RUSH: Betty from Alpharetta, Georgia. Great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s an honor to talk with you. Thanks for my call.
RUSH: You bet. Thank you.
CALLER: I’m calling to thank you for helping to keep me informed but also to thank you for helping to keep me fit. Late last year I started swimming to try and get some regular exercise. I was swimming laps and that very quickly got very boring, so then I got a waterproof case for my iPod and I started listening to music. But after a while, that got boring, too. So then a few weeks ago I realized I could get your podcast and listen to your show. So I started doing that every night and now when I’m swimming each morning, your show kind of makes the time fly. I swim for about an hour and 20 minutes every day, that’s two miles for me, and so I stay up to speed politically. I’m just a day late. My only complaint is that when you say something funny I start laughing and that can get a little dangerous in the water. (chuckles) I mean, just the other day when you reminded us about Biden asking that guy to stand up who was wheelchair bound and —
RUSH: Yes. Yes.
CALLER: — that comment, ‘Oh, God love you.’ (giggling) I started laughing and other swimmers are probably wonder why I have this big smile on my face, but I’m just happy because I’m listening to you and getting informed. But I want you to know the trouble that your jokes could be causing.
RUSH: Well, thank you very, very much. I’m still trying to envision this. I know that they have underwater encasings for iPods, but what about the headphones? How do you hear?
RUSH: It comes with waterproof earplugs, too, and it hooks into it. I have a number of iPods but I use my generation one, that little square; and then it hooks onto the back of my goggles to that band, and it’s easy. I mean, I don’t even know it’s there, and it works amazingly. It’s so weird to be swimming through the water and listening to very high fidelity sound.
RUSH: I don’t sound like I’m underwater when you’re doing this?
CALLER: (laughing) No. Not at all. It sounds terrific. I mean, it sounds perfect. It’s very weird.
RUSH: I can imagine.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Well, that’s great. I’m happy that you told me that. I did not know that iPods were that flexible underwater.
CALLER: Yeah. I mean, it’s opened up —
RUSH: I hate water, because I just don’t like getting wet.
CALLER: — a whole new world for me, and now it’s so easy. It takes me about one minute to take out your show that I listen to that day and then —
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: — reload in your show from that day that you just did.
RUSH: You do it via iTunes or through our website?
CALLER: Yeah, through iTunes. That’s through iTunes. I just have you set up as a podcast because I’m part of whatever your monthly service is, where I can pay to listen.
RUSH: You are a subscriber —
CALLER: That’s the word I’m looking for! (laughs)
RUSH: — at Rush Limbaugh.com, as opposed to being a premium member.
CALLER: Oh, I don’t know. Am I?
RUSH: You’re a subscriber.
CALLER: Okay. Well, I think I’m a premium member. Don’t you have to be a premium member to be a subscriber?
RUSH: No. We don’t… We don’t discriminate, and we don’t categorize. You are either a member or you’re not. You’re a subscriber or you’re not. We have a free side which only exists to entice people to join.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: It offers just enough to make you want more.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: It’s the old performer’s creed: Just always keep them wanting more.
CALLER: Well, I joined because I pay something. It’s a pittance, but every month I pay something.
RUSH: Well, we offer many different subscriber plans. You can join for the year, by two years, a combo with the Limbaugh Letter, or you can pay monthly.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: Which is really great for us.
CALLER: I know. You love me because I pay monthly.
RUSH: (laughing) But, you know, I’m glad you called about this because the people who put my website together every day, Koko and Koko Jr. up there, they never say anything to me. They send me: ‘Hey, we just posted this, if you want to plug the site,’ and, ‘Okay, that transcript’s up there, if you want to say that the media can now go there to purposely misquote you.’ Because I have a phobia about saying, ‘Hey, folks, go to my website and become a member.’ I’m very uncomfortable doing it, and I don’t do it nearly enough. And the podcast, I don’t even know how many of you people know that we offer this, but it’s the latest in portability. We’ve been doing it a couple years. But you can download podcasts each hour of this program as its own file. They’re made available between a half hour and an hour after each day’s program.
You can download it through iTunes or you can download it through our website. Even if you do iTunes, you have to set it up through RushLimbaugh.com. A lot of people use it the way you’re doing it, for portability. You can’t listen at the time the program is on or what have you. And now one other thing: You have given me an opportunity here to answer a question because there are people signing up for the podcasts each and every day, and I get e-mails from them. ‘Rush, how come I don’t hear your theme song? How come I don’t hear the parodies? How come? Is it something I’m doing wrong?’ No, we’re not allowed to. It’s the royalty rates. We already pay a, you know, pretty steep royalty for broadcasting this stuff, but the royalty charges are just absurd. They’re ridiculous for online, be it a parody song or be it anything that’s copyrighted, and we would have to charge so much for this that it would not make sense for you to buy it. I don’t know why these people don’t get it. We’re trying to change their royalty rates and charges but they’re not being open in reducing it. So until that happens they’re going to be dry like they are.