In his newsletter, Tom Taylor of Radio-Info.com said the following about the millions of dollars of ad revenue flowing into right-wing radio — and the Politico.com article referenced deals with the expected return on investment:
Top conservative talkers get scrutiny from Politico over live-read ads, and embedded ads.
Specifically, the ones from three major not-for-profit think tanks. Politico.com says the Heritage Foundation spends about $2 million with Premiere’s Rush Limbaugh Show and about $1.3 million with stablemate Sean Hannity. While Mark Levin’s show features ads from Americans for Prosperity. And Glenn Beck may be a paid spokesperson for FreedomWorks. Politico’s not saying there’s anything improper about the sponsorship deals. (Though one major-market talk PD tells TRI “It does kinda bring up the issue of sponsor ID.”) The question, as always in these things, is disclosure. Is it clear to the audience that something on the air is being paid for, and who that advertiser is? Expect this story and this topic to rattle around the talk-o-sphere for a while.
