Posted on 03/07/2005 7:52:53 AM PST by Coastal
Air America is adding radio stations to the stable as Clear Channel attempts to promote what they are calling "Progressive Radio." But the liberal radio network still can't get a host to crack the "not quite top ten list" of talk radio personalities. In fact, it's not even close. Conservative hosts are still dominating the talk radio scene and they continue to dominate the list for one reason--they have fun on the radio.
Each listen to Air America reveals bitter complaining, very little laughter and absolutely no fun. Angry radio just won't sell.
One thing, liberals don't have the material the conservative hosts are presented on a daily basis. It's hard to run out of subject matter when the Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean left fringe types are getting all the press for the Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalledger.com ...
They now have Ward Churchill.....a leftest/communist/anarchist fake Indian
Don Imus?
Isn't Dennis Prager missing from this list?????????
Gotcha--apologies.
I think Liberal talk radio is hear to stay, but it will start to cater to the same audience as Howard Stern.
9) Bill O'Reilly [6]: I really didn't believe that Bill O'Reilly on the radio would play well. Three full hours seemed like a bit much, but O'Reilly made the adjustments and pulls it off most of the time. It's far from the usual talk radio fare, but is still a decent listen.
8) Neal Boortz [7]: Neal Boortz has been doing talk radio forever. And when you give his show a listen it really shows. He's the perfect combination of entertainment and information and as his tagline says, [He's] not here to support your viewpoints. [He's] here to inform, challenge and entertain. He does that daily.
7) Don Imus [NR]: Don Imus leads every other MSNBC show in ratings with his morning radio/cable TV show. (Chris Mathews' numbers are close, even though he's in primetime) Imus gets tremendous "A" list guests and delivers nearly each day. He's a brilliant interviewer and his show would benefit from a later time slot so that the West coast could actually listen.
6) Sean Hannity [3]: Another good interviewer that presents "A" list guests nearly every day. Sean is a shameless self-promoter, but he still gets it to work and his show is wildly popular. Hannity's newest must listen is a Friday segment from a voice guy that features Bill Clinton, Bush 41 and 43, Michael Jackson, Phil Donahue and more. It's a classic segment and Hannity has a blast with it.
5) Tony Snow [2]: Tony Snow is on "injured reserve" as he recovers from cancer surgery. Our prayers are with him and his family. His show is a near flawless conservative presentation as he uses his experience and contacts to deliver a stellar program despite the fact that the show is only a year old.
4) Hugh Hewitt [NR]: Hugh springs into the "not quite top ten list" with an unashamed "new media" feel. His guests range from Mark Steyn to James Lileks to Ed Morrissey. (If you don't recognize these guys look them up, you are really missing out.) It makes for great radio, and proves that Hewitt gets the incredible power of the new media.
3) Michael Medved [4]: Medved continues to deliver the most intelligent radio in the business. He welcomes callers that disagree and even sets up a "disagreement day" for them to line up. His conspiracy theory segments are priceless. His audience ranges from critical thinkers to complete moonbats, but somehow he makes it entertaining.
2) Laura Ingraham [5]: Laura Ingraham's talk radio show has matured into a can't miss listen each day. She was always entertaining, but has now developed a routine that presents the absolute best TV sound bites for her to dissect. She gets extra credit for hammering away at Chris Mathews and Katie Couric with their own clips nearly every day. Lee Habeeb and her producer Matt Fox complete the package with their comments. This show is a blast.
1) Rush Limbaugh [1]: Limbaugh is still the best. His claim that he is the "crown jewel of the new media" is accurate. In fact, without Limbaugh, there likely wouldn't even be a new media. A cut and paste from last year's column still works. "His operation is now a media empire and his resources seem endless. He has unlimited sound bites available and is quick to offer his EIB analysis to each and every one. Until he retires or unless the keystone Palm Beach cops can round him up, it’s hard to see him ever leaving the top of the heap. It doesn’t hurt to have the best parody guy in the biz on your side either. Paul Shanklin never misses. Everyone in the business strives to be El Rushbo."
