Indeed, 13-20 million people listening to a voice in the background while driving to lunch is not exactly the same as 73 million people actively mentally engaged while reading an article.
Even notwithstanding his comparatively miniscule and unengaged audience, Limbaugh's agenda-setting power pales in comparison with The New York Times. The combined audience of The New York Times' editorially-aligned media ecosystem utterly dwarfs that of Limbaugh.
Limbaugh influences Hannity, Beck, Levin, and other conservative talk radio; and, to an extent, cable news like Fox and web media like Breitbart.
The New York Times influences a vastly larger media syndicate: the most listened-to radio organization, NPR; print and web media like The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic; cable and network news like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC. And while there are of course other areas of coverage, politics garners the largest share and most prominent placement. The New York Times' highly syndicated political message not only covers the general population, but also percolates through universities, where engagement with it deepens as it intertwines with the academic curriculum.
The vast reach and depth of the latter media apparatus means that The New York Times plays a major role -- and quite likely constitutes the single most influential voice --
in shaping the dominant narrative in American political life.