If protests began to pop up at those universities, the advertising industry would quickly realize the potential disaster. There are at least 87 other universities and many pro sports teams that could do the same as CU. There are also many other RW radio stations, both featuring Limbaugh and not, in similar parasitic relationships with schools not on the list.
It doesn’t really matter how the school deals with the situation. If media notices so would the GOP and its ‘think’ tanks and the Republican politicians who have depended heavily on those radio stations for 30 years would freak out, yell “FREE SPEECH” and make it worse.
The ad industry wants and needs those radio stations. They want the tens of millions of ears those radio stations reach every day. They know they’ve been propping up a lot of those talk stations by offering discounts and bulk rates so they can bundle and rotate clients onto shows like Limbaugh’s. They know many radio advertisers, especially in areas that aren’t deep red, are not going to support those stations if they get that kind of publicity. They know many of those clients have been detached from the real content and believed for years that the blowhards are just conservatives being controversial to attract listeners. The advertising industry doesn’t want to have to start asking clients if they want their companies and products associated with global warming denial, Trump, attacks on Greta Thunberg, and excuses for putting immigrant kids in cages.
They won’t want a Stoprush x 100.
The advertising industry knows that the 95% monopoly that the Republican talkers have is not a measure of the demand for the lies and hate. It wouldn’t take a lot of protests or other activism to convince it to break up the monopoly. It will force radio stations to move talkers like Limbaugh off the loudest stations and or try to balance the political orientation of the talkers. Ad revenues will drop fast if they don’t do something.
With recent advances in artificial intelligence recently making it much faster, cheaper, and easier to digitize, transcribe, and monitor talk radio it just got a lot easier to associate radio advertisers with content without actually listening. A stoprush x 100 is possible. It is inevitable the advertising industry is going to have to apply real market demand to talk radio and destroy the monopoly.
Many of those stations are the loudest in their states. And unless Dr Fiona Hill is a fool, they have all been working for the Kremlin as well as the GOP. Protests at those universities would be directed at a major Kremlin tool.
Why Republican politicians don’t have to pay attention to protests
If talk radio is not a concurrent target of political activism, protests on Tuesday could go the way of the inauguration protests, the OWS protests, and anti-Iraq war protests. A few hundred blowhards on 1500 radio stations will be yelling over those protests in unison for WEEKS after, attacking the protestors, distorting our aims, and making sure Republican politicians won’t dare think about abandoning Trump. They will minimize the political threat that those protests are meant to signify.
Unlike Fox, talk radio can be coordinated at the state and local level. That is the Republican GOTV and worth a lot more than a few million $ the political analysts call big media buys and Democrats call money in politics.
Some Republican politicians will see activism directed at talk radio as a threat and will howl just like they always howl when someone mentions bringing back a Fairness Doctrine, making the protests more effective.
Some Republican politicians, especially if they see the advertising industry reacting and talk radio demise around the corner, may see it as an opportunity to choose country and constitution over the alternate reality and the threat of a bunch of dittoheads/teabags/trumpers screaming at their staff because a few radio hosts who didn’t know they were working for the Kremlin told them to.
Without a RW radio monopoly to keep Republican politicians and media in line they will have to dump Trump
It doesn‘t matter what the universities actually do. The media coverage will cause advertisers to flee. When the GOP realizes the only unique advantage they have is going to be taken apart by the ad industry in the near future they’re going to have to dump Trump. They will realize Limbaugh and sons won’t be able to pull them out of this, won’t be there to attack them for doing the right thing, or to attack their Democratic opponents for them in the next elections if they protect Trump.
Most republican politicians know how important that radio monopoly has been in 40 states with 80 senators. Without it they know they’re going to have to start cooperating with Democrats. Many of them will see it as sudden freedom to be bipartisan, something they could not do with Lmbaugh keeping them in line.
Look at all these pro-Trump, global warming-denying universities waiting to be protested!
Look at states like Florida (Gaetz), Ohio (Jordan), Georgia (Collins), North Carolina (Meadows). Like Trump, Miller, and Mulvaney, Trump’s congressmen servants are dittoheads. They need those stations to keep being ignored, to keep getting a free speech free ride.
