RUSH: John in Aurora, Ohio. You’re next, and it’s great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Hey, my question for you is, “I’ve noticed you’ve been doing more TV lately. Is that because you are more worried than normal? You’ve always told us you would tell us when to panic, and I was just wondering if that’s why you were doing more TV.”
RUSH: You know, I hadn’t even thought about that ’til I saw your call up there, and I’ve been… It’s a good question. I… No. I mean, the short answer is no, but then I am doing TV more frequently so I’m asking myself here, as you asked me, why am I doing it? (sigh) I don’t know. I think a large part of it is that these invitations have come in, and they’ve been very difficult to say “no” to. You wouldn’t believe the ones I turn down. I turn down minimum two requests a day, sometimes eight a week, from the Drive-Bys, like the Today Show, Good Morning America. There is simply no way.
CALLER: I’m not surprised. You do very well on TV.
RUSH: Well, I don’t… (chuckles) I appreciate that. I don’t want to be negative about this, but I don’t really like it. I mean, if you want to know the truth… You know what happens when I do TV? The last TV appearance I did, they said, “Eight to nine minutes.” I said, “Okay.” So you get yourself ready for eight to nine minutes. Then they tell you right before, “It’s gonna go 15.” “Oh. Okay.” It ends up going 20. Okay. Fine. That’s fine, if all I had to do was 20 minutes.
I had to be here an hour and a half early, then I had to go put makeup on, and then I had to go through all the lighting and all. Everything about it, the stuff you have to do around it, takes up much more time and is such a distraction that it really… That’s why I don’t do it every day. I did it for four years every day, and it was an experience and so forth. I appreciate your compliment, don’t misunderstand. But why am I doing them more? I don’t know.
It’s not because I’m panicked and I think that we’re down to the nitty-gritty time. It’s not that. It’s just every time I say, “yes,” it’s on a whim. It’s a result of, like, a brain-burst answer. Because my instinct is to say “no” to all of them. I mean, whenever request comes, I say “no” to every one of them first, and then if they keep coming back, sometimes I relent and say “yes” and sometimes I don’t. I wish I could tell you there’s some gigantic strategic reason for them, but there isn’t. It’s just some days, I happen to feel like saying “yes.” Does that make sense?
CALLER: Yes, it does. It helps get the message out there. You do very well at that.
RUSH: So what you’re actually saying is I should do more of it?
CALLER: Well, I think you should. I think that you articulate the issues — and also what the enemy is up to — so well, that if it got to a bigger audience, it would help.
RUSH: Well, it’s not a bigger one. It may be a different one. It’s actually a much smaller audience.
CALLER: Oh, okay. Yeah, you’re right about that.
RUSH: But it’s a different one.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: You know, people watching at night may not have the ability to listen live during the daytime, which is why I’m constantly reminding people of the podcast or the RushLimbaugh.com app, which makes listening to the program any time you have time easy and easier than it’s ever been, with the RushLimbaugh.com app or the website and now with the podcast. But I still… Yeah, it’s reaching a different audience. There’s no question about that. But it is not necessarily bigger.
But you add them together, it’s bigger, either way you cut it. So it’s a relevant factor. But I appreciate your thoughts on it. You know, folks, I go back and back and forth on this. There are times… (muttering) I don’t want to divulge too much here, but let’s put it this way. If I wanted to be on TV every day, I probably could, and I don’t want to do that. But, at the same time, I know of its effectiveness — if it happens to be a good segment. You can also bomb out on these segments.
You can wear the wrong color tie and nothing else matters. If you have a loose strand of hair — even though I don’t have many strands at all. A loose strand of hair can be such a distraction that people don’t remember what you said. On radio, everybody knows what you say because that’s all there is. But on television, there’s the visual competition. When I did my TV show for those four years, I can’t tell you how frustrating it was — and I’m not complaining. I’m sharing. I’m informing.
On any given night, there were a couple of segments that I would think were just kick-butt barnburner, and I’d get no reaction to ’em at all. They were reacting, “Oh, that video you played? Ha-ha! I was really laughing at that,” and then shows that I thought were really kind of average and no good, people would say, “Man, that video you played? I just loved it.” But it was all visual. The reaction was all about the visual.
But people reacting to the radio show never tell me anything other than what they heard me say, which is the important part of it, obviously. Radio and TV are two completely different things, and to do a regular television show the way I do radio is not possible. Improv. You cannot do improv on TV. You can get there partway, but you can’t do it all the way. But, nevertheless, I don’t want to muddy the waters here. The guy was being nice and complimentary, and I appreciate it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look, one thing: The guy that called me about television and was very complimentary, said, “You should do more of it.” I don’t want to appear to be giving the guy short shrift. I appreciate his thoughts and the compliments. I agonize. I’ll just be honest: I agonize about it. This is one of those things where I think I probably should do it, but I don’t like it, and I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve reached a moment in life where I don’t have to do what I don’t want to do. Do you realize what freedom that is?
It’s taken a lot of hard work. It’s taken a lot of time to get to that point. But I’m like anybody else. Even though there are things I don’t want to do, there are many of those things that I realize I should do. But why should I do them? Should I do them because it’s on the scale of self-advancement, self-improvement? Should I do it because I can? Should I do it because I’m being asked or invited to do it?
Should I do it because it’s necessary? All those things go back and forth in my mind, and always come back to the fact that (chuckles) I really don’t… It’s not that I don’t like it. This is even tough to explain. (big sigh) I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to appear to be giving anybody brushoff treatment when they ask me about it or compliment me. I do appreciate it. That’s the main point.