There are more Americans who would call themselves in the "middle" then either liberal or conservative.
Welll Duh!!!
Of course most Americans call themselves "the middle". Most Americans (hell, most human beings from any nation) think that they are the center of the entire universe. Most Americans think that whatever they believe is correct, normal, and that anyone who thinks differently from themselves is off on one extreme or the other. Deep down inside, almost no one thinks their opinions are extreme. Both Hilary Clinton and Newt Gingrich honestly believe their positions are the most reasonable and are the center around which all other opinions should be measured.
It's too bad most marketing research on the subject is proprietary and not available for the public to see. I've seen some research that goes into more depth on the issue of how far to the left or right the public's attitudes are. I've seen results for more than a few surveys that determine how far to the right or left someone's opinions lie and others use a two-axis approach to include libertarian versus authoritarian as well as liberal versus conservative. Invariably, no matter where the survey results indicate the individial is located relative to dead center on whatever scale is used, the respondent's own self-selected location on the scale is almost always closer to the center than the survey results indicates.
What is more significant about the results of those surveys is to corelate the results of where a person lies on the liberal/conservative axis and how interested they are in reading or hearing opinions about politics. And as I've said before more than once, those who hold liberal opinions, even if they think they are really centerists, just don't want to spend time listening to anyone talk about political opinions, including people whose opinions they agree with.
The majority of radio listeners who are liberal don't want to listen to liberal talk radio.
I belive that the reason for that is that to be a liberal, one must base one's opinions on emotion instead of on intellect. Most conservatives think, most liberals feel. When one's life is driven by one's feelings, then one seeks entertainment on the radio that appeals to emotions, which means music programming. That explains why the various music formats on the radio draw far more listeners than any talk formats. The few liberals who do want to hear spoken word formats want to hear non-political content, content that doesn't require thought. That's why most liberal listeners prefer radio talk shows like Opie & Anthony or anything on the new "Free FM" format.
