Anybody remember when WRKO was one of the top three stations in town? The talk leaned right, but it wasn't what they've got now, which is 13 hours of liberal-bashing for its own sake. That draws a bigger audience than "progressive talk" but the numbers are still pretty bad.
When they were good, to paraphrase Tom Paxton, they had discussion that inspired discussion, not dittos. They paired a liberal, Cuthbert or O'Brien, with a conservative, Jeghelian. They had Burns and Williams who were provocative and unpredictible, They had Brudnoy.
I'm not sure where talk radio became stratified into conservative or liberal, but stations make that choice at their peril.
They need good radio, not knee-jerk pandering to a segmented audience.
And by definition, anything with McPhee is not good radio