PrintLook who's listening in the big blue cities
Yesterday the ratings numbers for talk radio indicated Rush Limbaugh was a hit in deep blue New York. And that's no one city quirk. Apparently the man those tolerant liberals love to hate is also wildly popular in bluest Chicago and Los Angeles.
Limbaugh's popularity transcends generations: his listeners from the ages of 12—54 outnumber Al Franken's by more than 3 to 1 in those cities. (Yeah, yeah I know, Al Franken's natural audience has more important things to do than listen to the radio——they're busy downloading their iPods while enjoying their cities' culture.)
Rush Limbaugh, the first national radio host to interview Vice President Dick Cheney and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani today about President George W. Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, also was first today in the Arbitron Spring 2005 ratings survey for Los Angeles and Chicago. The Rush Limbaugh Show, heard Monday through Friday on KFI—AM in Los Angeles from 9 a.m. — noon scored, among Persons 12+, a 4.4 share with 100,100 listeners tuning in, on average, every quarter hour. Among Adults 25—54, he has a 2.5 share with 35,900 of them tuning in, on average, every quarter hour. Al Franken, who airs at the same time on KTLK—AM in Los Angeles, has a share of 1.2 with 28,400 listeners Persons 12+ tuning in, on average, every quarter hour. With Adults 25—54, he has a 0.8 share with a listening audience of 11,900, on average, every quarter hour. Mr. Limbaugh's audience of Persons 12+ is three and a half times the size of Mr. Franken's audience. Among Adults 25—54, Mr. Limbaugh more than triples Mr. Franken's audience.
Keep on talking Rush. And Al, you can talk but people don't have to listen. That's called freedom.
Ethel C. Fenig 7 21 05