Im-ass at Number 7? Puh - lease! Can't listen to him any more......
Laura Ingraham is my morning cup of laughter.
I listen to Laura and Rush every day. I've tried to listen to O'Reilly but find it's just as bad to listen to him as it is to watch him. *~*
Imus has the most consistent list of intelligent commentators both liberal and conservative of any show.Probably the only talk show where you can get both sides of the argument without extremist on either side.
Ratings of Air America are in the toilet. In Boston, WKOX 1200 (Framingham) and WXKS 1430 (Everett) are now "Boston's Regressive"--er, "Progressive Talk". They used to be Spanish-language and standards, respectively. In the latest ratings (which can be seen at radioandrecords.com), WKOX went up slightly (as in, from
0.0 to 0.4) while WXKS took a nosedive (losing the 'standards'--music of your life audience while not gaining many new listeners.
Hannity:
>> Friday segment from a voice guy
It's hilarious when the voice guy does Michael Jackson saying: "I want you to listen to me. I did not have sexual relations with..." and suddenly the voice morphs into Bubba Clinton! Birds of a feather...
Interesting post on a radio board: "Progressive Talk Success = Air America Failure" (many "Air America" stations aren't carrying the whole "network"...)
http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board?Post=367984&Board=newstalk
excerpt:
You can tell AAR is starting to get scared. Randi Rhodes' show aired yesterday was mostly a rant about how Ed Schultz is not nice and was unethical in getting start up money from Democrat political contributors. The network is getting bumped off what the public sees as Air America stations.
Meantime AAR continues to hire people (on the air and in the front office) with no experience in and little knowledge of radio. Of course, they are all good liberals. Broadcast dummies but good liberals.
Meantime, Clear Channel positions itself to dominate progressive talk radio (station ownership and program syndication for progressive talk stations) as it already does with traditional talk. Wake up, AAR. You are about to get left by the wayside.
Talk radio ratings in Boston. Yes, Kennedy-land:
WBZ (conservative, moderate): 7.4
WTKK (conservative) 4.3
WRKO (conservative) 4.0
WKOX (liberal) 0.6
WXKS (liberal) 0.5
(WTTT, conservative, didn't show, but...crappy signal)
To say nothing of Bevis & Butthead Radio (aka Air America). Listening to them for a half hour can provide comedy material for days...
Where's Michael Savage?
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WKOX&service=AM&status=L&hours=N
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WKOX&service=AM&status=L&hours=D
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WXKS&service=AM&status=L&hours=D
http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WXKS&service=AM&status=L&hours=N
In all cases, the stations do not cover the entire metro market 24 hours a day. Frankly, put Ingram, Snow, Hannity and most other conservatives on these stations and the performance would be similar. Rush could probably pull better, but not a whole lot.
And while standards WXKS lost listeners, (about half) they really didn't have that many to begin with and the demos may be better for AAR. WKOX had no ratings and still growing according to the NDJ trend released 3/1.
Again, put most of the conservative stars on these crippled signals and they probably wouldn't pull much better.
You have to consider signal when comparing the success of radio hosts. In two markets where Rush is on stations with inferior signals (Atlanta and Orlando) he is dwarfed in ratings by the dominate talker. In Atlanta, WGST is a 2.7 share (Rush) while WSB had a 9.9 (non Rush). In Orlando it's worse. The Rush station has a 2.7 share, the FM talk station has a 5.3 share and an AM station has a 7.1 share.
Certainly AAR is in no way as popular or as good as some of the best conservative talkers. But you can't really compare audience acceptance as the facilities they air on are quite inferior.
Yep, yep, and yep
Go Laura! I just wish you had a better time slot. 5AM comes really early here in Alaska. Especially in Winter.
"Laura Ingraham is my morning cup of laughter."
I've had to pull off the road more than once because I was laughing so hard. She's great.
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