ST. LOUIS, MO (KMOX) - "I think Rush was the first guy who took conservative talk radio, and he certainly did his fair share of preaching, but I think the audience and the followers felt he explained it better than anybody else had ever done it in the past," says Steve Moore, KMOX Brand Manager for Audacy St. Louis, explaining Limbaugh's legacy on the "What the Media?!!?" podcast (produced by KMOX News).
20 million loyal listeners connected to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh through more than 650 radio stations across the country, including KMOX. When Limbaugh passed away from cancer in February 2021, programmers like Moore had to decide how to replace his legendary voice. "There was a trust that goes along with it and the audience was super, super loyal to him."
Moore opted for local programming. "If you're local you can drive more local inventory (ads) and local talent doing live endorsements," Moore explains, the marketplace has changed. "Audacy acquired a couple other radio stations including one of KMOX's direct competitors, which is a conservative talk station. So it didn't make sense to have two radio stations in each other's way. It made sense to have KMOX back to its roots of local focus. Our positioning statement is the 'Voice of St. Louis.'"
Moore says, if the new hosts taking over for Rush are successful, "if they're doing well at the expense of our sister station, it doesn't make sense. It's not a good business decision."
Click on the link below to hear the full "What the Media?!!?" podcast with Moore, KMOX's Megan Lynch and Media Literacy expert Julie Smith.
What did the Limbaugh show mean in terms of revenue for the station? "It really wasn't as big of a revenue play, from the standpoint of sell spots inside his show." Moore adds because the show was sometimes controversial, there were advertisers that would 'redline' it, not wanting their spots to air during the program. On the other hand, other advertisers wanted to be featured. "It wasn't necessarily that it drove revenue, but it drove ratings for a long time on the radio station."
"Back in the day he would do bits and stunts and parodies," explains Moore, "so he was really a broader talk show, it just got more narrow as he got more successful." Moore had the opportunity to ask Limbaugh about that during one of the host's visits to St. Louis. "He said that the audience had become so into the lane of the conservative on that agenda that... ...he didn't perceive that they wanted to hear him talk about those other things. I actually believe that was a little bit of a miss."
The 11 am - 2 pm slot held for decades by the Rush Limbaugh Show is now hosted by Carol Daniel, Ryan Wrecker and Bo Matthews and called St. Louis Talks.
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