Why Rush’s sponsor ProFlowers is hanging onto the Abusive GOP Mouthpiece
After Rush Limbaugh’s vitriolic attack on college student Sandra Fluke (followed by his less-than-craven apology), we should be following the winding road of Rush Limbaugh’s demise, as some advertisers have abruptly pulled their sponsorships (including Carbonite, Quicken Loans, Heart & Body Extract, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, Legal Zoom, Citrix and the Cleveland Cavaliers), some are hanging on like grim death (ProFlowers, Oreck, AOL, American Forces Network, and Mission Pharmacal Company (makers of Citrical)), and the sound of crickets can be heard from Republican politicians and GOP presidential candidates.
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So, normally I don’t do the money trail thing very well – but it was remarkably easy to learn a few things about the advertisers (one in particular, ProFlowers) with lips stubbornly pressed to Limbaugh’s sturdy backside. We know that ProFlowers is a huge force in on-line floral offerings – and we know that, for some time, it’s been a contributor to Republican causes. ProFlowers is operated by Provide Commerce, which in turn is part of Liberty Media. Liberty Media owns about 16% of Barnes & Noble, and Provide Commerce is behind the online entities known as Cherry Moon Farms, Secret Spoon, Shari’s Berries, Florist Express and RedEnvelope. Liberty Media, with the majority of voting shares owned by John C. Malone, made almost $11 billion (yes, that’s with a “b”) bucks in 2010, with net earnings of almost $1.9 billion (and they apparently believe they don’t need our measly progressive dollars). Liberty Media also owns limited portions of over a dozen other entities. Liberty Capital, a division of Liberty Media, has financial interests in the Atlanta Braves, Overture Films, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Starz Media, TruePosition, Time Warner, Viacom and, interestingly, Sirius XM Radio.
So, in summary, ProFlowers is part of Provide Commerce which is part of Liberty Media, of which Liberty Capital is a division, and the whole kit and kaboodle is worth billions. And the whole kit and kaboodle might explain why ProFlowers – in the face of all that is progressively outraged – is hanging on to Rush for dear life.
Given his dwindling popularity (a recent Harris poll shows he is far and away the least favorite political pundit), his more recent dust-up while in the employ of his current employer, the Premier Radio Networks, and the fact that Sirius XM radio has already picked up two of the three most popular radio shows (those of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity), could it be that one of the reasons ProFlowers is still an advertiser is because its owner seeks to benefit financially from picking up Rush Limbaugh on Sirius XM radio? After all, ProFlowers hung on tenaciously to Glenn Beck during the colorofchange.org campaign to urge his advertisers to drop him (which at least 300 of them did) for calling President Obama a ”racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people”; Beck was later picked up by Sirius radio.
More:
http://freakoutnation.com/2012/03/04/why-rushs-sponsor-proflowers-is-hanging-onto-the-abusive-gop-mouthpiece/
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