Posted on 12/26/2013 8:27:51 AM PST by raccoonradio
Next week, when WWRL 1600 AM flips its format from progressive talk to Spanish-language music and talk, New York will have no left-leaning commercial talk station for the first time in decades an ironic development just as an unabashedly liberal mayor and City Council are set to take office.
Its not as if liberal voices will vanish noncommercial stations like WBAI and WNYC are still alive and kicking but they cant replace the local flavor and crackling energy of commercial radio, where shows move more quickly to accommodate the ads.
The changeover at WWRL comes as a personal blow: I was the morning drivetime host at the station from June 2008 through October 2010. Sad to say, the steady elimination of progressive radio from the airwaves is part of a nationwide crisis facing commercial radio.
In Los Angeles, the last remaining all-liberal talk station, KTLK, will do an about-face and start airing only conservative talkers on Jan. 1. Ditto for KNEW in San Francisco. Last November, progressive stations in Portland, Ore., and Seattle switched to all-sports formats.
The biggest pressures squeezing liberal talk radio are commercial ones. Deregulation of the airwaves allowed conglomerates like Clear Channel to borrow billions from Wall Street and begin buying up stations by the hundreds. Saddled with debt, Clear Channel has ruthlessly standardized its 840 stations and squeezed each for maximum profit. That meant eliminating progressive talk from its stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland.
Angry progressives claim such moves could also have a political motivation: Clear Channel is owned in part by Bain Capital, the private equity firm once run by Mitt Romney . Thats possible, but it wouldnt explain the problems besetting stations like WWRL, which is owned by Access 1, a family-owned media company.
A more likely culprit is the hard economics of persuading businesses to advertise on local radio. National advertisers have pulled away from progressive stations, and not just in New York, says Mark Riley, a New York radio veteran who just ended a great stint as WWRLs morning man. Stations arent worth what the people who bought them thought they were worth, he says.
That has left a cutthroat competition for local advertising dollars, with low-cost options like Craigslist and Yelp and services like Groupon competing with radio, cable television, billboards and other so-called old media.
Another theory behind the collapse of commercial liberal talk radio is that it has gone mainstream. Some of the most popular personalities from the now-defunct liberal Air America radio network Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz now command much larger audiences on MSNBC every night, as does the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is syndicated on dozens of black talk radio stations. Air Americas biggest star, Al Franken, is now a U.S. senator.
Conservative radio hosts point to the struggles of their liberal rivals with great glee, but that is whistling past the graveyard. The reality is that conservative talkers are serving an aging, shrinking audience, while listeners who want a liberal take on the news can find it on hundreds of National Public Radio stations. The most reliable estimates of the most popular radio shows gives the top two slots to right-wingers Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity followed by Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Marketplace, three public radio staples with a total audience that exceeds Limbaugh and Hannity combined.
Millions of listeners who want left-wing talk can still find it. But that wont replace stalwarts like WWRL, where I used to love spending three hours each day interviewing guests, arguing with callers and ranting about snarled traffic, late trains, warped politics and the state of the world. May the next crew at WWRL find fun and profit bringing the magic of radio to a Spanish-language audience. I, for one, will be listening.
Louis is political anchor of NY1 News.
You said that there never has been a liberal radio star, and I pointed out that there was one.
Now that there is TV all the low-information people go there.
Agreed; however, I also think that most Americans were more trusting of state power at that time. It amazes me what the American people tolerated from FDR and Wilson. These men were effectively left-wing dictators.
I think FDR knew about the attack long before it happened. He didn't do anything because he wanted the US to get into the war.
My experience with liberal talk is they simply repeat the top-of-the-hour news; to wit, they simply echo the MSM employees' feelings. The only challenge was what names to call conservatives.
Conservatives speak for those of us who challenge the MSM employees' views.
I recall the early days of modern talk radio -- late '80s and early '90s -- the most oft-heard caller comment was "I didn't know others believed as I do!"
I recall decades of electronic medium when one hour a week of Buckley's Firing Line was "all the fairness conservatives needed."
It’s all talk. Mostly Conservative.
As the article states, latino. mexican radio replaced them in revenue, not conservatives. Liberals are idiots.
Right now powers on TV are telling them to accept illegals, but if they knew the truth or were not such cowards behind this “do not hate, do not criticize” bull sht,, liberals would lead the charge in placing latinos in horrible detention.
Liberals have no intellectual, scientific or open mindedness honor. They always come from a hidden agenda (shuting people up and reducing vocabulary to their level), while they will accuse others of the same intention and of doing politics.
Just like the pedophiles of Soddom accused Lot, they think Jesus is a homoerotic thing for christians. They are completely blinded by attrotious lusts and satanic tyrannies. They are dangerous backstabbers. Psychologists are doing a bad job of warning us.
Similarly, Liberals tried to “do” the “Coffee Party” in response to the popular “TEA Party.” They failed at this as well.
Liberals have no originality because they have no genuine ideas, at least none that are palatable.
Tweet from radioinsight.com:
>>1150 KTLK Los Angeles will change calls to KEIB when it flips to Conservative Talk on 1/1. The KTLK calls will move to 1130 KTCN Minneapolis
Excellence in Broadcasting...
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