Rush Limbaugh Threatens To Leave WABC Station After Being Accused For Ad Revenue Decrease After 'Slut' Comment Concerning Sandra Fluke

As the WABC radio station has begun to decline in revenue and the blame begins to turn onto Rush Limbaugh after his 'slut' comment concerning Sandra Fluke, Limbaugh threatens to leave the station.

The despite began in February of 2012, after Limbaugh called a law student named Sandra Fluke a 'slut' since she had pressed lawmakers in Washington to mandate insurance coverage of birth control, according to the New York Daily News.   Limbaugh's boss, Lew Dickey, the CEO of WABC, claims that it is due to his controversial comments that their ad revenue has diminished over the past year.

Dickey runs the Cumulus network that consists of about about 40 stations and he said in 2012 that the Fluke incident cost the company 'millions' of ad sales and and repeated the charge again toward the end of march, according to the Huffington Post.

Progressive groups such as, 'Media Matters,' did, in fact, call for advertisers to pull out of Limbaugh's show and some companies such as Sears, Geico, John Deere, Netflix, Capitol One and the New York Lotto complied, the group said, according to the New York Daily News.  However, Limbaugh said that all those companies who had left were replaced, and a source close to the show agreed that revenue was, "very minimally impacted in the short term."

Dickey, however, argued that Cumulus was "hit pretty hard" as a result of the controversy, the Daily News reports.  Company revenue fell about 3.5% during that period and Dickey estimated that about 1% was due to Limbaugh.

A source told the New York Daily News, "Lew needs someone to blame, (so) he's pointing fingers instead of fixing his own sales problem."

Another source told Politico, ""It's a very serious discussion, because Dickey keeps blaming Rush for his own revenue problems," according to the Epoch Times.  "Dickey's talk stations underperform talk stations owned by other operators in generating revenue by a substantial margin. It's not a single show issue... it's a failure of the entire station. And trying to blame Rush for that is not much of a business partnership."

Limbaugh publicly dismissed the ad controversy saying that in the wake of the Fluke scandal, ratings had actually shot up and have yet to come plummeting down, the Huffington Post reports.

"Despite the comments, [Limbaugh] is still the No. 1 radio personality," the Epoch Times reports.

Limbaugh's contract with WABC is set to expire at the end of this year, the New York Daily News reports.  If he leaves the station, he may likely end up with WOR, which would create the biggest stir in city talk radio since WOR broght Bob grant on their team after he was fired from WABC in 1995.

Talk radio has faced a serious ad slump since 2008, when the recession began, according to the Daily News.  Despite this downward trend, WABC has seen a substantial lead in the past few years over it's primary New York rival, WOR, averaging to about 1.6% more of the audience, according to the latest Arbitron ratings.