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Can Local Liberal and Conservative Talk Shows Co-Exist on the Same Station?

radiogossip said:
Has anyone tried it?

The original 1989 WLS talk lineup - Don & Roma (conservative/liberal), Stacy Taylor (libertarian), Rush Limbaugh (conservative), & Bob Lassiter (liberal) - was mixed. It didn't last long - 2 or 3 years, IIRC - before Taylor & Lassiter were sent packing.
 
KeithE4 said:
radiogossip said:
Has anyone tried it?

The original 1989 WLS talk lineup - Don & Roma (conservative/liberal), Stacy Taylor (libertarian), Rush Limbaugh (conservative), & Bob Lassiter (liberal) - was mixed. It didn't last long - 2 or 3 years, IIRC - before Taylor & Lassiter were sent packing.

Stacy Taylor is now on KGO-AM 810 as of 2012. I know in San Francisco we have 910 KKSF-AM and we have conservatives Rush, Armstrong, Getty, Liberal Alan Colmes, Moderates like Ed Baxter, Rosie Allen, Gil Gross and John Rothman.
 
There have been stations programming "left, right, and whatever we want" --I think WWWT 1500
in D.C. did that slogan for awhile. WTKK in Boston has conservatives and moderates (OK not liberal but mod.--Margery Eagan)

2007
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=&sid=1232806

>>The station's slogan will be "Left, Right, and Whatever We Want," reflecting 3WT's diverse collection of personalities and opinions.
(they had O'Reilly, Steph. Miller, Beck. That lasted under a year.)
 
recto101 said:
KeithE4 said:
radiogossip said:
Has anyone tried it?

The original 1989 WLS talk lineup - Don & Roma (conservative/liberal), Stacy Taylor (libertarian), Rush Limbaugh (conservative), & Bob Lassiter (liberal) - was mixed. It didn't last long - 2 or 3 years, IIRC - before Taylor & Lassiter were sent packing.

On Allan Colmes show, he often refers to the fact that he is the token liberal on many AM talkers; not unlike the role that he had on Fox News for 14 years.

Stacy Taylor is now on KGO-AM 810 as of 2012. I know in San Francisco we have 910 KKSF-AM and we have conservatives Rush, Armstrong, Getty, Liberal Alan Colmes, Moderates like Ed Baxter, Rosie Allen, Gil Gross and John Rothman.
 
WJR in Detroit carries Mitch Albom, who is left of center, and has a local conservative, Frank Beckmann then Rush, Hannity and Levin in other slots. So yes, it can work although it may make it hard to place certain ads.
 
Mike Schwartz said:
recto101 said:
KeithE4 said:
radiogossip said:
Has anyone tried it?

The original 1989 WLS talk lineup - Don & Roma (conservative/liberal), Stacy Taylor (libertarian), Rush Limbaugh (conservative), & Bob Lassiter (liberal) - was mixed. It didn't last long - 2 or 3 years, IIRC - before Taylor & Lassiter were sent packing.

On Allan Colmes show, he often refers to the fact that he is the token liberal on many AM talkers; not unlike the role that he had on Fox News for 14 years.

Stacy Taylor is now on KGO-AM 810 as of 2012. I know in San Francisco we have 910 KKSF-AM and we have conservatives Rush, Armstrong, Getty, Liberal Alan Colmes, Moderates like Ed Baxter, Rosie Allen, Gil Gross and John Rothman.

My comment got buried here but what I meant to say was that On Allan Colmes show, he often refers to the fact that he is the token liberal on many AM talkers; not unlike the role that he had on Fox News for 14 years.
 
WFLA used to have an annual event called the "Battle of the Talk Show Hosts".
They had both liberal and conservatives at the time. Now, they only have about 6 locally produced shows per week - and all but 1 1/2 is on weekends.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
Way back in the day, WAVI, Dayton, OH had a mix of conservatives like the kate Bob Kwessell and liberals like Brad Clay. Worked then, but talk radio was just beginning.

The original WLS talk lineup was interesting...as I recall Lassiter was liberal on most issues, but not every issue. He'd take a lefty to task now and then.
 
borderblaster said:
Way back in the day, WAVI, Dayton, OH had a mix of conservatives like the kate Bob Kwessell and liberals like Brad Clay. Worked then, but talk radio was just beginning.

The original WLS talk lineup was interesting...as I recall Lassiter was liberal on most issues, but not every issue. He'd take a lefty to task now and then.
There are "lefties" and then there are people that are just Krazy!

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
borderblaster said:
The original WLS talk lineup was interesting...as I recall Lassiter was liberal on most issues, but not every issue. He'd take a lefty to task now and then.

Yes, and usually with a primal scream or three, followed with (hopefully) sound effects of someone banging his head against a wall.

