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Conservative Radio Changing

T

Tynosaur

Though I lived and worked radio in Memphis for nearly 40 years, I now live in Seattle. Still, I thought this news item from The Seattle Times might be of interest to you:

GOP loses its radio voice as KVI switches to music

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014028072_kvi25m.html

I was struck by this rather incisive remark:

"Talk radio is to a large degree the base of the Republican Party in the way labor is the base of the Democratic Party," said Chris Vance, former chairman of the state Republican Party. "You could go on those shows and you could communicate to the Republican family. It's how Republicans got motivated and organized," he said. "Now it's gone, and it's a very big deal."

I'd love to see some thoughtful discussion on this subject here, particularly in light of that New York City station droppiing Glenn Beck a couple of weeks ago. Is a change coming or am I merely being a Pollyanna?
 
Well, that's Seattle. Glenn Beck could be picked up by another New York station. Keep in mind, that was New York, where he was dropped. I'm afraid that in middle America that talk radio is going to stay very conservative. I miss the days of WHBQ in the mid to late 1980's. You had a conservative, Mark Davis, a liberal who professed to be a constitutional conservative, John DeCleux, and a then-moderate Bill Adkins. I know Adkins has become much more liberal in the last twenty years. The relationship between Davis and Adkins really deteriorated before Davis left for Washington in 1990. There was a good mix of opinions on the station. DeCleux and Davis had some entertaining exchanges, when DeCleux would come on at the end of Davis's show in the afternoon. It was the Reagan era. DeCleux didn't have much love for Ronnie. I can remember DeCleux saying "Mississippi dream home" was an oxymoron. Keep in mind, this was before the buildup of DeSoto County. I loved the talk show host Michael Jackson's program that was on a lot of stations nationwide. Because he was too liberal for the changing landscape of talk radio, he lost a lot of affiliates.

I'm not against conservative talk radio, per se. I just think there's too much of it. There were only two hosts on Air America that I thought were worth anything. They were Rachel Maddow and Thom Hartmann. Ring of Fire was a well-done show on the weekend with Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio. Air America largely had poor quality programming in my opinion and was too concerned about the east coast and west coast and not middle America.

It's going to take a leap of faith on the part of many talk radio programmers to put liberal voices on the air, when conservative voices are the ones that get the best ratings. I'd like to hear more liberals, but is there much of an audience for that in middle America?
 
Mark Davis was actually at WMC-AM in 1990, when it was a talk station, and left to go to Tampa before going to Washington. WHBQ must have changed formats in 1988 or 1989, which led to Davis getting fired or let go.
 
WHBQ went back to oldies when Dr. Flinn purchased the station in October 1988.

Mark then joined WMC when they switched to talk in February 1989.
 
No. There is no real change coming. You're looking at this a bit myopically.

Conservative talk show hosts continue to do well. Just look at the numbers. Sure, now that the election cycle is over, all talkers -- left and right -- will see some softening of numbers until the 2012 season really gets rolling. That's natural and expected.

The two stations you mention are simply outliers. In Seattle, one could argue that the situation just underscores that it's tough to run such a station sans the tentpole of Rush. You can draw your own conclusions about Beck. Certainly, his act has changed a bit over the past couple of years. His show has gotten less entertaining and more doom-and-gloom. Remember why most people listen to political talk -- it's not to be informed or educated; it's to be validated in their own beliefs and entertained. It's, essentially, soothing to them. Beck, for some, has become a bit challenging to endure.

Conservative talk lives on just as FoxNews does. And, for the same reasons.

DE
 
Good stuff all, and I agree with the opinions ventured, to my surprise. Here in Seattle, the home of the liberal side of the aisle et al, I thought it interesting that the incoming head of the state GOP is one of those "right-wing" talk show fellows. The situation in New York with Beck will probably sort itself out with another station picking him up. I do find Beck obnoxious, almost to the Mike Savage side of things. My personal preferences are more centrist than right or left and it's the centrist position I find missing on the airwaves today. That lack is due to the bottom line corporate radio folk must favor. What pulls numbers pulls numbers and no corporate entity is going to look for a mix of positions in talk radio.

In other words, I believe I AM somewhat Pollyannaish in my preferences...and there I will stay.
 
There are a lack of centrist voices on radio. Back when Larry King was on radio, I considered him to be a moderate. Of course, he's a liberal by today's standards. Jim Bohannon had a good weekend show. I thought he was right of center but not a puppet for the Republican party. He, too, would be considered a liberal, by today's standards. Kenny Bosak, who admittedly is definitely right of center, is about the closest thing to a centrist voice you're going to find on Memphis radio these days. When I heard Bosak get on a caller for being a birther, I thought Kenny was going to get fired for being too "liberal". As conservative as Bosak is, I believe he's to the left of about everybody else on WREC.
 
The problem with discussing who's "right and who's "left and who's "center" is it is not a definable tag. It's like calling someone "poor" or "rich" — they only mean whatever you think they mean.

Take our president (please! *rimshot*) and how people view his political leanings. Rush probably talks about him like he's slightly to the left of Stalin. But Nancy Pelosi probably thinks he's rather moderate, and the long-hairs in Berkeley protest him for not being liberal enough.

So which is he? Well, it depends on your own political leanings.

It's one of the reasons I believe political talk has little room for those in the center. Our political climate is set up so that everyone HAS to pick a side because you can't just plug a centrist into any one political cubbyhole. Talk radio exacerbates that, because the only way to foment dissent and anger is to have a solid "you're with me or agin' me" stance on everything.

It's kinda strange, actually, because it seems like a centrist who disagrees with a broad range of callers on various issues would generate a lot more listener interest than one who is easily definable left or right. But, sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. The lone exception I'm aware of on the national state is Neal Boortz, who is pretty much Libertarian on many social issues but fiscally conservative and anti-big Fed government. But at the end of the day he's still lumped in with Rush and Hannity as another mouth-breathing neoconservative. And I'm pretty sure there's at least one "libtalker" who is lumped in with those types that is somewhat conservative on some issues, too.
 
If I had to define a centrist, it would be someone who sides with the Democrats less than 75% AND who sides with the Republicans less than 75%. I'm not saying it has to be 50/50. It's just my view that if you side with a certain party more than 75% of the time that you are not a centrist. Can so-called "centrists" pull big ratings in radio? I believe it's possible. What programmer is going to take a chance on a "centrist"? There aren't many radio people that are willing to take chances these days. The labels "left", "right", and "center" are subjective. I do think that talk radio is way more conservative than it was back in 1985.
 
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