By COLIN M. STEWART
By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer
No Rush Limbaugh program advertisers were angered or inconvenienced this week when Hilo-based KPUA-AM 670 chose to drop the show after 16 years, according to the station’s owner. That’s because there weren’t any, he said.
“The reality of it is that we actually had zero advertisers specific to the Rush Limbaugh show,” said Chris Leonard, president and general manager of New West Broadcasting. “It turns out there was not a lot of advertiser support for the program, ultimately.”
The station dropped the nationally syndicated program on Monday, after Limbaugh made personal attacks on a young woman who said her college’s health plan should pay for contraception. Leonard called Limbaugh’s comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke “egregious,” adding that his decision to cancel the conservative commentator’s show was “in some regards, an easy one, in other regards, a difficult one.”
On Friday, Leonard said he had made a strong effort to avoid approaching the cancellation of the show on political terms. But during the past week, his office has received huge numbers of phone calls and emails criticizing him for dropping the show.
“Suffice it to say, we’ve had hundreds of phone calls over the course of the week. And well over 1,000 emails in that same period of time,” he said.
Some of the emails criticizing his decision have shown similarities, as if they were form letters sent from a political blog, he said. “We know that our name and address has been posted on national sites with people encouraging them to weigh in on the issue,” Leonard said.
But, he added, the majority of the contact has been positive in nature.
“Overwhelmingly it’s been in support of our decision,” he said. “Both locally, and from all over the country, and even around the world, as this story has grown.”
Ultimately, however, the decision to drop Limbaugh had nothing to do with making headlines or drawing attention, he said.
“We’ve turned down a lot of interview requests, and I’ve debated discussing this further with the media,” Leonard said. “It’s very much been politicized. Those who take the time to read my original release (will see that) I was pretty clear on our views on the issue. But, there are those still convinced it was political and they want to frame it in that regard.”
Last week, 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. His remarks set off a nationwide controversy, with advertisers dropping out of his show. KPUA was identified as the first radio station to drop the political talk show.
“The decision-making process on this was not based on ratings or revenue,” Leonard said at the time. “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 station has filled the air time with an expanded sports talk program, Leonard said.
“Ultimately, we’ll be looking at a number of programming options,” he added.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.