Conservative Talk Radio...It's over !..Time for a new talk format...

[Eli Polonsky]

Since I realize that stations like 91.7FM serve a public need, I don't mind a small percentage of their funding like the small amount of money the CPB distributes. being derived from public funds.

Most non-NPR affiliated (mostly) volunteer college stations such as WMBR, WZBC, WMFO, WMWM, WHRB, WBRS, WRBB, etc... are not affiliated with the CPB and receive absolutely no funding from them (I don't know about WERS).

Most professional Public and/or NPR affiliated stations are affiliated with the CPB.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

"The news channel (FNC) looks for the conservative slant in the stories it selects to tell, and its leading personalities in prime time are right wingers. But you can hear all sides of the debate on Fox."

--Juan Williams, ex-NPR, longtime Fox contributor; liberal, author of "Eyes on the Prize"
in "Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate"

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/JuanWilliams-NPR-Hannity-Muzzled/2011/07/25/id/404708
(Williams: A liberal working for Fox. How many conservatives are there on CNN etc?)

Wow. Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. Do you really expect Juan Williams, liberal or not, to bite the hand that currently feeds him?

Yes, I found a liberal viewpoint on Fox News once, but I'll never be able to find it again. My microscope broke.

 

[HHH]

I think some of you are missing some key data points:

1) Available audience and demos: Rush, especially, pulls a big audience but it is mostly upper demos delivered primarily by AM radio.
Lots of retirees who are around in daytime to listen to the radio for many quarter-hours. They tend to lean conservative, pine for the Norman Rockwell America, etc.

2) Internet vs. broadcast TV: Once again, this is not often talked about. The tech savvy crowd, who are often (but not always) young and left leaning, are not watching much broadcast/cable television. They are on the internet. Fox's main success comes from imitating the AM radio, right-wing talk model with their nighttime shows, which is where a great deal of their overall rating success comes from.
Yes, they do have 25-54 strength in the pool of that demo who are still watching TV, but I think one has to look harder at the fact that
traditional TV is sort of the AM radio of the young. They know about it, and maybe tune in on occasion, but they are on the 'net. So the triumphs of Fox News in the ratings is, again, based on available audience....who is still watching TV on a regular basis.

I will also say that, although NPR certainly tends to come out shaded left in certain ways, they are the one major service remaining where I can hear a political discussion without a host who demonizes "the opposition" with yelling and silly blanket statements. Yah, commercial talk radio can be "entertaining" to those who are savvy enough to realize that it IS entertainment, but I still run into a lot of people who are convinced that Obama has a secret plan to destroy America and have the government take over all businesses, or that Romney is a greedy devil who will gleefully sell the middle class down the river in a second. So some actually BELIEVE these "entertainment" shticks as fact.

I also have to give credit to Dan Rae as one of the very few on commercial radio who runs a respectful, intelligent program. But I'll bet his numbers are not spectacular.

 

[vmorrison]

I should have been more clear, I was not implying that all College or Community Based Non Profit stations receive CPB funds. My point was that Racoon is unhappy that a very small amount of tax dollars goes to Public Broadcasting. I wondered if he had the same problem with a college station like the one he works at benefiting from tax money. Colleges stations may not receive funding from The CPB but the certainly benefit from taxpayers money.

 

[raccoonradio]

Dan Rea and Avi Nelson are both intellectual. Howie's wicked smahhhht too.

Many listeners of Rush, Howie etc. are still working. Aging yes but working, and ranging from
working class to small business owners to the rich.

Rea must be doing OK or else he would have been replaced by now.
"Conservative" may mean people like me who are "classical liberals" or libertarian (fiscal
conservative, individual liberty, anti-big-state government but perhaps moderate on some
social issues). Like old-time Dems such as JFK. The party has drifted left, from Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country to "You didn't build that" and
"We're going to take things away from you for the common good". Taxpayer-funded services
like schools, roads, police etc are good but not total intrustion by the government. There was
a reaction to the leftward drift of the Dems in the 80s with the so-called "Reagan Democrats".

