[fone]

||| The lefties would rather read. |||

That is to laugh.

"Lefties" own the TV airwaves -- by far more reaching than AM radio. They even caputured the call-in portion of C-Span right around the time of the 2000 election.

Methinks the author doth protest too much.

[Drango]

For liberal talk radio, tune into the TAX funded NPR.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"All Democrats are fat, lazy, and stupid,"

This is so blatantly untrue! I have known MANY skinny Democrats! LOL

Seriously, when you dissect this little ball of pig excrement masquerading as a "news" story, it all comes down to "Republicans are evil, basically just a new incarnation of the Nazi's".

Is that a reasonable argument, or is it sheer desperation?

[Sgt_Schultze]

Thanks for posting such drivel. The trouble with lefty radio isn't that it hasn't been tried. The trouble is with lefty ideas. They sound so nice, but they are intellectually indefensible. For instance, the leftist mantra of "fairness" goes in opposition to its advocation of affirmative action. People also don't like to be told they're greedy for not doing more for healthy, employable bums.

The mantra of personal choice fights the leftist propensity to meddle. Folks like to drive what they want to drive and eat what they want to eat without some silly, whiny wussies b!chin'. Lefties prefer to opine in writing. There, they are able to ponder a response to criticism or ignore critique altogether. Lefties cannot defend their ideas on the fly which is why whenever they call in to talk radio, they are allowed to ramble on to demonstrate their mindlessness.

[Slyfox]

there is a loyal group of radio listeners who embraced Rush's brand of overt hard-right spin

The very first time I heard Rush, I felt like he was speaking for me. I thought I was alone in that feeling until I realized that the country was filled with people just like me who don't have access to a microphone. Until that time there was no way for my opinions to be heard. Before Rush, our only outlet was to write a letter to the editor, usually a leftist paper, who would deride our opinion if they did print it.

Rush's show, including all the successful talk show hosts, follow a very American 'town hall' format. What Rush is "spewing forth" was considered mainstream, before radio was invented, when the United States's media was itself "hard-right" by today's standards. That same media pushed for and convinced enough legislators that abortion was wrong and should be banned. Rush is only speaking to us American loyalists who've always been there.

[Waco]

Voice mail for T. Hartman: They've found your shopping cart. Goodbye.

[DeFault User]

For reasons still unknown (Alzheimer's is suspected), Coughlin launched into hard-right, anti-Semitic tirades in his broadcasts, blaming an international Jewish conspiracy for communism, the Great Depression, World War II, and most of the world's other ills. His sudden shift to the radical right disgusted his listeners and led his superiors in the Catholic Church to demand that he retire from radio and return to his parish duties, where he died in relative obscurity.

Now the Left wants to blame the Right for social and political ills worldwide. Even anti-Semitism has surfaced as part of the left wing agenda. History does tend to repeat itself, not exactly but in recognizable patterns. Would it have been too difficult for the author to draw a parallel to Coughlin and the hard left wing bias of the networks? Talk radio exploded as a reaction to the left wing drivel of the networks and became an outlet for opinions that were not expressed anywhere else on the airwaves.

Liberals can crank up their own talk show networks. It's a free market. Al Gore and friends can let it rip.

[jigsaw]

Oh, to be a lefty and not be constrained by truth and logic.

What a (totally empty, useless) life.

[DeweyCA]

I would love to see just one of ABC, NBC, or CBS news organizations try to get the "niche" market of conservatives, rather than just telling the same liberal views as the other two stations. Their new audience size would make FNC look puny. Remember, half of the USA audience does not have cable. I know that it will never happen, but what a business opportunity, if just one of the parent companies was willing to try it. Stockholders, where are you?

Remember years ago when Jesse Helms talked about getting a consortium of conservatives to buy one of the stations. It was just too expensive. Still, any oneof those parent companies, if they were really serious about increasing profits, should investigate and try this.

[SKI NOW]

This article is a fine example of leftist nonsense that fails on radio. First the listners abandon them, then the sponsers, then the station yanks them. The market will weed out bad ideas just as good as a logical argument.

[ApesForEvolution]

When individuals are allowed to listen and think, the lack of logic rings true and condemns the listener to the fact that leftism (or communism by any other name) is not an attractive group proposition.

The bottom line: Lefties can not link...

