Some callers said they would leave the station if owner Michael Zwerling canned Rush Limbaugh's 9 a.m.- noon morning show. Others wondered if Zwerling would keep a member of the Ku Klux Klan if he got good ratings.
After two hours of heated calls, Zwerling, who has owned Santa Cruz's only commercial AM talk station, said he would keep the controversial syndicated host on the air here.
"Rush Limbaugh is a great broadcaster," said Zwerling. "He's human. He's made mistakes. He's apologized."
Dozens of advertisers have walked away from the show after Limbaugh launched a three-day rant calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "prostitute" and "slut" because she said the campus health care center should supply birth control to students, the way it does other medications.
According to the website Think Progress, 77 of Limbaugh's 86 advertising spots last Thursday were filled by free ads, as reported by the Huffington Post.
Lifelock is still a heavy sponsor, while others have dropped out, including: AccuQuote Life Insurance, Allstate Insurance, American Heart Association, AOL, Aquarium of the Pacific, Bare Escentuals, Bethesda Sedation Dentistry, Bonobos, Capital One, Carbonite, Cascades Dental, Citrix, Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, Constant Contact, Cunningham Security, Freedom Debt Relief, Geico, Girl Scouts, Goodwill Industries, Hadeed Carpet, JCPenney, Legal Zoom, Matrix Direct, Netflix, New York Lottery, Norway Savings Bank, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Philadelphia Orchestra, PolyCom, Portland Ovations, ProFlowers, Quicken Loans, Regal Assets, Reputation Rhino, RSVP Discount Beverage, Sears, Sensa, Service Magic, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Tax Resolution, Thompson Creek Windows, TurboTax and Vitacost, according to Politico.com.
KSCO can be heard throughout Santa Cruz and Monterey counties and as far north as the Silicon Valley.
