Wouldn't "localism rules" guarantee lifetime employment to this particular host? Uh...no.
If the rest of the station's programming is succcessful syndicated shows, and the demand is to hire a bunch of local yokels to babble on about the street department, the ratings go away and so does the revenue.
Another example of repeating a talking point that has little to do with what a lot of local talk radio was like in the pre-Rush, pre-consolidation era.
There were many good markets with hot talk shows and stations (Miami, Tampa, Phoenix to name a few)... and many bad ones with sleepy formats for which Rush's style was actually an improvement (Rochester, Baltimore) ... but for which Rush and the development of the Rush-clone philosophy precluded the development of many other styles of talk, including the one represented in the movie and play "Talk Radio" by the character of Barry Champlain (an amalgam of several real-life hosts, all pre-Rush).
It wasn't all about the potholes... and it wouldn't be today, no matter how many times Rush repeats that one slander against the local talk hosts he and corporate consolidation eliminated.
Not to mention the cost of staffing these stations with warm bodies 24/7 (you guys are all going to apply for those make-work, overnight babysitting jobs, right?), yes, that host could lose that show.
Not a few hosts came from the ranks of the overnight board ops over the years... and I can remember many of the local off-hour shows that used to air before syndicators strong-armed and cramdowned reruns and third-rate shows into non-drive times... Some good ones, some mediocre ones, but all showcasing previously unheard talent. Some of those shows helped lower the demos of talk formats. One example: the late 80s - early 90s "FLA Lounge" on Tampa's WFLA, hosted by a host later known to Los Angeles as "Harrison." In Miami, WIOD's off-hours local shows of the late 80's - early 90's were often gems as well.
Sometimes genius can come from something derided as a "make work" initiative -- take, for example, those guides written during the Depression by out of work writers on the taxpayers' dime that have given future generations an insight into a lost world. Mandatory local staffing after 7 P.M. would only be lemons if corporate types pouted and decided to let them be lemons. Make lemonade. Let the babysitters host their own shows. Let them use the time as a laboratory to develop product that will bring in younger demos. That kind of experimentation has to come from below, not from above... as Bonneville learned with their centralized Nightside project.
As far as the aforementioned host on the station's only local daypart, he's more likely to lose his job to his owners' desire to further cut costs and add more syndication. A high-profile local host with years invested in a community is hard for any sort of activism to kill off... even when he puts his foot in his mouth bigtime. (See the Bob Lonsberry - orangutan controversy.) Localism initiatives would set the floor on that. It doesn't make sense that a measure that you admit would increase demand for local talent would somehow make his gig less valuable.
If this host tends to favor less regulation and free speech on the airwaves, wouldn't you all be calling him a hypocrite if he advocated enforced "localism" because theoretically it might benefit him?
Not really... I'd say it was a case of waking up and smelling the coffee... considering all the conservative local hosts who've been driven out of their jobs by syndication. The reason I pointed out that "principle" would require the host to quit his job is just the point... no ideology should be a suicide pact. The ideology which most of these hosts preach has called on people who hand out the paychecks to act in their own self-interest... while the people who received the paychecks were supposed to accept a withering job market, pay cuts, wage stagnation and the like as the price of sustaining our market-based society... in other words, to behave altruistically toward their employers.
