Apples and oranges. MSNBC -- just like FNC -- covers most nonpolitical news in a straightforward, nonpolitical way. There's no left/right angle to exploit in an 18-vehicle pileup on a foggy Nebraska interstate, or a kid in Ireland finding a note in a bottle sent from Cape Cod 80 years ago. Talk radio is one topic, one view, pounded into the ground, non-stop.
MSNBC is corporate media as much as anything else is. They aren't exactly demanding to be nationalized by the government. MSNBC viewers are upset about the sanewashing of Trump late in the campaign. Chris Licht's CNN tried to be Fox Lite and failed. You may have heard the name Scott Jennings.
Oligarch owners of stations simply refuse to give soupbox to talkers with views that challenge their power.
I presume you mean "soap". Soup in a box would be kinda' soggy.
That is not true (aside from your incorrect use of the term "oligarch" in this case). Clear Channel put Air America on over a dozen stations when it was "new". In a couple of markets it did well initially, but it faded rather rapidly.
I like to compare this subject with sports. Sports fans like to gather at bars, the backyard and the lunchroom and rehash the most recent games, talk about players and predict the next round. Same goes for political talk radio.
No soup for you!
You can buy it here! Along with wine in a box. Hic.
Ethnic programming probably has very little 'non-English right wing rants'. I don't hear any political talk on the local, or DX, ethnic stations. Banda and norteno music on the local Regional Mexican stations, some talk that doesn't appear political in bent, Hindi/Punjabi hip-hop, Indian Movie Music and Sikh prayer chants on the Punjabi stations, Asian ballads and pop on the Chinese language ones.... For a lot of ethnic and immigrant groups, the AM stations are their main locally-oriented mass media. The preaching isn't for everyone but it's important to a lot of religious people. The two local Catholic stations are funded mostly by donations, and they're still around. I know some Catholics who tune in. Until a couple months ago the only place you could hear Classic Country locally on the radio was AM.
You may be looking at it from the perspective of a newspaper guy.... However, the average radio listener, or average media consumer wasn't trained in journalism. They get their news and opinions from media like online podcasts, social media, and political shows on AM radio (and FM, wherever those stations lean political). I see a lot of questionable 'facts' brought up on social media by both sides of the political spectrum, yet there are a lot of educated people who buy into them, because they weren't trained as you were -- or I was -- to seek documentation to back up the 'facts'..... Stuff they taught us in journalism school.
I honestly don't see anyone who is buying even a cheap in home system needing AM radio. You honestly can't hear any stations, except the strongest AM signals against the background noise emitted from every screen, every vacuum, and anything that runs on electricity in or near your home. So far as forcing a manufacture to include something no one wants at added to cost to the product, I'm against that. Let the consumer decide and if they choose to find a tuner with AM great. If not don't force the 99.9999999 percent of other consumers to pay for something most don't use or want.
That's a good point.
Local talk is very expensive, which is why it is only done in larger markets or on established heritage stations.
Of course, small markets can't afford hosts.
Curved Dash Oldsmobiles had been around since 1901, and Benz did it 15 years earlier.
Yeah, but music sounded horrible in raspy, spark-gap Morse.Curved Dash Oldsmobiles had been around since 1901, and Benz did it 15 years earlier.
AM worked really good back then.
