Responses to Ultimajock:
I am not sure that you know anything more about the targeted demographics of the cable talk shows than I do; the only thing I admit to is drawing a plausible scenario. When I make the claim, I am in fact basing it on many studies I have read about rancor and incivility in public life, including the media. Books like Benjamin Barber's Consumed and Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason have found that programs like these thrive in an atmosphere where traditional "adult" values of self-discipline, modesty, and reason are disparaged, and this has been the case increasingly in America since the 1960s. Ironically enough, it seems conservatives are harvesting the seed sown in large measure by the political (or, more to the point, cultural) Left of the 1960s and 1970s. Most people whose consciousness were shaped in this period are under the age of 50.
While no one of the talk shows can, as you claim, probably garner more than two percent of the American viewing public, in today's highly fragmented media environment, that isn't necessarily bad for the cable networks (some of whom are operated by traditional broadcasters such as NBC), who have long operated on the principle of niche programming. Simply put, it is not, as you put it, "a crock" to understand that the most popular of these talkers can bring their channels, relatively speaking, quite a bit of advertising--even if this is not the case, the cable channels are, as I said, usually owned by large corporations, who seek to please as many segments of the American viewing public as possible. Point being, it's not really a big deal to them to have such a small audience--they don't expect a large one to start with.
Granted, I did not accurately portray the means by which the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated, and I apologize for not having done my homework on that. Nonetheless, my errors in fact do not materially affect my point, that with no requirements on broadcasters to provide airtime for opposing viewpoints, stations and networks began to feel free to experiment with ideologically-oriented programming (on radio, Limbaugh; on TV, Downey) that they would not have in years past. True, the networks often featured commentaries (e.g., Eric Sevareid, Howard K. Smith) on newscasts and controversial documentaries (the 1971 CBS "Selling of the Pentagon" comes most readily to mind), but the onus was on stations to provide rebuttal time. Because of that, affiliates (mostly run by businessmen afraid of offending advertisers) often pressured the networks to keep these to a minimum--some broadcasters by the late 1970s and early 1980s began pre-empting network docs with syndicated entertainment (the docs' historically low ratings was, of course, the main reason in most cases). After that, the networks more or less replaced documentaries with less controversial and more accessible magazine shows (e.g., Dateline NBC, Primetime Live on ABC).
In summary, the arrival of cable and the deregulatory emphasis of Republican administrations in the 1980s and early 1990s (not to mention FM radio doing in music formats on AM) did a lot to pave the way to where we are now. Downey was just one stage in that development, but it was a crucial one.
