The battle among syndicated conservative radio hosts to command the late Rush Limbaugh’s coveted noon to 3 p.m. slot has shifted into a higher gear now that Erick Erickson has become the first to seize a No. 1 ribbon in a top 10 market.
Five months after the death of Limbaugh, the Erick Erickson Show surged to No. 1 in Atlanta during the three-hour period.
He is fighting it out with other conservative talkers from other networks in the time slot, including Westwood One’s Dan Bongino, Radio America’s Dana Loesch, and Premiere Networks’s Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
Erickson, heard on several southeastern stations, said that his No. 1 win even beat out the day games of the Atlanta Braves.
The radio wars are a back-and-forth game, and it is unclear who will emerge as the nation’s top lunchtime conservative host and grab Limbaugh’s audience.
His style might be a good fit for the Limbaugh time slot. He skips the ranting and mixes in talk and analysis, does few interviews, and sticks to the news of the day.
Erickson, who called Limbaugh a mentor, said, “I don’t think anyone ever can really replace him. But if somehow people really did start tuning into me, I think it means that there really is a market for more than just red meat.”
Not that he didn’t used to do red meat, but he said that when he was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs in 2016, he changed his approach, saying, “Life was too short to just be giving people red meat when there’s more to it. Life is more complex, and I needed to be a more well-rounded person.”