>>tend to be more uneducated compare to liberal shows such as Thom Hartman and Stephanie Miller.

Many are college graduates. Howie, D&C etc make lots of money for Entercom. The other shows
had to be paid to get on, and you'll notice they're not on anymore because Santos ran out of
money. Maybe our senior senator can get his ketchup heiress love-of-his-life to help finance
liberal radio (and isn't it odd how Ta-ray-za went from GOP to Dem after her husband Sen.
Heinz died in a plane crash, and she married another Sen. named John?)
http://johnheinzlegacy.org/images/family.jpg

 

[raccoonradio]

>>Do you really expect Juan Williams, liberal or not, to bite the hand that currently feeds him?

He did at NPR and that's why they kicked him off. They were very concerned about his more moderate views and finally kicked him off, so much for tolerance.

Williams, from "Muzzled": "Years earlier, NPR had tried to stop me from appearing on Fox.Some NPR listeners had written to ask why a top NPR personality was showing up on a conservative news
channel.I reminded the management back then I was working for Fox before NPR hired me." When
Williams was reminded that Fox was a "loud conservative channel", he told them: "debate on
Fox was first-rate--and no-one at Fox told me what to say"

He went on to tell them Fox was highly rated and his appearances on the network helped publicize the NPR brand and he said nothing different on Fox that he would say on NPR and
in his newspaper columns.

 

[Uncle Kaimbridge]

Like old-time Dems such as JFK. The party has drifted left, from Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country to "You didn't build that" and "We're going to take things away from you for the common good".

No, as Rush put it several years ago, it has become:

“Ask not what your country can do for you....DEMAND IT!”

;D : ;D

 

[HHH]

Like old-time Dems such as JFK. The party has drifted left, from Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country to "You didn't build that" and
"We're going to take things away from you for the common good". Taxpayer-funded services
like schools, roads, police etc are good but not total intrustion by the government. There was
a reaction to the leftward drift of the Dems in the 80s with the so-called "Reagan Democrats".

Well, you are only giving half the story.

Elements of the right have also drifted. We now have many on the right who now reflect something completely different than Ike and even Barry Goldwater stood for not that long ago. Goldwater would never have stood for all the creepy pseudo-religious "morality" arguments that have worked their way into many on the right's political platforms.

Both parties seem to have moved further out. If you read the S & P downgrade report, they blamed BOTH parties for a culture of reckless spending over many years. Both parties have gotten dirtier. Karl Rove certainly raised the bar on dirty tricks in the last election and now the Republicans are crying about Democrat dirty tricks. The Democrats blamed Bush for high gas prices in 2008, but now that a Democrat is in office they say that a President has no real impact on gas prices.

As far as current era talk radio goes, we no longer have people like Jerry Williams or others who were feisty independents who gave it to both sides. We now have "affirmation" talk radio, a kind of talk radio that generally sides lockstep with or against a particular party.
I just can't listen to these people because it sound like I am listening to a propaganda service with no objectivity.

 

[BigDave]

As a Republican,I like Conservative radio. I don't want to be forced to listen to boring Liberal talk radio.

 

[raccoonradio]

>>feisty independents who gave it to both sides

he's not too big but Alan Nathan's motto is "we want the Democrats out of our wallets,
the Republicans out of our bedrooms, and BOTH away from our first and second amendment
rights!"

Yes GOP has attracted the Religious Right. Sometimes I think Christians, etc. are marginalized
and made fun of but I'm not totally in their camp either. My nickname for Rick Santorum
was The Church Lady. Once Howie Carr told him, "I'm Catholic but I don't attend Mass. I have a special dispensation from The Pope". Santorum was...not pleased. He could have come up with
a nice wisecrack about it, but instead he was, as Jerry used to say..

