RBR-TVBR Publisher Jim Carnegie has a long history with Rush Limbaugh, a/k/a Jeff Christie, having pink-slipped him from KQV-AM Pittsburgh on orders of the General Manager and then hiring him at KUDL-AM & FM Kansas City after Carnegie himself was fired as KQV was sold. Limbaugh discussed that KC hiring on Monday’s show and revealed a little known detail – his mom made him take the job.
Limbaugh was discussing how increasingly common it is for adults to move back in with their parents and noted that he had gone back to live with his parents in Cape Girardeau, MO after being fired from the Pittsburgh Top 40 station.
Having struck out in his job search – with his only offer from a small station in Wisconsin – Limbaugh was questioning whether to give up on a radio career. So, he just hung around his parents’ home for two months without a job.
“And one day a phone call came from somebody I had worked with in Pittsburgh, guy’s name was Jim Carnegie, he was a program director at KUDL Kansas City. And I’m outside, actually sitting in the backyard getting a stupid suntan, my mother comes out and says, ‘There’s somebody on the phone who wants to talk to you about going to work in Kansas City.’ I said, ‘Could you get a number?’ ‘No, you are coming in and you are taking the call, and if you are offered a job, you are going.’ And the next day I was in my car on the way to Kansas City,” Limbaugh recalled with a laugh.
Click here to read the full transcript.
RBR-TVBR observation: It always helps to have a PD that believes in ones talent and the important lesson to be learned is obviously…always listen to your mother. In this case Rush had both on his side – the rest is history.
