Comments on Pulling Out

John Gibson, not Josh.

Thanks UnoriginalAndrew. I changed it.

you mean the guy who told a caller to "get AIDS and die" like, 5 years ago? they're pulling their ads now? better late than never, i guess.

"advertisers on the Savage show by mistake"

Riiiiight.

Savage. Wait, which one are we talking about?

Oh, I can already hear the high-pitched howls of indignation and outrage from the wing-nuts, claiming us hate-mongering "libruls" are out to censor their beloved, bile-spewing Mssrs. Wiener and Gibson!

And I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh at their peurile tantrums!

Tres amusant!

I'm a liberal but i think Savage is hilarious, he's the right wing Malloy. The Stranger is all about free speech until you say something about the gays, making fun of dead babies is good for ad's, but not liking gays means you should be fired.

Savage has been getting a lot of mileage out of a similar boycott situation on his radio show, which just keeps growing in audience (up to 8 million now according to the San Francisco Chronicle) in spite of or because of the publicity. He's got listeners contributing to his "legal defense fund" to "defend free speech" and is trying to sue CAIR for "reappropriating and misusing" portions of his copyrighted work for fundraising, claiming that they are a group sponsoring terrorism and that they are using his work against his will to do so. It's an interesting legal case that analysts think CAIR will want to settle out of court: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2007/12/19/cstillwell.DTL

I really doubt a few sponsors pulling their ad time will make much of a difference. Mike Savage is not going any place. He has too many listeners and that means ad dollars.

But it is nice to think Savage COULD get pulled from the air.

CatotYY,

It's not the number of LISTENERS that count, but rather the number of ADVERTISERS who are willing to pony up for access to those listeners - that's what drives the market.

Severely reduce the number of advertisers willing to pay for slots on shows like Wiener's & Gibson's, and the rates for those slots drop. It's the old law of "supply and demand"; reducing demand increases supply, which in turn makes the supply less valuable.

If enough advertisers drop out, AND those slots aren't picked up by other advertisers, Wiener's ability to generate revenue - his "value" decreases accordingly. If the defections continued, eventually it would reach a point where you couldn't give away ad time on his show, in which case his value to the network would be nil, and there'd be no economic incentive to keep him on the air.