Limbaugh denies he’s losing money amid controversy over ‘slut’ remark

Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday compared the advertisers who have pulled their spots from his show to “losing a couple of french fries in the container when it’s delivered to you at the drive-thru.”

The popular conservative talk radio host has become the epicenter of a controversy over the White House’s contraception coverage mandate. Democrats have encouraged Limbaugh’s advertisers to drop his show in the week since he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, who testified in favor of the mandate, a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

{mosads}Limbaugh apologized for going too far in his remarks, but Democrats and progressive blogs continue to press for him to lose his long-running show.

“Everything is fine on the business side. Everything’s cool. There is not a thing to worry about,” Limbaugh said Wednesday.

He criticized the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for keeping a running tally of advertisers on his show. According to the group, at least 28 sponsors have pulled their ads from Limbaugh’s show. Limbaugh denied the claim.

“We have not lost 28 national sponsors. There are not 28 advertisers who were paying us who aren’t anymore. They are local commercial buys,” he said. “Sponsors on this program are both local and national. We deal with the national sponsors on this program. We have 600-plus stations. They sell their own commercials. We don’t have anything to do with those sponsors.”

Limbaugh flatly denied the idea that his “days are numbered” on the air. He said the show has three new, national sponsors starting in the next two weeks and at least two sponsors who previously canceled ads are asking to come back.

“I would venture to say that this happens every day anyway in the course of doing business. Advertisers come and go,” he continued. “Nobody is losing money here, including us, in all this. And that is key for you to understand. They are not canceling the business on our stations. They’re just saying they don’t want their spots to appear in my show. We don’t get any revenue from ’em anyway. The whole effort is to dispirit you. It’s to make you think the left is being successful in its campaign when it isn’t.”