*** update ***
I didn’t hear the show on June 1st, but from what I’ve read Rush for the first time has told his audience that he could be affected by Clear Channel’s financial problems. So this is now much more than a rhetorical question…. That’s why the Dems aren’t fighting over the fairness doctrine – they have a much more direct route to control Rush.
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I rewrote several of the Rush answers a few times to make them more direct and take away most of the evasive answers that denied the premise of the question…
First, people that come here are not typical radio listeners. Keep that in mind. I’m guessing someone out there has taken a more scientific poll, but if they haven’t maybe they should.
The core question I was asking is – if Rush left terrestrial radio completely (make up your own scenario), would current Rush listeners pay to continue hearing his show on John Malone’s Sirius/XM or the internet?
The first answer just shows how skewed my visitors are (and those who would vote)… Rush claims to have something around 20 million weekly listeners. Among the population as a whole, that would suggest that at least 80% of American adults do not listen to Rush on a regular basis.
The answer “I don’t listen to Rush now, why I would I start?” gets only 8% of the response (People could select more than one answer – but the % is of people answering, not % of total votes)…
The second non-answer is “Rush would never do that” which denies the premise of the question is about 17%. I may have take that away as an option, and really push the question…
So of those who actually listen to Rush and responded with an answer:
- 5% say their car radio can get satellite, but they are not a subscriber – but would sign up with Sirius/XM just so they could hear Rush (Baba booey!)
- 26% would BUY a Sirius/XM radio so they could hear Rush
- 13% are already Sirius/XM subscribers (!)
- 16% would pay to access an internet stream to hear Rush
- 13% say they would stop listening to Rush
I tend to think that if Rush ever got pushed to that point, the Internet stream (Rush 24 or a subset) would become advertiser supported rather than a paid subscription – but I have nothing on which to base that other than my instincts.
Also, Rush is not on when most people are in their cars. People might be thinking of a 24 hr/day All Rush all the time Channel regarding subscribing to Sirius.
If people aren’t lying because they want to give me the answer they think I want to hear (entirely possible)…. Terrestrial radio has a -lot to worry about – at least on the AM dial.