And he becomes a major hit,” says Rosenwald. “It's the first time anyone's ever really supported him in his career. 1 in the market, doubling the size of his audience in just a year. At the recommendation of a radio consultant, Limbaugh landed in Sacramento, filling the slot occupied by Morton Downey Jr., who’d been fired in 1984 for making a racist joke about a city councilman.

The DJ’s antics proved too much for Kansas City-the last straw may well have been his decision to ridicule the Royals’ management at the same time the station was trying to strike a broadcasting deal with the baseball team. It was such a successful formula others would later emulate it, including those on the political left, including The Daily Show’s Craig Kilborn and Jon Stewart. University of Pennsylvania fellow Brian Rosenwald, author of Talk Radio’s America, said Limbaugh would bring the outrageous DJ shtick to commentary, treating politics as a form of entertainment. The future icon was enthralled by DJ stunts that would occasionally go too far-like ordering 500 pizzas and claiming to be from the competitor’s station. He quit that job after five years and returned to the broadcasting booth.

At one point he pronounced he’d give up the mike forever, and took a job with the Kansas City Royals baseball team. 'I was totally consumed,' he said in one 1990 interview, noting he’d drop by the station before and after school.ĭisdainful of school-he once referred to it as “prison”-Limbaugh dropped out of college after a year and tried to break into radio, landing and losing jobs as he tried out different broadcast styles. He landed a part-time job at the local station near his hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where he worked as a helper before eventually graduating to disc jockey.

Limbaugh was drawn to radio at an early age. He was a prolific writer, penning a number of history books for young readers, and two New York Times best sellers, The Way Things Ought to Be and See, I Told You So. The Rush Limbaugh Show could be heard on more than 650 radio stations across the Premier Radio Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, regularly attracting 15 million listeners.

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