{"id":8407,"date":"2014-09-12T16:20:33","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T16:20:33","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-05-04T11:38:20","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T15:38:20","slug":"thank_you_all_for_my_fifth_marconi_award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/09\/12\/thank_you_all_for_my_fifth_marconi_award\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank You All for My Fifth Marconi Award!"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Greetings, my friends, and you are listening to a five-time winner of the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi award for excellence in syndicated and network broadcasting. Rush Limbaugh, on Friday. Let\u2019s hit it.<\/p>\n

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it\u2019s Open Line Friday!<\/p>\n

RUSH. Yes siree, Bob! Open Line Friday, where you know how things play out. Monday through Thursday the people that call the program have to talk about about something I care about to get on the air. But Friday you don\u2019t. You can talk about whatever you want. Questions, comments, you name it, telephone number is 800-282-2882. We always try to take more calls on Friday. We seldom achieve that, but we always try.<\/p>\n


\nThere was a football event last night. They actually played a game in the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers. More about that in a minute. We have a race. Men in sports, both at the executive level and in the media level, are in a race to see who can be the most politically correct feminized guy in America. And of course there are a plethora of reasons for that, some of which we will delve into here.<\/p>\n

But while I was watching the game last night, or trying to get into it — I\u2019m telling you, it\u2019s different this year and it\u2019s not just Ray Rice. It\u2019s a sum total of everything about football that has nothing to do with football that is souring me on the whole thing. It just isn\u2019t what it was to me. It certainly isn\u2019t an escape. It\u2019s no longer Fantasyland.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I\u2019m sitting there, I\u2019ve got the game on and I\u2019m working on show prep at the same time. I get an e-mail and then another e-mail, and three or four more e-mails, and the e-mails keep rolling in. The National Association of Broadcasters convention annual convention is in Indianapolis this year, and last night was the grand conclusion gala awards dinner at which they hand out the Marconi awards.<\/p>\n

Marconi awards are given in several categories by market size, the station of the year, legendary station, media market, small market, major market, and then small market personality, media market person and so forth and so on. There\u2019s a category for syndicated or network host. I have been nominated for that award 12 times. Last night I won it for the fifth time, joining the late Paul Harvey<\/a> as the only person to win it five times, which I didn\u2019t know until I was told later last night. I\u2019d lost track \u2019cause we\u2019ve got them in different places.<\/p>\n


\nTwo of them are here and two of them are at home. I\u2019d lost count, so somebody told me, “It\u2019s your fifth and only Paul Harvey has won that many.” So, you know, it\u2019s an acknowledgement from the industry, which makes it even more meaningful and profound. The people that vote on this are people that operate radio stations, operate and program radio stations in all formats. Nominations are sometime in the summer, then the vote\u2019s conducted sometime after that. And this year\u2019s nominees, I mean, they were tremendous competition in the category, and I, frankly, thought I\u2019ve got no chance. I\u2019m old news.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in my 26th year. Some of the nominees were up for their first or second time. So I was totally surprised. I\u2019d had no expectation of winning this thing. I have more than my share, for example, they might want to spread it around. But then again it\u2019s a legitimate private vote. I think every radio station involved — it used to be you get two votes, general manager, program director, something. So, to me, it is a huge deal because it\u2019s voted on by professionals in the industry.<\/p>\n

I just want to take a moment here to sincerely thank everybody in the broadcast business. You know, radio is considered to be, and has been for a long time — this is nothing that\u2019s relevant to anything now. It\u2019s just always been the case. Since television was invented, radio has always been considered, by the entertainment media, anyway, to be among the lowest rungs of the show biz ladder. And it\u2019s the only media that I have ever really loved. I have a deep devotion to the importance of radio, to the history and legacy of it. I actually believe, and always have, that radio done well can have as much impact, if not more so, than television.<\/p>\n

Even though there aren\u2019t any pictures, that\u2019s the beauty of it. You can create your own in the minds of the listeners. But the great thing about radio, aside from that, I think radio offers the opportunity for the most direct and intimate relationship or bond with the audience of all media, and the reason precisely is because there aren\u2019t any pictures. There are no pictures to distract anybody\u2019s attention or to divide it.<\/p>\n

A good radio program will create what I call “active” rather than passive listening. Active listening is the audience 100% engaged, hanging on everything that happens. Passive listening is when it\u2019s on in the background and you\u2019re doing other things. I don\u2019t mean to be critical here, but just factually, that describes some Muzak, elevator music. Music formats are designed for things to be going on in the background while you\u2019re doing something else.<\/p>\n

