“But let’s get real: Liberals have been pathetic flops on national radio — for reasons that have yet to be identified. Air America, for example, despite retchingly sycophantic major media coverage, never got traction and has dwindled to a humiliating handful of markets. The Democrats are the party of Hollywood, for heaven’s sake — so what’s their problem in mastering radio?”
Random walk thoughts on this topic - 3 things come to mind.
1) Liberals are getting a fairly good dose of self-reinforced liberal messages from print and tv media already. What is a talk radio program going to tell them that they aren’t hearing in some form or fashion in the major media already? This means there is not sufficient demand for the product. I do think if the major media bias were reversed, this would change some.
2) Possible the radio format and cross-section of listeners doesn’t work well with themes which pretty much center around taking away the listeners’ control over various parts of their life and beliefs.
3) talk radio at this point is nearly a sole-source audible content of messages of the political viewpoint it presents for conservatives. You will hear things on talk radio you will never ever hear on a network, or read in almost any US paper. This relates to 1) above as a contrast.
The liberals already dominate the airwaves. They get their message out using rap music. Liberal talk radio is pretty lame in comparison.