So, in other words, you're just a whiner without any answers. I'm pretty sure most octogenarians aren't interested in buying and running radio stations, but he'd have a better idea of how to make it work than anything you've come up with so far. At least he has a track record.
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Sandy Beach To Retire. David Bellavia to mornings.
- Thread starter TheBigA
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So, in other words, you're just a whiner without any answers. I'm pretty sure most octogenarians aren't interested in buying and running radio stations, but he'd have a better idea of how to make it work than anything you've come up with so far. At least he has a track record.
I'm no fan of rightwing talk either but I have to admit a certain amount of respect for the WKBW alumni anyway. That was such a great station in its day, the old photos I've seen of the studio looked outrageously bad. Jim Quinn eventually went on to become one of the most extreme and polarizing rightwing hosts after he left KB but I'd still love to hear him tell stories about his time there. Sandy Beach went on to do his brand of conservative talk at WBEN right into his 80s. It's no surprise radio men of that age followed that path, it seems like a lot of old top-40 AM radio DJs did the same.
Who else from the old top-40 WKBW days is still doing radio?
Who else from the old top-40 WKBW days is still doing radio?
There aren't a lot of other choices. Dick Biondi kept playing music at WLS into his 80s, but he was one of the few.
Well the other non-music choices could have included following a path into public radio, news, or one of the few commercial progressive talk outlets. But I can't think of many (or any) old top-40 jocks the went that way. Although spinning records on top-40 AM radio in the 60s and 70s was not a political career, if you look back at the stars of the format they were mostly white men, and those who stayed in the business seem to have mostly gone into conservative talk.
Beach has a track record of spreading hateful vitriol. He was very successful at it. Drug dealers make a lot of money and are also successful. They don't need to be praised for their contributions to society.
You can make the argument that Right Wing Radio has created the current toxic political climate. Too bad the cretins that listen to it don't understand it's "just entertainment". You know--The same ones that currently refuse to wear a mask...
Yeah, because all the "hateful vitriol" only comes from the right wing. You can make the argument that Left Wing social media has done more than radio to create the current toxic political climate, along with websites like "OccupyDemocrats" and their ilk, which are every bit as wingnut as Breitbart and their ilk. Not to mention posters on websites who spew plenty of vitriol instead of rationally defending their own suppositions. Too bad that those cretins deal in personal attack instead of actual ideas.
Only on the radio. That's what this discussion board is about. The public airwaves are being used and monopolized by one political party, with no opportunity for rebuttal. Sure there are other platforms. Just as there are other ways to hear music. But this board is about radio.
Apparently you didn't read my signature tag. BTW, I wouldn't put NPR into the same propaganda box as most right-wing talk. It's certainly more "fair and balanced" than WBEN and most conservative talk radio.
Huh? I didn't mention NPR at all. You're correct. They give airtime to all.
The confluence of the explosion of success for Limbaugh in the early 90's (which prompted a tidal wave of Rush-wannabe-hires) and the advent of Fox news, which, according to Ailes himself, was never intended to be fair and balanced, but instead a happy place for conservatives to get conservative-friendly news spin, has A LOT to do with the us vs. them football game mentality that political discourse has devolved into.
Republicans around the country and in Washington have been held hostage by the purity tests that talkradio and Fox hold them to. The fear of getting "primaried" was real and affected the dynamic between the parties. That's how you ended up with Republicans not even voting for a bill they had co-sponsored, just because a Dem President supported it. Cooperation has become something that will incur the wrath of your constituents who take their cues from Fox and talkradio. And NO, the left isn't as afraid of their crazies as the right. not even close.
Of course the internet has made this even more of a mess, since people don't even know what it is to "know" something anymore. To them, Times New Roman font means it's a fact, regardless if it's published online by The Wall Street Journal or Alex Jones.
How to fix it? Well, short of hyper-partisans sticking with fact and truth, I'm not sure.
Yet there is about half the nation that is not Republican or right-leaning independents. For a variety of reasons, no broadcaster has been able to create a national progressive or liberal talk format or station group.
Some say it is because owners are Republicans. Owners, when they walk into a station, are capitalists. They do any format that makes money. In the late 60's I was interviewed buy a guy from a state that was known for segregation. He was anything but a believer in equality. Yet he had a half-dozen r&b stations, big ones. And he was buying stations in Central America to program to Latinos. He was to the right of Attila the Hun, but he ran ethnic radio stations.
