Posted on 12/08/2002 6:06:40 AM PST by bigaln2
The traffic is murder out there, and Ed on the car phone wants to know: Why can't those liberal weenies mix it up?
Translation: when you're backed up on the expressway and a radio voice is howling at you, why isn't that voice ever a liberal?
For much of the last decade, conservative talk radio hosts built carnivorous empires by gorging on the foibles of Bill Clinton. Now, two years into the Bush administration, liberals and Democrats are still waiting for a syndicated carnivore of their own.
As Mr. Clinton said in a speech last week, referring to a range of conservative media: "They have a destruction machine. We don't have a destruction machine."
What Democrats do have is a yammer gap.
At a time when the public is pretty evenly divided politically, conservative talk radio, long led by Rush Limbaugh, continues to grow.
New or newly syndicated programs featuring the conservative television talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity made their debut on 200 to 300 stations in the last year. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, G. Gordon Liddy and other conservative hosts are still going strong. Meanwhile, one of the few longrunning liberal hosts, Gloria Allred, was sacrificed to poor ratings in October after 14 years in Los Angeles, joining Jim Hightower, Mario M. Cuomo and Alan M. Dershowitz.
"I can't think of a single card-carrying liberal talk show syndicated nationwide," said Ron Rodrigues, editor in chief of Radio & Records, a trade magazine.
The question is: why can't liberals create blast-furnace entertainment for their causes? The answers may inhere in the nature of liberalism, said Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. Where radio conservatives have thrived by drawing hard distinctions between right and wrong, he said, "the liberal tradition as we understand it acknowledges a diversity of people and values." In the heat of drive-time squawk, he said, "That's easily thrown back in their face by making them look mealy-mouthed."
Like other forms of news and entertainment, talk radio is a numbers game. Conservative talk radio, which arose from the Federal Communication Commission's 1987 repeal of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, releasing stations from the obligation to provide balanced opinion, "is a result of radio being a niche medium," said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers, a trade magazine. Stations look for heat, not breadth.
"The hosts that light the fire tap into a vein of consciousness that is not given the proper attention elsewhere," said Phil Boyce, program director of WABC in New York, which carries both Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Hannity. "When conservative listeners first heard Rush Limbaugh, they said, `Eureka, someone is finally saying what I think.' "
Mr. Limbaugh has had the most popular radio program since the early 1990's. Heard on more than 600 stations, he reaches about 14.5 million listeners each week, according to an analysis of Arbitron ratings by Talkers magazine. Mr. Hannity, a rising second, reaches about 10 million. "That's not a mass audience when compared to other media," Mr. Harrison said. "More people watch the World Wrestling Federation." But for niche media, being small is part of the appeal. The bond listeners feel to their favorite talk show is that of members of an aggrieved minority.
Even with a Republican administration, liberals will have a hard time claiming this same grievance. As long as network sitcoms, mainstream movies, public radio and some major newspapers are identified with liberal views about sex, family and tattoos, conservatives can cast themselves as outsiders, no matter who is in the White House, said John Mainelli, a talk radio consultant and former program director.
And this tilt may be politically significant.
David C. Barker, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, is the author of a new book, "Rushed to Judgment: Talk Radio, Persuasion and American Political Behavior" (Columbia University, 2002), which surveyed listeners and non-listeners. While he could not measure the impact of Mr. Limbaugh's program on elections, he said, "If you take a group of people who never listened to talk radio before, and then look at their attitudes six months later, you'll see a clear change" reflecting the views of Mr. Limbaugh.
And not just more conservative — more specifically like Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Barker said. On topics that Mr. Limbaugh generally doesn't address, like gay rights or abortion, his listeners were indistinguishable from Republicans at large. But on the host's pet topics, like health care or John McCain, the listeners were much more conservative than other Republicans.
Whatever the effects of the conservative dominance of the radio dial, there's no one on the left who can carve meat like Mr. Limbaugh or Mr. Hannity. As for the earnest Ivy League variety, ever eager to engage in serious debate over significant issues, they can always go write for "The West Wing." Its ratings have been falling, by the way.
Why, is that your home web page?
You just don't get it, do you?
Oh I get it just fine.
I've had this same name for years.
Can you say the same? and if not... why not?
Best regards
"Can you say the same?"
Yeah, I've always used the one and only name I have ever had on this board. So what's your point?
I thought everybody knew that.
Trolls keep having to change names.
Well then since I have never changed my name on this board it would seem that your accusation has no foundation.
Like I said, you just don’t get it do you.
Ok.
You win.
Now just go away.
Now just go away."
Ah, come on, that was too easy.
Exactly. This author is employed by the borking, lying, deceiving, and lawyering NY Times Liberal Destruction Machine.
Well said. We have nowhere else to turn besides talk radio and the internet.
I believe that all of these shows are primarily associated with "home" NPR station and then syndicated across NPR station by station. They are not directly funded by NPR as it exists in DC(?). There may be indirect funding through the network transmission of the programming and by local government funding of individual NPR stations.
It would be interesting to follow the money and see which levels of government provide what fraction (and total $) of the funding for the various shows.
I'll bet their advertisers would agree. Shows like that generate huge listening audiences but rather unspectacular advertising revenue because they do so poorly among prized target audiences (professionals between the ages of 25 and 55).
Suppose a radio station carried Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity on a typical weekday. If the "Fairness Doctrine" were in place, I'm guessing that Limbaugh and Hannity would go out tomorrow and register as Democrats, join the ACLU, join People for the American Way, etc. Then the station would have two "liberals" and two conservatives on the air, but the content of the shows would not change one bit.
I don't think this is what you meant to say.
No more could a shoe factory in the USSR
be financially successful than a program on
taxpayer funded NPR.
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