[VRW Conspirator]

Wahhhh! those extreme, hard-right, fringe, sexist-homophobic-euro-male-hating-killerofbabyharpseals are dominating the radio waves. Wahhhhh!

Its called free market. And the audience is mainstream America. This is what this bozo is really complaining about.

[Paulus Invictus]

And "rational political discourse" is something the RATS do well? When did that ever happen? If you want examples of the "politics of personal destruction" Lott comes to mind as the latest RAT example of trashing and ultimately destroying the careers of their opponents.

RATS use PPD daily and make the most outrageously false statements to the lamestream media. All of this trash political talk is immediately published or broadcast by the RAT media ad nauseum. (Patty Murray's extremism, for example)

[x]

This is an incredibly ill-informed and rambling rant. It's hard to imagine any editor would have published it without cuts or rewrite.

The Coughlin-Limbaugh parallel is particularly weak and offensive. The differences between the two are far greater than the similarities. A more informed writer would have looked at the real development of talk radio in the 1960s and 1970s, rather than rely on dubious politically-driven innuendos. Looking at what happened to drive-time AM radio starting 30 years ago or so would have made a more interesting and substantial article, but that would have required doing some homework, so our author doesn't do it.

The contrast between stations that program everything and those that have a narrower focus is something that might have had some validity in 1960, but it identifies the author as willfully ignorant or a dinosaur. Narrowcasting of various genres has been a reality for a generation.

It is the case that some stations are all talk and some may be all conservative talk, but that doesn't exclude the possibility of all liberal talk or of mixed talk formats. One thing that has worked locally are shows with paired conservative and liberal hosts, so long as they get together well. Rather than complain, it's something the author could have explored.

I don't know how things are in the rest of the country, but from as far as I can tell talk radio peaked in the late 1990s. Rush may still have many listeners, but he's not the force or novelty that he was under Clinton. And I can't hear North or Liddy where I am any more. Local talkmasters and new, less identifiable personalities have replaced them. Gone from local airwaves too are Bernie Ward, Michael Jackson, and Mario Cuomo. So too with Barry Farber. Chuck Harder is still on the dial somewhere, but why bother?

Left-wing talk radio does make a mark for itself in college towns and minority communities. It would undoubtedly make a comeback in bad economic times. But in general, left-wing talk radio fails because there's no wider audience for it.

PC outrages help fuel right-wing talk radio. The fact that political correctness never ceases to come up with crazy new ideas provides endless topics of conversation. Liberal or left-wing talk radio is inevitably more boring. Its topics and outrages are more predictable. It's the one-note of race and class over and over again. There are only so many ways you can say "Bush is white and rich." Ironically, flamboyant left-wing abuses make right-wing talk radio more interesting, and comparatively dull right-wing politics make left-wing talk radio stale and predictable.

[bribriagain]

This author is living proof that the dead walk among us.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

< I>But that response doesn't mean -- as conservatives in the radio industry suggest -- that there is no market for progressive talk radio.

What it means is that there's not yet an awakening in the broadcast industry to the reality that they're missing a huge, unserved market. But, as with right-wing talk, for balanced or progressive talk radio to succeed it must be programmed consistently throughout the day (and with talent as outrageous and interesting as Rush and his most successful clones).

Liberalism is superficial negativity towards (slander of) the people/institutions upon which this country depends. The trouble facing "liberal" talk show hosts is that the audience wants to hear all sides of an issue, debated fairly--and no liberal can withstand consistent logical scrutiny for hours on end. It becomes too obvious that you are copping out, screening one side out.

[TC Rider]

Check out this bozo's website.

He's a pyscho babblist specializing in ADHD and other liberal disorders.

He's got problems with never getting his own radio show.

[Let's Roll]

A Michael Medved caller late last week said that for some reason sponsors don't want to pay for liberal talk radio.

I guess it's a waste of time to ask if "market forces" and "ratings" are at all familiar to a caller like that.

[Let's Roll]

No problem. If Rush's formula - giving away free shows etc. is so successful, all lefties have to do is copy it. I'm sure listeners will flock to their offerings in droves.

[riversarewet]

Average Americans across the nation are wondering how could it be that a small fringe of the extreme right has so captured the nation's airwaves. And done it in such an effective fashion that when they attack folks like Tom Daschle, he and his family actually get increased numbers of death threats.

---

If true, prove it.

This is typical, make a wild statement, and then others liberals pick it up as truth.

I stopped reading at this point.