Television, a lot of times the TV\u2019s on in the room, nobody\u2019s even paying attention to it. It\u2019s just there to provide noise so that you don\u2019t have to sit around in a dead silent room. Now, other times people are paying rapt attention to TV, don\u2019t misunderstand. But radio done well is never in the background. Radio done well requires, I mean, it will create massive active audience participation. And that\u2019s always been the attraction of it, to me. It\u2019s always been the allure of it to me. And the fact that there aren\u2019t any pictures means there\u2019s no distraction from what is the focal point, or what is the importance, which happens to be whatever you\u2019re saying or talking about.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a talent to begin with, but it\u2019s a practiced and learned skill, and for all of this to happen the primary ingredient is empathy, which translates to total respect for the audience. Because the audience will know, you will know if you\u2019re being mocked, if you\u2019re being laughed at, if you\u2019re being made fun of, if you\u2019re thought of in less-than-respectful terms. One thing that I\u2019ve always tried to do is maintain a respectful relationship with the audience. I assume that every one of you in this audience are here because you\u2019re interested and you\u2019re bright and you\u2019re intelligent and you\u2019re open, and therefore there\u2019s no talking down to anybody here.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the beauty of it all. When it all comes together and works, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything better than radio. And I think, because of that, radio has its own kind of — when I say “power,” I don\u2019t mean manipulative power. I\u2019m talking about the ability to motivate or inspire or any of the positive virtues. It has just as much ability to do that as any media that\u2019s showing you pictures. I\u2019ve done television and it\u2019s fine, but I\u2019m not a collaborative guy so TV isn\u2019t for me. TV is a collaborative effort. You have to have five or six people knowing in advance what you\u2019re gonna do before you do it in order to make it happen. And I don\u2019t work that way. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m gonna do in advance.<\/p>\n

So TV is very hard for me. I can\u2019t be spontaneous in television so it\u2019s not as fulfilling as radio is. Radio is always going to be what it is to me. And to get this award for the fifth time is really a big deal to me, and I wanted again to thank everybody in the broadcast community who participated in the vote, and of course all of you. ‘Cause without any of you, without you, none of this would be happening at all. And that\u2019s the recognition. Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations is not a joke.<\/p>\n


\nWhen thinking about the program and what it\u2019s gonna be, everything\u2019s for the show, everything\u2019s for the audience, is exactly the way I do it. I want to play just a little sound bite here before we get to the things happening in the news out there, and it is juicy today. I am chomping at the bit. I cannot wait to begin discussing with you how CBS prevented a football game last night. But I want to take you back to my appearance on William Shatner\u2019s television show on the Biography Channel. It\u2019s called Shatner\u2019s Raw Nerve.<\/p>\n

The show was an hour, I think it was. It ended up the taping was two and a half hours, and I said, “This is so good that you\u2019re not gonna be able to edit this down to one hour. You\u2019re gonna need to do a bonus episode.” And they all readily agreed and then they chopped it up and made it an hour. It was good. It was fine. I was just joking with \u2019em. But it was December 6th of 2009, so five years ago when this aired. And Shatner says, “You brought something with you here you wanted to show me to discuss.”<\/p>\n

RUSH: I did. My parents, despite what I told you earlier about being frightened of my being on the radio, gave me this for Christmas when I was nine years old. This is a Remco Caravelle, and it actually transmits —<\/p>\n

SHATNER: It transmits?<\/p>\n

RUSH: It transmits on an AM frequency of your choice for 500 feet. And I would take this up to my bedroom and play records and play deejay —<\/p>\n

SHATNER: To the house.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — to the house, and my mother and dad would sit down and listen to me. It sounded like — the quality was horrible, but I was on the radio.<\/p>\n

SHATNER: And did they indulge you?<\/p>\n

RUSH: They gave me this for Christmas.<\/p>\n

SHATNER: Isn\u2019t that something. Let\u2019s give little Rushie a prize which he\u2019ll grow out of and go on to college. We know that he will.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I had quit the Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts. I was a quitter. I\u2019d quit everything conformist I was supposed to do. This is the one thing I didn\u2019t quit, radio, so they indulged me, “At least he\u2019s showing some stick-to-itiveness.”<\/p>\n

SHATNER: Right. Or were you afraid of disappointing them? And yet in a way —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

SHATNER: And yet in a way you engineered it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah. (laughing) That\u2019s deep — that\u2019s deep! That\u2019s exactly right.<\/p>\n

SHATNER: I\u2019ve enjoyed this.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you, Bill, very much.<\/p>\n

SHATNER: Very much.<\/p>\n

RUSH: A pleasure to meet you, be on your show. Thank you for asking me.<\/p>\n

SHATNER: You\u2019re a gem.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I only have that Remco back here in our Apple stash prize closet, I only have that because a listener sent his to me way, way back, long time ago. I told the story on the radio a long time ago, and so I\u2019ve got it back there and I took it with me because they asked for visual aids \u2019cause it\u2019s a television show, bring pictures, artifacts. I said, “I\u2019ll take the Remco Caravelle. I\u2019ve never shown anybody that.” So that\u2019s what that was.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it\u2019s quite an honor to receive this in year 26th and for the fifth time. So thank you once again to everybody and anybody who had anything to do with it because trust me and believe me, it\u2019s more than sincerely appreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Greetings, my friends, and you are listening to a five-time winner of the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi award for excellence in syndicated and network broadcasting. Rush Limbaugh, on Friday. Let\u2019s hit it. JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it\u2019s Open Line Friday! RUSH. Yes siree, Bob! Open Line Friday, where you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThank You All for My Fifth Marconi Award! - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/09\/12\/thank_you_all_for_my_fifth_marconi_award\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Thank You All for My Fifth Marconi Award! - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Greetings, my friends, and you are listening to a five-time winner of the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi award for excellence in syndicated and network broadcasting. 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