Both he and Taylor had anger-management issues, at least on-air. Don Wade was/is ornery too, but I don't remember him getting surly to the point of being out of control, unlike Lassiter and, to a lesser extent, Taylor. I do remember Taylor once threatening to punch out a caller when things got a little too heated (shades of Mike Ditka on The Score a couple of years later), but it happened only that one time in 1990 as far as I know.
 
There was a small Sacramento Station that had a liberal, moderate and conservative and promoted that regarding their station.

A SF sports Station KNBR had Limbaugh in the morning and Peter B. Collins in the afternoon, sports the rest of the time.
 
radiogossip said:
Has anyone tried it?
In this political environment, let's see how this looks.....

9:00 AM Rush Limbaugh
12:00 Noon Ed Schultz
3:00 PM Sean Hannity
6:00 PM Norman Goldman
9:00 PM Michael Savage
12:00 Midnight Coast To Coast AM With Jim Noory

In a town where Clear Channel (Sadly) RULES THE ROOST when to comes to Talk Radio (Denver - Even though we have Salem & Crawford too), such a lineup would NEVER see the light of day on the air no matter who came on at what time or how long they were on.

To make matters worse - Clear Channel also owns Liberal talker KKZN (Where Ed & Norman are heard)

Hopefully the launch of 96.9 (Mentioned on the Denver/Boulder board) will spice things up (If not change it)

Cheers ;D
 
I'm having my doubts if someone screaming from the right, alternating with someone screaming from the left would do anything but give listerners a headache. The conservatives aren't going to stick around for the liberal hosts and vice versa in that scenario. Maybe you could bookend the conflicting hosts and run stuff like Dave Ramsey or Clark Howard in the middle, I don't know.On the local level...not if the hosts are off to one extreme or the other. You can have a WGN, where most of the hosts talk about lighter topics and entertainment, with only one or 2 shows that tackle news of the day (in WGN's case, libertarian Mike McConnell and John Williams, whose political slant I don't know.

The early days of WLS Talkradio were interesting to say the least.
 
960 KNEW is another CC Talk station in SFO that does this
Glen Beck in the morning drive Norm Goldberg on the afternoon drive.
 
Washington DC WMAL had two local hosts amoung Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin. Conservative Chris Plante followed the conservative morning show and liberal Chris Core followed Core. Core is no longer on. His ratings sucked. The problem was not having a liberal as much as having one who was perkey, funny, and entertaining. Core was a monotone droning on about how sad it was we couldn't all work together. A more lively liberal would work, IMHO.
 
borderblaster said:
I'm having my doubts if someone screaming from the right, alternating with someone screaming from the left would do anything but give listerners a headache. The conservatives aren't going to stick around for the liberal hosts and vice versa in that scenario. Maybe you could bookend the conflicting hosts and run stuff like Dave Ramsey or Clark Howard in the middle, I don't know.On the local level...not if the hosts are off to one extreme or the other.

Political hosts don't have to scream about anything to be effective. In 1998, during the Lewinsky affair, Limbaugh was a precursor to Stephen Colbert: A comedian who happened to attack politicians who he didn't usually agree with. In some segments, Limbaugh is still entertaining in that way.

But few other hosts are entertaining, and some of them try to make up for it by shouting their point of view from the mountaintops (examples: Sean Hannity, most of the old Air America types, and many local hosts)
 
WTLT Charlotte NC.

That lasted about three months in 1997.

They've been Radio Disney since 1998.

Their co-owned FM tried their chimpanzee experiment around that same time. Actually, adult standards radio almost does have that same crazy mixed-up sound in 2012.
 
The best way this could be done is if the political views of the hosts were secondary to the shows. If the format were advice talk, then liberal and conservative hosts could both prosper on the station. When political talk is the format, the format needs to be solid.

Think of it this way. You wouldn't ask a country station to play the new Metallica song. Why would you ask a political talker to do the same?

Can it be done? In very rare cases, maybe. It's the exception, though, not the rule.
 
Pat Cook said:
In this political environment, let's see how this looks.....
9:00 AM Rush Limbaugh
12:00 Noon Ed Schultz
3:00 PM Sean Hannity
6:00 PM Norman Goldman
9:00 PM Michael Savage
12:00 Midnight Coast To Coast AM With Jim Noory

To this lefty who nevertheless would like to hear both sides, this would be an unpalatable lineup. I could very easily listen to John Batchelor and Mike Huckabee. Batchelor is a smart guy, he does his homework and he knows his history.

It's not that many years since quite a few stations mixed news and talk from different parts of the political spectrum, before nationally syndicated talkers were a dime a dozen. And I know times have changed, but there used to be a time when news, talk, music and drama (yes I know, what's that?) could all be heard on a single station.
 
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