Sandy Beach To Retire. David Bellavia to mornings.

[davideduardo]

For one, I believe the rise of right-wing talk on AM radio stigmatized the band to such a degree that liberal and centrist-minded listeners abandoned it, never to return even if progressive stations were to pop up there now.

OK, let's say that I don't enjoy football, and many channels have football games (in normal times). I can just ignore them. I wont quit watching cable because some channels run football.

Same for AM radio. It has little appeal due to noise and low fidelity to those under 50 or so. They moved on.

Along the same lines, conservative-minded people tend to embrace things the way they have always been while progressives tend to evolve more quickly. This is a generalization of course, but it's actually part of what defines those groups. With that in mind, AM radio is a technology of the past that seems to appeal to old conservative men who grew up with it while more progressively-minded people moved on to the internet and more modern technologies long ago.

You are saying that conservatives are not technologically up to date. There is no proof that adoption of new technologies has any relationship with attitudes on social and political matters.

Of course the internet offers opportunities to intensively read too, along with books and in-depth newspapers like The Washington Post and New York Times. I believe that type of media competes more with radio on the left than on the right.

Again, where is there statistical data showing that more Republicans don't use the Internet?

This is an obfuscation of the fact that a formula was developed about three decades ago for entertaining, engaging conservative talk. Efforts to find a progressive or liberal equivalent failed to attract listeners except in a few cities and then, only for a short time period. There are many opinions, but the consensus is that the progressive hosts were too intense and not entertaining.

Next, the programming style of public radio caters well to a liberal/progressive audience that appreciates a long form, intellectual conversation with experts on both sides given ample time to make their case. The one-sided, red-meat slinging style that works so well at conservative talk has typically failed when attempted by a progressive outlet, at least on the radio. Plus most NPR stations are on FM avoiding the disadvantages and stigma of the AM band.

The stigma of the AM band involves more than the quality of AM. In the top 100 markets, there are less that 180 total stations that cover even 80% of the market day and night. There is increasing noise further limiting the reach of AM.

NPR gets its strongest ratings from morning and afternoon long-form news shows. You can't compare Limbaugh and Friends to a newscast. In fact, the more serious competitors to NPR are all-news stations.

And as a listener to NPR on occasion, I find it rather centrist and balanced. Nutty Attila-the-Hun rightists may find it liberal, and maybe anarchists and socialists find it too conservative, but for the most part it is quite "fair and balanced".

Finally, a conservative audience is more monolithic in its thinking than the liberal/progressive side which is made up more of various factions, so a one-size-fits-all style of programming doesn't work on the left as well as it does on the right. I think it's fair to say that a brand new liberal/progressive network has just popped up under our radar this month but you're probably not even thinking of it in those terms until I mention iHeart's new Black Information Network. It laser-targets one of those Democratic factions and is likely to be more successful than the umbrella approach that was taken years ago by Air America as a network that tried to appeal to all liberals.

Conservatives are definitely not monolithic. There is an extreme right.. the "no masks" ones. The conspiracy theory ones. There are assorted bigots who resist gay rights, Black rights, Hispanic rights, women's rights. Just as there are extreme liberals who want property to be confiscated and redistributed and the like.

Society is not easily divided into groups, but that is because we are a spectrum, a rainbow of beliefs, interests and needs. The two main parties represent a coalition of ideas with some affinity, but there is a lot of diversity within. In many other nations, there are three or more parties, and governments are formed by coalitions, not majorities.

And there are now as many declared independents who like some Democrats and some Republicans based on specific viewpoints. That is where operations like the new iHeart BIN could appeal, were it on some decent signals in more significant markets. For the moment, while we should admire the initiative, we have to realize it is has tiny reach. Hopefully it, and other channels specific to different interest groups, will get louder and wider voices.

Unfortunately, the motley crew of stations iHeart assembled won't show much audience and has the potential to kill the effort unless more stations and more sponsors join the ranks.

 

[Rusty Bridges]

To the title of this thread; many, at least for a while will miss him. I will not. Whoever takes his place is bound to be equally if not more dogmatic and very likely far less articulate and experienced. The secondary yet equally important question, what becomes of his board-op/producer/sidekick?

 

[gr8oldies]

The changes with Rush seemed to start in the 90s after the Gingrich revolution, when party bigwigs started telling him he was a kingmaker. With the entire GOP being transformed into a populist personality cult, Rush knows where the money comes from, and it's not being an Anti-Trump Republican.

That is why I say Rush was entertaining.

