Rush Limbaugh is claiming that the emotional decisions of women, and shows like HBO’s Girls are ruining television.
Transcript from Rush Limbaugh:
“As a female news editor on a TV newscast deciding what to show and what not to show. The chickification of the news. In fact, in the stack I have a story about that. Some guy, I think his name is Nolte, I have to find this. It’s in the stack here and it’s not a very big stack today, I’ll get to it, about the chickification of television and how more and more women are determining what everybody watches on TV.
This guy cites this rave show on HBO, starring Lena Dunham. Is that her name? The woman did the commercial for Obama saying, “Your first time is really important”? Yeah. First time. Don’t just do it with any guy. You know, pick from five or six. And she was talking about your first vote. Well, she’s got this show on HBO called Girls. That show. Now, if you knew nothing other — and let me do a test, Snerdley, you react. What do you know of that show? So you watched 20 minutes, fine. What is your impression of that show, as you listen to media buzz, Lena Dunham’s all over the place. She’s a guest on Letterman. She’s apparently the architect for what young women ought to be today. What is the impression that you have? The show is huge, right? Is that the impression you get in the media?
Everybody’s watching, everybody. And that show’s cutting edge. Only 600,000 viewers. That is this guy’s point, not even a million. Fewer viewers than The Daily Show. This has been my point all along about media buzz, how they go out and create this notion that something’s hotter and more popular than anything in the world, when it isn’t. And his point is that you’ve gotta be very careful in assessing what really is popular and what really isn’t and how things that aren’t popular are kept on the air by virtue of buzz or bias or what have you. And his point was that it’s because women are making programming decisions on an emotional basis. I am just telling you what he said.”
Rush’s rant was based one of the most poorly researched pieces of ratings comparison ever written. Over at Breitbart, one of their crack geniuses is contending that reruns of “The O’Reilly Factor” are more popular than HBO’s Girls. His conclusion is that the success of “Girls” is nothing but left wing hype by the mainstream media. Of course, this right wing “intellectual giant” doesn’t bother to tell his readers that HBO is pay channel with 25-30 million US subscribers while Fox News is available in 90 million American homes. Fox News is in more than twice as many homes, so they should have twice as many viewers. Something would be seriously wrong if they didn’t. In the facts optional conservative mind O’Reilly beats all, so the “liberal mainstream media” are a bunch of liars.
Limbaugh is blaming the decline of television on the fact that women are getting some limited opportunities to put their visions on the small screen. “Girls” is a great show. It speaks volumes about Rush Limbaugh as a man that he is so intimidated by it. Tina Feys’ “30 Rock” just concluded a great and innovative run.
What Rush Limbaugh, the right, and the mainstream media all don’t seem to understand is that having more diversity makes your product stronger. The Republican Party is at one of their lowest points because they are being dominated by the views of white men.
Women are the majority in this country, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to Republicans, their media, or even watching television. Old guard relics like Rush Limbaugh are being phased out as new, younger, and hopefully more female minds populate our television and media.
More women in executive positions in media and television aren’t the problem. They’re the future.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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