...annoyed...

 

[ArtSpooner]

I've always gotten a laugh out of JFK's most famous line, "Ask not....". The party who considers him a patron saint does exactly the opposite. Elizabeth Warren thinks government should pay for everything.

Marjorie Eagan somehow managed to link Mitt Romney's income to the baker who refuses to accept EBT cards for pastries. These people need to have JFK's sentence explained to them. I don't think getting everything for free is what he had in mind, as the liberal media seems to think.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

As a Republican,I like Conservative radio. I don't want to be forced to listen to boring Liberal talk radio.

By giving half of the formula, you have sketched the picture that needs to be filled in with detail.

The converse of your statement that someone else might say is:

As a Democrat, I like liberal radio. I don't want to be forced to listen to boring Conservative talk radio.

"A nation we do not build" by agreeing that we will all gather in one corner of the sandbox or the opposite diagonal corner and shouting the most childish things we can think of at each other like a bunch of five year old's with little sandbox buckets and shovels in our hands.

From 2,000 years ago we often speak of "Nero fiddling while Rome burns." If anyone in Talk Radio "had any balls" they would be leading the charge with the message it is time to tone down the "we're right and your wrong" rhetoric, and time to huddle somewhere in the middle and come up with some well crafted.... (OMG! Can you say this word out loud... in public... these days?) C O M P R O M I S E .

Talk Radio (of all genders) seems to be fiddling while Rome Washington burns into ashes.

 

[raccoonradio]

Some shows like Smerconish and Geraldo are being marketed as having hosts that are more moderate, or
cons. or liberal depending on the issues. Dennis Miller is mostly conservative yet liberal on social issues
(the left still considers him right wing though; "I hate Dennis Miller" said one left-leaning acquaintance of
mine).
Some hosts like Rush, Hannity, etc talk about how it's bad to be moderate. You have to stick to your principles etc which explains why the GOP nominee is Rick Santorum...uh, he isn't? (The GOP gets Romney, and many on the far right expressed disdain for him but now has to unite behind him) So OK, so much for being on the extreme. (As usual the primaries weed out the extremists and those on the far right or left have to unite behind the nominee, who tries to "move to the center" himself--at least AFTER the convention!)

Naturally there will be some who do move to a corner of the sandbox and scream. And many of us do. Often when our "friends on the Left" complain about how those on the Right treat the prez I reply, "Oh, I'm just giving him the same respect, support, and admiration you guys gave George W. Bush."

Talk radio needs to be entertaining and informative. The Left tried to get their Limbaugh but so far I can't
think of any hosts on the Left (commercial radio) anywhere near 600 affiliates, though there may be some with still quite a few. And here in a proud liberal city like Boston we have...

...Jeff Santos...?

That's it...? ???

 

[DG02816]

GRC totally gets it! Talk radio is a microcosm of the ideological purity  trumping the common good that's poisoned politics these days. Perhaps if people got mad enough, and grew a pair, maybe compromise wouldn't be such a dirty word, and the country could get some things done. It's because of this that I shun the yowlfests of political talk radio.

 

[raccoonradio]

I have mentioned before my kind of Dennis Miller politics and yes some compromise is necessary but you have extremists on both sides that would attack anyone who disagrees with the all-Left or all-Right platform even in a small way. (The Phoenix had an amusing article recently where they were shocked, shocked that some of their fans actually were fiscally conservative even if they were socially moderate. Er, is that possible? My God, my best friend might be a closet..Republican! Or at least an unenrolled who, shudder, doesn't
vote the straight Dem ticket.)

And as usual where you stand politically determines whether you think a Brown or Romney would be
a "Republican in Name only" or a far right wacko. Talk radio tries to appeal to different constituencies--
many are older people who perhaps have drifted to the right a bit or at least the "Reagan Democrats"
of yore. There is a tendency to ally with the far left or right and to get strident--I know Hannity has a
"Stop Obama Express" and I'm sure some lefty shows have a "Stop Mitt" etc. Whatever, it's time for people
to realize that not everybody is right-wing on every issue or left wing on every issue. We need light
on issues and often get heat--but that's what gets the ratings up isn't it?

