Who is “they”? AFAIK, he owns his own show and all rights thereto. So any continuation of it after he’s gone is totally dependent on his own succession planning and selling / bequeathing the rights to someone … or not.
Good point. Whether the ridiculously named Excellence in Broadcasting Network survives or not I don’t know. But someone will take the 12-3 time slot on Hate Radio and I don’t think there’s anyone with the following to command 3 hours.
I agree with BobLibDem, I don’t think that they will even try to replace him. The audience will be gone when Rush is. I am not an avid fan but the start of his show matches up with my drive home from night shift.
He has been doing what he does for a long, long, time and he knows his subject, from his point of view. He often has an insight into the topic that would not occur to me. Not that I always agree, and I recognize that there is a huge entertainment factor in what he does even though you are supposed to believe that he is dead serious all the time. Like the best troll on the planet talent.
He has had several fill-in hosts while he has been undergoing treatment every other week or so, and none of them, even Mark Steyn, are worth listening to at all.
When I saw “golden microphone” I immediately thought of the Imperium of Man and that they will probably keep him in stasis indefinitely, fueled, not by the life of a thousand psykers a day, but the feeble intellect of a thousand of his listeners a day, such as it is.
Most of Rush’s listeners these days are older than dirt anyway. When Rush is gone, the audience will be lucky to survive him by five years.
Anecdatally, the two biggest Rush fans I know of are around my age - I may or may not be old but bucket-kicking isn’t in my medium term future.
Which isn’t to say that I didn’t know of any Boomers who listen to Rush but that was during the heyday of his mainstream popularity in the mid to late 90s and they weren’t commenting about how right he was, they were just listening because he was on.
Just a WAG on my part but I betcha a big demographic for Rush is Gen X white guys who spend lots of work hours driving.
My money is on the abhorrent Michael Savage.
I would like to extend thoughts and prayers to Limbaugh. I would like to. Who am I kidding? Even the phony Republican thoughts and prayers will not be extended by me to that destroyer of decency.
As others have said - Limbaugh as what he represented tor RWRadio is irreplaceable and also, with the evolution of media, may well be one of a vanishing breed.
When it comes to strict on-air mechanics I can foresee bump’s scenario, the stations will offer the spot to one of their next-biggest moneymakers or promising up-and-comers. But that is really the most trivial part of the “replacement”. If I’m solidly killing it in the 10-12 slot in my market, gathering followership, do I really want to take the chance on Rush’s spot and his listeners, or would I rather continue to build my spot and my audience, which I already have cultivated, into the one that rules the market?
Now, whoever the stations had on the lead-in or on the follow-on slots, those guys are the ones relly wondering what now. They are losing audience coattails.
But he’s a monarchist and a neo-colonialist of sorts so that balances it out.
The other option is an up and coming younger voice that appreiates the chance and can build their own brand.
What nobody should even try to do is being Rush 2.0.
I’m still rather lugubrious about the news of Rush.
More than nine months later … I’m still surprisingly doleful about the death of their drummer, Neil Peart.
Rush is actually sane compared to many of his callers. Some callers think he is a liberal.