Talk was never cheap for Rush Limbaugh, but now it is getting a lot more expensive.

The A.M. radio host will be paid about $400 million to continue serving up his daily dose of conservative patter through 2016. His $50 million a year paycheck represents a raise of about $14.4 million a year over his current contract, which was paying him $285 million over eight years and was set to expire in 2009.

The deal  struck a month short of the 20th anniversary of “The Rush Limbaugh Show”  is thought to be the most expensive in radio since Howard Stern moved to Sirius Satellite Radio for a reported $500 million in 2004.

“I’m not retiring until every American agrees with me,” Mr. Limbaugh, 57, said on his radio program Wednesday.

The deal amounts to a major bet by Clear Channel Communications and its syndication subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks, that Mr. Limbaugh’s brand of conservative talk will prosper well into the next decade. The company announced the contract renewal on Wednesday, though the financial details were supplied by Mr. Limbaugh in an interview with The New York Times Magazine for an article that was posted online at www.nytimes.com on Wednesday and will appear in print on Sunday.