Only the Beltway Listens To Imus

Digby has a great piece about how the Beltway media and political class will return to Don Imus' show again and again because he's part of their little fraternity and he helps them sell their crappy books. What's even more stunning about this is the fact that nobody actually listens to Imus. When he suddenly became this Beltway darling about 10 years ago, I was very confused, because his ratings practically don't exist. But Bob Schieffer gives the game away in this 2005 piece:

CBS’s Bob Schieffer, Senators John McCain, Chris Dodd, Richard Santorum, and so on, seem remarkably, at times, willing to be part of the Imus gang on every morning from 6AM to 10AM on radio in 50 major markets, plus the MSNBC simulcast. The recent Arbitron ratings, if you find them reliable (and many don’t) show Imus listeners were down 25% in the first quarter. But up in others.

Book sellers, Senators, Congressmen, media personalities and even clergy are always after the same audience as Imus’s advertisers: affluent, educated and influential men, many of whom not only buy books, but count as swing voters. Imus’s show, while politically charged, skews neither right nor left, which makes it a refreshing switch from the wing-nut harangue of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or the Air America Crew. “I don’t know anyone in Washington who doesn’t listen to Imus or watch him on TV,” says CBS News and Face The Nation anchor Bob Schieffer, a frequent guest, who politely admitted to me the show has become a more valued outlet for many DC elite than either of his programs. “I get more feedback off my spots on Imus than from my own shows,” laughs Schieffer.

Notice how the author has to discount the sincerity of the only radio ratings service there is to make his point?

Just like everything else, the Beltway elite think that because all their friends are paying attention, everybody is. Don Imus gets 3 million listeners in 50 markets. Break that down, and those numbers are wretched. Absolutely awful. He'll probably do better now, after his suspension. This is the only time in the past 10 years that anyone but the pundit class has paid any attention to him. Of course, they've been overlooking his incivility for years because they all feel like they're part of his little club. Not that they wouldn't clutch their pearls and tut-tut about the deeply incivil blogosphere, mind you.