Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Coordinating Efforts To Contact Michael Savage's Advertisers

In an effort to consolidate the list of Michael Savage's sponsors in all markets, I have created a links section on this page and consolidated the lists I have so far. I would like to involve as many people from as many different markets as possible in this effort until we have responses from every company on the list or Michael Savage is off the air.

Unfortunately, to get a comprehensive and accurate list, some of us must listen to Michael Savage's show. I have found that some lists online include sponsors who have already dropped Savage due to disparaging comments he has made about various groups in the past. Some lists are even from the effort to cancel his old MSNBC show. We must make certain that we are not focusing our efforts on the wrong companies.

What I want to do is have a distribution list of people who want to gather an accurate list of sponsors. Please email me at gregtreich@comcast.net if you would like to particpate. What I would like to see is a list of companies who are advertising on Michael Savages show with a log of the times the ads aired. We need these lists from as many markets as possible, and if there are several of you in a single market, you can rotate your listening duty. The point is not to get ratings for Michael Savage, but to concentrate on contacting the advertisers.

For those who believe that Michael Savage has a right to say the things he says and that we're demolishing the First Amendment by trying to take away his voice, please remember that we're not trying to regulate him out of the radio market or sue him blind. We are using true market forces to oust him from the airwaves. He absolutely loves the free market, right? Yes, unless it works against him. We are voting here with our power in the market as consumers.

If Savage's listeners want to donate money to keep him on the air, so be it. That's the market at work. We would still no longer have to support his opinion with a portion of the dollars we spend on the goods and services offered by the people who advertise on his program. If he can find enough sponsors to support him, they'll have a limited consumer base and won't be able to compete as successfully in the market.

It's ironic that Michael Savage calls the people protesting him "Stalinists", considering that we're using the power of the market to accomplish our goals.

We must also not lose sight of what he said to launch this effort in the first place, no matter how he tries to spin it.

5 comments:

danette said...

Thanks for your comment on my blog, and thanks for compiling this list! I'm going to post a link to it on my blog.

I can't stomach listening to his show, but I am happy to contact sponsors that are identified by those who listen. I have already sent a note thanking Aflac for pulling their ads from his show.

For the record, I fully support his right of free speech to say whatever he wants, but he has to accept the natural consequences of what he chooses to say. The fact that we are exercising our equal right of free speech to protest his comments is not censorship. Likewise, his sponsors are free to end their relationship with his show if they so choose.

Kasia said...

I'm in your market area, so I wouldn't be able to add anything substantial to the list.

Last I checked, however, the First Amendment protected individuals against governments shutting them up. Employers can still impose limits on what kind of speech they find acceptable from one of their agents, particularly if that agent may be opening them up for liability. And radio stations can decide what they will and won't broadcast.

If you were calling for the government to, I don't know, throw him in jail over this, or criminalize saying things about autistic kids, that would be one thing. This is quite another.

Anonymous said...

But Mike is great fun! I love him! Far more entertaining than Alan.

Are you afraid of him?

Someday when you are starving in the dark, dying of radiation sickness, you will fondly remember these days of free speech.


$teve

Master G said...

Oh, yes, Steve; Michael is SO much fun, with his racist tirades and endless spewing of hate.

No, I'm not afraid of Michael Savage; I am disgusted by him, and I think he causes harm with his ignorance and hatred.

I am all for him having his freedom of speech, but you and my other detractors conflate freedom of speech with bully pulpits. Savage doesn't deserve a few hundred stations from which to spew his nonsense--not when he's picking on my kid, who can't fight back verbally. He just perpetuates all of the misunderstandings about autism that are out there, and people seem to think that because someone said it on the radio, they have some sort of authority behind their ignorance.

I am simply letting his advertisers know what they are supporting. If they choose to continue advertising on his show, there is nothing I can do about it. I will not try to legislate Michael Savage away. It is my hope that his advertisers will understand that his spread of ignorance does harm to children with disabilities--which they are, for the most part.

I don't understand how people can find so much negativity "fun". I didn't hear Savage say anything positive in the entire time I listened to him.

I don't know where you're getting all of this "starving in the dark, dying of radiation sickness" nonsense, but it seems a waste of time to live in such fear.

Niaouli said...

The efforts are silly. Savage is one of the largest syndicated shows. He's #3 nationally. He's streaming on over 8,000 stations nationwide. Thats not counting the local stations that don't stream on the web. He's also on satellite.

Advertisers want coverage, and he's got it. I've never heard him say anything "racial". What exactly are you referring to ? Islam ? Islam is not a race and most muslims are "caucasian".

I grew up listening to shock jocks in Miami, Savage is nothing by comparison when it comes to brusqueness in his delivery. If you don't like him don't listen.

We have no right to be our brothers keeper, or babysitter, regardless of how correct we think we may be. We all think we're right.

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." - George Washington