“IMHO, Strengths: Beck has radio in smaller markets, a growing TV audience & very effective investigative skills, Limbaugh has amazing daily political insight as he said he will stay on-air till no more liberals. He entertains and educates with a huge reach in listeners in major metro markets. Levin has his amazing book and the Landmark Legal as well as his radio which plays off his book in framework of statists vs. federalists. They all have great websites with informative links as well.”
Beck is better on his own on TV where he can be entertaining with his touch of craziness, Hannity is a good host and deals with guests fairly well, though he is somewhat limited in debate skills.Rush was OK on TV, but I don’t think his show as it was would work now. Levin is great, but wouldnt play well on TV. He needs the long format to properly explain the concepts he discusses. He’s too cerebral for TV. Beck is highly entertaining in limited doses, but I think whatever the drink and drugs did to his brain gets to him sometimes, hence the excessive emotion and occasional loopiness. I know those 2 behaviors are why I can’t listen to him for very long. Hannity is so repetitive and “dumbed down” on the radio that I switch from him over to Jerry Doyle now that Doyle is available here.
Locally, we have Mancow and Beck and Ingraham against Rush on the various talker stations we have here. I could do without Mancow right off the bat. I’d like to hear Ingraham more, because she kept a fairly high level of debate going on her show the times I’ve listened.
I even occasionally listen to the Fred (and Jeri) Thompson radio show when I’m not at work. They do a good job, except they need to learn to handle callers better. Again, better than listening to Hannity repeat himself again and again, or run “teasers” where he doesn’t get to the topic he’s touting until the last hour of his show. Hannity is AWFUL when it comes to that.
I miss the G. Gordon Liddy show except for his awful voice. He always had interesting guests. I WON’T miss Savage, should he actually go off the air. I still think he’s a false-flag operation of the Left. A while back I was driving through L.A. and Weiner Nation was on 3 or 4 AM stations at the same time, and Weiner was droning about something irrelevant. It was the only talk that was on, and I was stuck in a whopper traffic jam. It was like being condemned to Hades. I ended up just shutting off the radio.
I was glad to see you threw Jerry Doyle in the mix. I thought I might be one of the few on this site that enjoyed him.
He was replaced by Laura Ingraham in my area.