By JOHN BURNETT
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A Hilo radio station appears to be the first in the nation to cancel Rush Limbaugh’s show in response to his personal attack on a woman who said her college’s health plan should pay for contraception.
KPUA-AM 670 dropped the nationally syndicated program Monday. Chris Leonard, president and general manager of New West Broadcasting, called Limbaugh’s comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke “egregious.” He added that his decision to cancel the conservative commentator’s show was “in some regards, an easy one, in other regards, a difficult one.”
“This wasn’t framed in political terms,” Leonard said Monday. “Our decision was based on decency and responsibility, and regardless of your views on the issue, his comments were well over the line. It’s a program that we’ve carried for a long time and I know there are a lot of people out there who listen to the program on a regular basis.”
Leonard said he’s received phone calls from numerous national media outlets and “well over a thousand” emails about the cancellation.
“Apparently, we were the first in the country to cancel and it has generated a fair amount of national attention, which was certainly not our intent, and we have received a ton of feedback on both sides of the issue over the past several hours,” he noted. “We’ve heard a lot from Rush listeners who are disappointed in our decision and we’ve also heard from a lot of people who are very happy about the decision.”
Leonard said that for now, the station has expanded its sports talk programming into the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. time slot that Limbaugh occupied, but said he’ll continue to seek alternative programming.
On Wednesday, Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she testified before Congressional Democrats in favor of their national health care policy that would require her Jesuit school’s health plan to cover birth control.
The following day, the radio host upped the ante, adding: “So, Miss Fluke, if we are going to … pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”
The remarks set off a firestorm of controversy. AOL and Tax Resolution Services Co. on Monday became the eighth and ninth advertisers to leave Limbaugh’s three-hour show. Limbaugh issued an apology in an effort to stem the exodus of advertisers and fellow conservatives declined to offer him support.
“I should not have used the language I did, and it was wrong,” a rarely contrite Limbaugh told listeners.
But callers to the show urged him not to give in to critics, which now include Republican leaders in Congress and those seeking the GOP presidential nomination. He blamed the media for the pressure.
“Talk about a double standard,” Limbaugh said. “Rappers can say anything they want about women. It’s called art. And they win awards.”
Limbaugh sought to find some humor in the situation.
“I called myself to cancel my advertising. I got a busy signal,” he intoned at the start of Monday’s program.
Yet, he appeared defiant and suggested he’d have little trouble finding new sponsors.
“I reject millions of dollars of advertisers a year much to the chagrin of my hard-working sales staff,” Limbaugh said.
Clear Channel’s Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates the talk show, issued a statement of support on Monday for Limbaugh, whose on-air contract runs through 2016. Premiere said that it respects his right to express his opinions and “in an attempt at absurdist humor to illustrate his political point, Mr. Limbaugh used words that unfortunately distracted from the message he was trying to convey.”
Leonard said that Limbaugh’s program came in second in it’s time slot among men ages 25-54 in the latest Arbitron ratings but said that it was “not a huge source of revenue” for the station.
“The decision-making process on this was not based on ratings or revenue,” he said. “It was based on what we felt was right.
“I spent a lot of time deliberating this over the weekend and asked myself the question had this been one of our disc jockeys who had made a similar comment on one of our five stations, what would I have done? And the answer is they wouldn’t be employed here today.”
The Associated Press contributed.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.