Rumor is a statistician is about to release an accurate report of Rush Limbaugh’s national radio ratings over the past five years, compiled from the confirmable local ratings of stations around the country. The upshot: Rush is now under a million per week in regular listeners, much less than the 20 million he claims, and he’s been losing ground since 2004. Wonder what this will do to the ad rates on Limbaugh’s shows? Oh, yeah, and Clear Channel, the media corporation that’s paying Limbaugh $400 million dollars over the next eight years, is slowly going under. Who’s going to pay Limbaugh’s contract off if they go bankrupt? Perhaps they’ll ask for a government bailout to buy off Rush with the excuse that he’s too big to fail.

“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?”
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“Context: Clear Channel now pays Limbaugh more than NBC pays late-night ratings king Jay Leno. Who thinks Limbaugh brings in more ad revenue for Clear Channel than Leno does for NBC? FYI, The Tonight Show generates approximately $200 million annually for NBC.”
— Eric Boehlert, “Limbaugh’s Living Large While Radio Boss Clear Channel Implodes,” Media Matters, May 5, 2009.

“But during all this growth I havent lost any audience. Ive never had financially a down year. Theres supposedly a recession, but weve got — what is this May? Back in February we already had 102% of 2008 overbooked for 2009. So I always believed that if were going to have a recession, just dont participate.”
— Rush Limbaugh, “Limbaugh Mocks Recession During Speech to Wealthy Right-Wing Donors,” Think Progress, May 5, 2009.