There's at least one recent case where that hasn't been true.A few years ago Rush switched from a top Boston station (tops in terms of listenership/ratings) to a basically unknown station.IIRC that station had recently been acquired by Rush's syndicator.It also signed at least one other big name (Hannity?) at the same time.Those two big names lasted about two years on the new station before it went belly up...it's now playing looped comedy tracks 24/7.Rush is back on that original top station.Boston certainly isn't as big a market as LA of course but it is a major market (#7 in the nation IIRC).
I can understand how one can get the impression a 50KW AM radio station is “minor” because Stephanie Miller is on it. ;^)
When you’re out in the sticks of Riverside County, the 50KW matters a lot.
And by day WRKO has a great signal, etc.
Here’s what happened:Clear Channel picked up WKOX AM 1200 and WXKS AM 1430. In Oct of 04 they put progressive talk on both, and that lasted 2 years and 2 months. Dec of 2006, they both go to Spanish language stuff. March of 2010, they debut “Rush Radio 1200”—with call letters of WXKS (AM); AM 1430 becomes WKOX and stays Spanish—with an improved signal on 1200, morning host Jeff Katz and afternoon host Jay Severin, etc. It did so-so in ratings.
Finally the word came that they decided to stop what was then “Talk 1200” —Rush and Coast to Coast went back to RKO,
and a temp format of political gaffes ran followed by all-comedy. Then Bloomberg decided to buy time on 1200 so they are now business radio. The 1200 signal isn’t too bad in some locations, by day at least.
As for prog talk a guy named Jeff Santos bought time on AM 1510 but that fell apart (I guess Boston liberals still can hear it via NPR!) As of now in Blue New England, prog talk commercial stations are only in Western MA, Brattleboro VT,
a small FM in Concord NH, and Bangor ME (horrors! owned by Stephen King). Boston, nope. It don’t work....