Chik Fil A...not accepting EBT cards for gourmet pies...the "fake Indian"...Mitt's family putting the dog
on the roof...etc. Republicans who want to starve people and Dems who want to tax us back to the
stone age. Ain't talk radio wonderful? :

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

And as usual where you stand politically determines whether you think a Brown or Romney would be
a "Republican in Name only" or a far right wacko. Talk radio tries to appeal to different constituencies--
many are older people who perhaps have drifted to the right a bit or at least the "Reagan Democrats"
of yore. There is a tendency to ally with the far left or right and to get strident-- .....

My perception is that we tolerate, we encourage, we defend 'talk radio' and blogging that is wackadoodle-left and wackadoodle-right because we take the position "where you stand politically determines ..... ". That statement assumes that everybody... well, at least almost everybody has a political place where they stand. Thus we justify our lack of personal action and energy to throw cold water on "walking talking stupidity" because... after all... EVERYBODY is going to join one camp or the other and we have to make sure they join OUR camp... no matter how outrageous the message we support.

I guess my example today would be the candidate out in Missouri who is trying to sort out rapes into legitimate rape and illegitimate rape. Will Conservate Radio come to the point where it says: "Sorry, chump. There is no place in our party platform, no place in our play-book that acknowledges a "legitimate rape".

When I look at the numbers, the polling data, I think we can say that the number of people in this country that is the largest single identifiable voting block in America are the middle, the swing voters, the independents. They outnumber the people who identify as Conservative/Republican, they outnumber the people who identify as Liberal/Democratic.

Why does Talk Radio refuse to cater to, meet the needs and interests of the largest voting block in America?

But the big problem is this: if someone set out to create programming to cater to this group... what would your programming consist of? Conservative thinking listeners do search out programs that reinforce their "preset buttons" in their brain. Liberal thinking listeners do serach out programs that reinforce their "presett bottons" in their brain. But the big bunch in the middle give us the impression that they don't search out programming. You have to bring programming to them... where there "head is at" as we used to say 40 years ago... much like delivering a catered lunch. But someone needs to figure out the recipe for the "catered lunch" because whether our civilization, our "empire" survives another 30, 60 or 100 years may need the recipe for survival.

 

[DGinnetty]

Actually, the most recent Rasmussen poll (polling over 15000 people) had GOP identification at 35%, Dems at 34%, leaving Independents/other at 31%

If Liberal talk radio had an audience, I am certain there would be more liberal talk shows

I trust the world of business to find ways of making money.

I don't know why there aren't more liberal talk shows for me to listen to.

Lord knows I find them entertaining! Well...I find them amusing actually.

NPR, in particular, is a hoot.

 

[Blackroc]

I don't know why there aren't more liberal talk shows for me to listen to.

You're missing the thread's point. It isn't a request for more liberal shows. It's that the genre of "serious" telephone talk is "over." It's embarrassing.
WLS used to be a great station. So wasn't WHAS. They aren't any more. One feels bad about it but they did it to themselves.

NPR, in particular, is a hoot.

BBC is a scream.

 

[BigDave]

I don't know why there aren't more liberal talk shows for me to listen to.

You're missing the thread's point. It isn't a request for more liberal shows. It's that the genre of "serious" telephone talk is "over." It's embarrassing.
WLS used to be a great station. So wasn't WHAS. They aren't any more. One feels bad about it but they did it to themselves.

NPR, in particular, is a hoot.

BBC is a scream.

The Voice of America is as bad as NPR or the BBC

 

[mescutia]

The problem isn't conservative talk radio or liberal talk radio.

It's political talk radio.

There's more to life than politics, folks!