Some say it is because liberals are not entertaining. Rush, for certain, was entertaining. He was a Top 40 DJ, and he used that inspiration in his shows. When we had a national liberal talk net, I found all the hosts too intense, and nowhere nearly as personable and entertaining as they had to be. They were crusaders when we needed a neighborhood preacher.
Talk radio didn't start out by being far right. It's been a very long gradual conversion. When Rush began, he was funny, did interviews, and allowed for some other opinions. It was possible for a Top 40 DJ, such as Imus, to become a talk show host without being overtly political. He kept doing a lot of the characters he'd done in his music show. That changed as time went on. These days, commercial radio doesn't offer any talk that isn't extremely far right. It would be one thing to present conservative views, such as William F. Buckley, or even John McLoughlin. But all of that would sound dated in this current environment, and someone like Sandy has been fortunate to last this long.
That is why I say Rush was entertaining.
Today, like the rest of the talk hosts, he is too intense and not much fun. Maybe Karen and Ken still like him, but he went too Tea Party for many.
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It's probably a combination of things. For one, I believe the rise of right-wing talk on AM radio stigmatized the band to such a degree that liberal and centrist-minded listeners abandoned it, never to return even if progressive stations were to pop up there now.
Along the same lines, conservative-minded people tend to embrace things the way they have always been while progressives tend to evolve more quickly. This is a generalization of course, but it's actually part of what defines those groups. With that in mind, AM radio is a technology of the past that seems to appeal to old conservative men who grew up with it while more progressively-minded people moved on to the internet and more modern technologies long ago. Of course the internet offers opportunities to intensively read too, along with books and in-depth newspapers like The Washington Post and New York Times. I believe that type of media competes more with radio on the left than on the right.
Next, the programming style of public radio caters well to a liberal/progressive audience that appreciates a long form, intellectual conversation with experts on both sides given ample time to make their case. The one-sided, red-meat slinging style that works so well at conservative talk has typically failed when attempted by a progressive outlet, at least on the radio. Plus most NPR stations are on FM avoiding the disadvantages and stigma of the AM band.
Finally, a conservative audience is more monolithic in its thinking than the liberal/progressive side which is made up more of various factions, so a one-size-fits-all style of programming doesn't work on the left as well as it does on the right. I think it's fair to say that a brand new liberal/progressive network has just popped up under our radar this month but you're probably not even thinking of it in those terms until I mention iHeart's new Black Information Network. It laser-targets one of those Democratic factions and is likely to be more successful than the umbrella approach that was taken years ago by Air America as a network that tried to appeal to all liberals.
Along the same lines, conservative-minded people tend to embrace things the way they have always been while progressives tend to evolve more quickly. This is a generalization of course, but it's actually part of what defines those groups. With that in mind, AM radio is a technology of the past that seems to appeal to old conservative men who grew up with it while more progressively-minded people moved on to the internet and more modern technologies long ago. Of course the internet offers opportunities to intensively read too, along with books and in-depth newspapers like The Washington Post and New York Times. I believe that type of media competes more with radio on the left than on the right.
Next, the programming style of public radio caters well to a liberal/progressive audience that appreciates a long form, intellectual conversation with experts on both sides given ample time to make their case. The one-sided, red-meat slinging style that works so well at conservative talk has typically failed when attempted by a progressive outlet, at least on the radio. Plus most NPR stations are on FM avoiding the disadvantages and stigma of the AM band.
Finally, a conservative audience is more monolithic in its thinking than the liberal/progressive side which is made up more of various factions, so a one-size-fits-all style of programming doesn't work on the left as well as it does on the right. I think it's fair to say that a brand new liberal/progressive network has just popped up under our radar this month but you're probably not even thinking of it in those terms until I mention iHeart's new Black Information Network. It laser-targets one of those Democratic factions and is likely to be more successful than the umbrella approach that was taken years ago by Air America as a network that tried to appeal to all liberals.
BTW They've chosen NOT to offer long form talk programming at all, but stick to all-news. The news presentation isn't political but cultural.
That doesn't mean it's not a liberal/progressive network. It will still speak to the topics that matter to that audience and we'll see how it evolves.
You're ascribing a political bias to the topics as being liberal, but they're more cultural than political.
Voting rights is not a liberal or conservative issue, for example. It's guaranteed in the Constitution.
I disagree. Voting rights is developing into a hotly political issue in 2020 with Republican efforts to suppress the black vote. By your own example, coverage of this topic on BIN will make it a political force in addition to being cultural.
Once again, you're defining it in political terms. The Republicans would not say they're trying to suppress anyone's votes. The right to vote is not political.
And with that, I'd done with this conversation.
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