Today, like the rest of the talk hosts, he is too intense and not much fun. Maybe Karen and Ken still like him, but he went too Tea Party for many.

 

[davideduardo]

The changes with Rush seemed to start in the 90s after the Gingrich revolution, when party bigwigs started telling him he was a kingmaker. With the entire GOP being transformed into a populist personality cult, Rush knows where the money comes from, and it's not being an Anti-Trump Republican.

Could be. I see a greater shift that came with the Tea Party movement which polarized Republicans and got us Republican candidates like the one in Nevada who negatively swung the whole state.

 

[flybynight]

Same for AM radio. It has little appeal due to noise and low fidelity to those under 50 or so. They moved on.

I listened to talkradio since I was 16 yrs old. It was interesting, with it's variety of hosts and opinions. It was not ideologically driven, but depended more on the personality running the show. It was a healthy mix, not shutting out one side or the other. It is far from that now. Completely one-sided, ideologically driven to a degree no human actually lives by, and not often based in fact, but misinformation and conspiracy theory.

I started listening less and less during the Obama administration due to the ratcheting up of the fever pitch rhetoric, which station's management seems to let run wild.

I almost never listen to talkradio now, ironically, as I arrived at their traditional target demographic.

I didn't stop listening because it was on AM, as I grew up with that. I didn't stop listening because I'm liberal---I'm not. I didn't stop listening because I disagreed with everything I heard, I didn't.

I stopped listening because the format just got too dumb and boring. It's like listening to children tell each other ghost stories. And that's got nothing to do with the damage the format has done to political discourse and the national politcal machine, with it's purity tests and divisiveness.

There are many opinions, but the consensus is that the progressive hosts were too intense and not entertaining.

After Limbaugh, a radio guy first, caught on in the very early 90's, the flood of Limbuagh wannabe's that were hired started veering the format in a direction based more on political ideology rather than the quality of a program or strength of a performer. s time went on anything non-conservative was flushed out.

The liberal answer to that was to hire a bunch of ideologues who could, kind of, do radio. You don't build a network of anything with mostly radio neophytes, I don't care how cogent their arguments were on anything. And on top of that they were mostly relegated to second and third tier stations in any given market. Their failure should not have been a surprise.

 

[davideduardo]

The liberal answer to that was to hire a bunch of ideologues who could, kind of, do radio. You don't build a network of anything with mostly radio neophytes, I don't care how cogent their arguments were on anything. And on top of that they were mostly relegated to second and third tier stations in any given market. Their failure should not have been a surprise.

But look at markets like Seattle, Miami, LA, Portland where the Air America format was on very good signals. In a few, it did well for about a year, and then tanked. In others, it never took off.

Apparently there were potential listeners who stuck with it a while, but got tired of the style... just as you describe... and went away. It was not entertaining.

 

[TheBigA]

Apparently there were potential listeners who stuck with it a while, but got tired of the style... just as you describe... and went away. It was not entertaining.

And yet it works well on TV. Consider Comedy Central or Colbert. If any of those people had done radio, it might have been successful. When you make it funny and entertaining, it can work. When you beat people over the head, it doesn't. Michael Moore can be entertaining, but he's not any more. Same with Jon Stewart. Used to be funny. Not any more.

 

[gr8oldies]

Hiring TV people didn't help. Then there was the deal of hiring 100 writers and producers? For radio? I caught Al Franken very early on with a guest. No breaks during 45 minutes and he never "reset the table" and said who the guest was (it was Biden). No radio basics at all.

The thing is, Republican strategists didn't sit in a smoke filled room and decide to create a talk network, plucking this unknown guy out of the obscurity of Sacramentom, bankrolled him and made him a star. Ed McLaughlin was looking for a retirement project.No one ever knew his personal politics, and he had already obtained Dr.Dean Edell (a liberal)'s contract. Yes there were imitators, and stations brought on people who may not have had Limbaugh's talent, but said the same things Limbaugh did. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Air America went with the idea of an ideological network. Even then, the trends weren't favorable to liberal audiences going to an AM talk format that mimicked right wing talk. "But we can get the alternative weekly's audience and advertisers!" That's a no.

And yet it works well on TV. Consider Comedy Central or Colbert. If any of those people had done radio, it might have been successful. When you make it funny and entertaining, it can work. When you beat people over the head, it doesn't. Michael Moore can be entertaining, but he's not any more. Same with Jon Stewart. Used to be funny. Not any more.

