Sandra Fluke

 

By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

Rush Limbaugh has lost more than 30 national and local advertisers on his syndicated radio program since calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” after she testified in support of insurance companies paying for birth control.

JC Penney and Capitol One are now among the companies that aren’t advertising on Limbaugh’s program, according to story by Inside Radio. Media Matters, the liberal watchdog group, is keeping a list that says Limbaugh has lost 36 advertisers as of Tuesday.

Limbaugh has apologized to Fluke on the air and in a written statement for his remarks last week, which were directed at her because she spoke out in favor of President Obama’s birth control policy.

While some Republicans have noted it was appropriate for the conservative icon to apologize, others such as Sarah Palin say Limbaugh has been subjected to a double standard.

“I think the definition of hypocrisy is for Rush Limbaugh to have been called out, forced to apologize and retract what it is that he said in exercising his First Amendment rights,” Palin told CNN on Tuesday night. “And never is … the same applied to the leftist radicals who say such horrible things about the handicapped, about women, about the defenseless. So I think that’s the definition of hypocrisy. And that’s my two cents worth.”

One thing to note about the advertising: Some companies buy time directly on Limbaugh’s show. Others instruct their ad agencies to buy what’s known in the industry as run of schedule time, meaning their commercials run at different times of the day for several days — so they could appear on a certain program one day and not the next.

Two radio stations — WBEC in Pittsfield, Mass. and KPUA in Hilo, Hawaii — have dropped Limbaugh’s program.