From republiconradio.org, quantifying how much pro-trump, anti-impeachment, global warming denial, and political intimidation these universities are endorsing by broadcasting sports on 260 Limbaugh stations.
WHAT IS REPUBLICON RADIO WORTH?
If the GOP would pay $1000 for a 1 hour infomercial:
x 15 hours/day = $15,000/station/day
x 5 days = $75,000/station/week
ALABAMA 8 $600,000 Auburn 3, Alabama 2, Southern Alabama 2, Troy 1
ARIZONA 1 $75,000 Arizona St. 1
ARKANSAS 3 $225,000 Arkansas 3
CALIFORNIA 5 $375,000 San Jose State 2, USC 2, Fresno St. 1
COLORADO 4 $225,000 Air Force 2, Colorado 1, Colorado State 1
CONNECTICUT 1 $75,000 Connecticut 1
FLORIDA 20 $1,500,000 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
GEORGIA 14 $1,050,000 Georgia 7, Georgia Tech 5, Georgia Southern 2
IDAHO 7 $525,000 Boise St. 4, Idaho 3
ILLINOIS 7 $525,000 Illinois 7
INDIANA 11 $825,000 Notre Dame 6, Purdue 4, Indiana 1
IOWA 5 $375,000 Iowa 4, Iowa St. 1
KANSAS 4 $300,000 Kansas St. 2, Kansas 1, Wichita St. 1
KENTUCKY 3 $225,000 Louisville 2, Kentucky 1
LOUSIANA 3 $225,000 LSU 2, La.-Monroe 1
MARYLAND 2 $150,000 Maryland 2
MASSACHUSETTS 1 $75,000 Boston College 1
MICHIGAN 19 $1,425,000 Michigan St. 11, Michigan 7, Western Michigan 1
MINNESOTA 4 $300,000 Minnesota 4
MISSISSIPPI 6 $450,000 Mississippi St. 3, Mississippi 2, Southern Miss 1
MISSOURI 6 $450,000 Missouri 6
NEBRASKA 6 $450,000 Nebraska 6
NEVADA 1 $75,000 Nevada 1
NEW JERSEY 2 $150,000 Rutgers 1, Seton Hall 1
NEW MEXICO 3 $225,000 New Mexico 2, New Mexico St. 1
NEW YORK 7 $525,000 Syracuse 6, Army 1
NORTH CAROLINA 16 $1,200,000 North Carolina 8, North Carolina State 3, Duke 3, East Carolina 2
OHIO 10 $750,000 Ohio St. 6, Toledo 1, Dayton 1, Bowling Green 1, Xavier 1
OKLAHOMA 5 $375,000 Oklahoma St. 3, Oklahoma 1, Oral Roberts 1
OREGON 12 $900,000 Oregon St. 7, Oregon 5
PENNSYLVANIA 14 $1,050,000 Penn St. 11, Pittsburgh 2, Temple 1
SOUTH CAROLINA 4 $300,000 South Carolina 2, Clemson 2
TENNESSEE 7 $525,000 Tennessee 4, Memphis 3
TEXAS 16 $1,200,000 Texas A&M 9, Texas Tech 4, Texas 1, Texas Christian 1, Baylor 1
UTAH 1 $75,000 Utah St. 1
VIRGINIA 6 $450,000 Virginia Tech 5, Virginia 1
WASHINGTON 6 $450,000 Washington 5, Washington St. 1
WEST VIRGINIA 2 $150,000 West Virginia 1, Marshall 1
WISCONSIN 3 $225,000 Wisconsin 3
WHAT IS REPUBLICON RADIO WORTH?
If the GOP would pay $1000 for a 1 hour infomercial:
x 15 hours/day = $15,000/station/day
x 5 days = $75,000/station/week
x 52 weeks =$3.9MIL/station/year
x 1200 stations = $18MIL/DAY
x 5 days/week = $90MIL/WEEK
x 52 weeks = $4.68BIL/YEAR
FREE
paid for by national and local advertisers