 

[flybynight]

But look at markets like Seattle, Miami, LA, Portland where the Air America format was on very good signals. In a few, it did well for about a year, and then tanked. In others, it never took off.

Apparently there were potential listeners who stuck with it a while, but got tired of the style... just as you describe... and went away. It was not entertaining.

Very few hosts on Air America were radio friendly. Stephanie Miller was pretty good, but then again so was Babe Ruth on the Boston braves.

If Air America sounded like Tom Leykis did in his KFI days, you would've seen a different result.

 

[flybynight]

And yet it works well on TV. Consider Comedy Central or Colbert. If any of those people had done radio, it might have been successful. When you make it funny and entertaining, it can work. When you beat people over the head, it doesn't. Michael Moore can be entertaining, but he's not any more. Same with Jon Stewart. Used to be funny. Not any more.

Most TV people do not translate well to radio. TV people tend to not "work it" the way true radio guys do. TV people depend on the visual, which breeds an audio laziness. Another part of the problem is that TV people have more support staff and are helped and pampered far more than radio guys. It's just a very different dynamic. Radio people, on the other hand, do a much better job with TV than TV guys do with radio. You can look at the early days of television for sure... or in the past 25 years: Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern did well with TV.

 

[TheBigA]

Most TV people do not translate well to radio. TV people tend to not "work it" the way true radio guys do.

Yeah I was disappointed with Jim Cramer's radio show years ago. Nowhere near the energy he has on TV.

 

[flybynight]

Yeah I was disappointed with Jim Cramer's radio show years ago. Nowhere near the energy he has on TV.

Bill O'Reilly had nowhere near the presence on radio that he had on TV.

 

[TheBigA]

Bill O'Reilly had nowhere near the presence on radio that he had on TV.

Plus he hated doing it. He'd complain how it was too much work. Said it took time and attention away from his TV show. Hated taking phone calls.

 

[davideduardo]

And yet it works well on TV. Consider Comedy Central or Colbert. If any of those people had done radio, it might have been successful. When you make it funny and entertaining, it can work. When you beat people over the head, it doesn't. Michael Moore can be entertaining, but he's not any more. Same with Jon Stewart. Used to be funny. Not any more.

But the TV shows are short, comparatively. Many are scripted, and have teams of writers.

That's why TV Talk Hosts tend to do terribly on the radio. They can't, usually, improvise well.

 

[DN14224]

Doing my part to steer this thread back to the original topic...tho I have to admit it's been fun reading the conservative-vs-liberal talk debate...

The secondary yet equally important question, what becomes of his board-op/producer/sidekick?

We've discussed Beamer before - his job is safe as he does more than just 3 hours of call screening. As for Tony Caligiuri - I hope 'BEN finds a space for him. I think he does a weekend show on WGR so maybe he can cobble that into a FT gig.

 

[DN14224]

Sandy as much as confirmed on today's show it was a contract dispute that led to his "retirement".

Tony sounded quite emotional about it - as expected when you work with the same person for 20+ years!

 

[flybynight]

Sandy as much as confirmed on today's show it was a contract dispute that led to his "retirement".

Tony sounded quite emotional about it - as expected when you work with the same person for 20+ years!

Maybe he wanted Howard Stern hours. One less day a week and 10 less weeks a year would've done it!

 

[tbolt909]

Sandy as much as confirmed on today's show it was a contract dispute that led to his "retirement".

Tony sounded quite emotional about it - as expected when you work with the same person for 20+ years!

Beach must have asked for X dollars and Entercom said "enjoy retirement". With declining revenue and rising health care costs, it's not surprising. Maybe he can start a Podcast -- "Beach On The Beach"...

 

[Rusty Bridges]

Beach must have asked for X dollars and Entercom said "enjoy retirement" ... Maybe he can start a Podcast -- "Beach On The Beach"...

Credit due you for a funny line.

 

[CAVEMANager]

Maybe Beach should take a cue from Jay Lawrence who back in the 1970s was a music personality at WGR. Jay Lawrence also played music on WNEW in New York, KLAC and KFI in Los Angeles. Most recently he did a right wing talk program on KTAR in Phoenix. He left KTAR and got into Republican politics and is now a member of the Arizona House of Representatives. All the radio work undoubtedly helped him get elected. About a year ago Lawrence introduced a bill that would have made it a crime to wear a mask while participating in a protest demonstration. Lawrence says that crafting new laws is the best job he's ever had. Like Beach, he is in his eighties. Maybe there is a seat available in the New York Legislature where a Republican from the far right would have a chance.