WINZ under Air America is doing better than the prior all-sports format there, and currently enjoys decent ratings, typically maintaining a 1.5 overall share in the Arbitron ratings. That makes it the 4th most popular AM station in the market !!
Don't assume that because it is being dropped it was doing poorly - consider the over-arching financial interests of Clear Channel, that trump ratings.
I will deeply miss Air America in South Florida. The corporate owners of Clear Channel and the other massive media outlets gain more from deregulation and conservative government than by high ratings. Rupert Murdoch has been buying up papers and losing money on them. A sixth sports station here won't make money, but it could stem the tide towards re-establishing proper rules about media ownership. Clear Channel with their hundreds of radio stations would be gone if the old rules were brought back, which prior to Clinton's killing them, limited total media outlet ownership to 36 locations.
Why isn't diversity of opinion valued any more? We - the citizens - own the airwaves. WE NEED TO DEMAND they are used in our interest, so they cannot be controlled by Hearst-type organizations like Clear Channel.
Check out the new WINZ website - it's now at least 3/4 pornography. All we have now from Clear Channel is YELLOW JOURNALISM from inflammatory right-wing radio hosts - the whole reason we made the rules in the first place decades ago was to prevent this dereliction of duty.
The FOURTH ESTATE will die without our action:
1. E-mail Sanda Coyle at Clear Channel to let her know how you feel about this switch: Sanda.Coyle@clearchannel.com
2. go to http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=6 to learn other ways to fight back
>>mainlib
Since Apr 9, 2009
Welcome to FR. I’m on Air America Place and some other lib boards, myself.
O’Reilly doesn’t do his show on radio anymore; it ended
in early March. He was getting killed by Rush in ratings and
many stations put him on tape delayed where he could get pre-empted by sports. BOR may not have had the passion, etc for radio but he does fairly well in TV ratings.
Rush must sell pretty well, and do decently in ratings
(see Radio Equalizer for Rush’s high numbers recently—
thanks Prez Barry!) and he maintains well over 600 affiates, many dominant ones. (Lib radio, meanwhile,
fails even in Boston. As they said in Spinal Tap,
“Well, the show got cancelled in Boston but that’s OK.
I hear there aren’t too many college students there.”
So, must not be too many libs in Boston eh :)
Rush gets lib listeners/callers; so do Hannity and
Ingraham and they’ve been known to call in.
Clear Channel actually gave libtalk a chance in many cities—though admittedly the Boston station(s) may have had a weaker
signal, not as much promotion, and no DAILY local host.
Ironically enough one of the AAR stations CC has in
Boston, WKOX 1200, just got a big power boost/transmitter move, too late to help libtalk. Meanwhile CC wants to
stay with Spanish language programming.
Because it makes dinero.
You’re welcome to find liberal viewpoints on NPR, network and cable TV, newspapers, magazines, music, the Net,
and many other places. If we REALLY wanted to do a fairness
doctrine, there would be 50 per cent conservative content on MSNBC, in the NY Times, in Rolling Stone, at the
movie theater (one Dick Morris movie for every Michael
Moore one), in music,and so on.
If libtalk is well done, great. It means it succeeds in
the free market. But it does not need to be forced in
in the interest of alleged “fairness”. Remember, on one lib message board I saw a post by one lib talking about how they couldn’t stand “the molasses dripped voice of Al
Franken”.
Put on a good product and see it succeed. Otherwise,
“Are You Ready For Some Football?”