Why liberals are in denial about talk radio and tv (Cal Thomas)

Once the monoploy was busted with Rush and FOX - nobody forced people to listen to them.

The problem the new suber-lib DJ will have is - who will tune in?

Nobody wants to buy the product being advertised.

Even liberals don't watch or listen to liberal talk shows,

Good point. I remember Cuomo's talk show.

The majority of callers were conservative or independent.

I think it frustrated Cuomo and he lost interest.

A true liberal does not want discussion.

Would a firebrand speaking at the top of his voice, saying "everyone does it," or "one free grope for every man," or "lying is OK if you're an elite" really work? Maybe with silly elite liberals, but not with the common man.

As to radio, liberals have NPR - a radio network that all of us are forced to pay for. How would liberals feel if they had to pay for Rush and Hannity et al. to speak on their dime? Cal's right. We don't have to take it anymore.

If I own a fast-food establishment and significant numbers of customers tell me that my hamburgers do not taste good, I have two choices. I can make cracks about the inferiority of my customers' taste buds and drive them to the competition, or I can make a better burger and keep them as customers. The big media think they can ignore their conservative "customers " and disparage their views, including the ones about big media. Conservatives no longer have to take it.

Great post. Just as the fax machine brought down the Berlin Wall, the Internet and alternative media will bring down the socialists here at home. In China the government is aggressively closing down Internet cafes, supposedly due to a fire hazard. Nope, they're afraid the truth will get out and that they can't handle.

A prediction; when the left finds they can't compete, they will once again turn to control and censorship. Examples are the "fair time" regulations and "campaign finance reform."

Not "social"ism but governmentism

I think it is most properly denoted as a socialism via national government enforcement, or more simply "National Socialism"--this also gives it the approriate conotation.

The government should subsidize leftist programming out of fairness. Oh that's right! They do.

Nevermind.

Cal nails it, as ususal. I do think it is kind of funny that liberals view conservatives as intellectually inferior. I'm pretty sure most liberal elite want the masses kept dumbed down so that those masses will buy into their false rhetoric, spirit crunching promises and big government proposals.

Liberal elites DON'T want their plantation slaves 'thinking'. Ever. That is why they stand against vouchers even as those dumbed down masses are finally 'waking up' and pro-voucher systems that force schools to compete.

They now are probably trying to find a way to promote a law against talk radio.

CFR was passed and signed into law last year.

Of course, after the All-Stars at PETA were through, we'd all be selling soy burgers.

"Even liberals don't watch or listen to liberal talk shows, which ought to tell management that their problem is not about "kicking butt " but about serving up a different product more people will buy."

Liberal talk radio fails because it does not attract an audience and advertisers pay to reach audiences. THere ARE, however, some liberal TV shows that attract almost NO audience, but which are kept on "because they're important."

ABC's "Nightline" is such a show. It's watched by almost no one, even though its sole continuing purpose these days is closed-circuit TV for liberals. But it stays on the air (despite the fact that Ted Koppel is only there a couple of days a week) because it has become a liberal sacred cow. The show's advertisers KNOW they're actually reaching virtually no audience, BUT they FEEL GOOD in being able to say that they sponsor such an "important show."

We saw something of a decidedly similar vein here in Nashville about a year ago, when old-line WSM-AM was rumored to be ripe for a change to Sports Talk - an abandonment of "Traditional Country" (or Corn-Pone Twang, as many modern Country listeners put it). WSM-AM does carry the Grand Ol' Opry, and its 50,000-watt signal DOES cover a lot of territory at night. BUT, from a ratings standpoint, WSM-AM does very very poorly and the station cannot charge much for spots because the audience is relatively tiny.

BUT - you should have heard the uproar when rumors of the change to Sports Talk hit. People who have never listened to the station and never WILL listen to the station were OUTRAGED, I tellya! More people showed up at an anti-format-change rally than Arbitron says listen to the station in an entire week. (To be honest, many of them probably thought the format change was to be on WSM-FM, which IS a highly-rated station.) The point wound down to WSM-AM being a sacred cow. Now, we don't listen to it, but we "want it to 'be there.'" That sort of thinking. And the format change never happened.

Michael