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Savage Claims "Censorship" At WABC

mikerock said:
They have "traditional" values in common despite Trump's presentation. The difference is Trump/populists, Palecons vs the Neocon globalist establishment. The Neocons politically and in the news media have failed miserably in 2008, 2012 and routed embarrassingly by Trump in 2016. Hillary shares some common ground with these Neocons and lost. Following that as a business plan on radio would seem destined for failure. Hannity, Rush and Levin for years played to the tune of the Neocon establishment but they saw which way the wind was blowing and adjusted somewhat accordingly.

So I question why would a station put on a talk show host given that history if they actually want to increase ratings. You see the overwhelming opposition to Trump across the left wing media and partly on the right. So it would be of no surprise considering all this that the selection of Shapiro is partly politically motivated to herd voters accordingly back into the fold for elections in years to come.
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Trump has never had a plurality of support among conservatives. Trump took advantage of a crowded primary field to win the nomination, then of course Republicans voted for the Republican and Trump won, without winning the popular vote. Trump's "base" is probably about half of conservatives and shrinking daily. If this is about politics it's because even conservative talk radio listeners are suffering from "Trump fatigue."

Also, do not discount the portion of talk radio listeners who just scream back at the host the whole time.
 
@ mikerock (and hopefully me not being too far O/T) .....

I managed to sit, amusedly, through some :45 minutes to WOR, when Savage did his shift one afternoon. The main reason I was so riveted to the dial was that I was trying to ID some English station* way under WOR.

The secondary reason was that he sounded just like my Dad! .... unabashed ten-ton Queens-Brooklyn accent .... even the same VOICE, and quite a few parallel political and social opinions. I didn't have the opportunity to tape it and send it to my Dad -- his Archie and my Meathead, lol. But it indeed was a touch of home.

* The station eventually IDed as CJRN Niagara Falls.
 
TheBigA said:
He obviously doesn't understand that getting fired isn't censorship. Especially if he's being replaced by someone who has the same opinions.
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As mikerock pointed out to you, they don't have the same opinions.
Not all of us right-wingers look alike. I know lots of right-of-center people who
don't care for either of them.

Which is actually kind of irrelevant, as increasingly Savage is just a P.T. Barnum act
trying to gin-up controversy to attract ratings and attention. I would not be shocked
if he came out an announced he was becoming a Communist. Most likely he'd get a
nice bump from that.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
As mikerock pointed out to you, they don't have the same opinions.
Not all of us right-wingers look alike. I know lots of right-of-center people who
don't care for either of them
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As I also said, it doesn't matter what his opinion is. The issue is his ratings sucked.

The article in the OP is based on the false view that Savage is a ratings superstar.
 
Ratings sucked??? He's #6 on the Heavy Hundred for 2018. How can you be #6 and your ratings suck?
I'm thinking some stations will stay with him and air the podcasts of his unedited unleashed rants. This should be interesting.
 
kf4rca said:
Ratings sucked??? He's #6 on the Heavy Hundred for 2018. How can you be #6 and your ratings suck?
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The Talkers list isn't based on his ratings on WABC. Have you looked at the ratings for WABC lately?

I have no idea how Talkers comes up with this list, but they have Laura Ingraham at #8, and her radio show was just canceled.
 
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mohawk82 said:
She does not say her show was canceled. She said she will do a podcast because she is raising 3 kids solo and she has her Fox show every evening.
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She can say whatever she wants, but the show was canceled by her syndicator.

Savage is also moving from on-air to a podcast, yet he claims "censorship."
 
TheBigA said:
In case you haven't noticed, WABC is a radio station in NYC. How did the city of NY vote?
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By that measure, why does WABC seem so insistent on a conservative lineup at all? Isn't insisting a talk station in NYC program conservatives about as rational as insisting a Dallas talker program liberal hosts?

If the majority of your market isn't voting like either Savage or Shapiro, just maybe it's time to try other ideologies or non-ideological hosts. Not saying it would work, but given WABC's ratings, why not try it?
 
Andy Travis said:
By that measure, why does WABC seem so insistent on a conservative lineup at all?
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Because conservatives tend to have consensus views that work well as a format.

My view is that what the format is missing is a host who brings humor and skits to the radio. Colbert and SNL do it well on TV. Same with Comedy Central. I feel that's what set Imus apart. No one has filled that void.
 
TheBigA said:
Because conservatives tend to have consensus views that work well as a format.

My view is that what the format is missing is a host who brings humor and skits to the radio. Colbert and SNL do it well on TV. Same with Comedy Central. I feel that's what set Imus apart. No one has filled that void.
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Right-Wingers don't do humor very well (See Fox News' 1/2 Hour News Hour).
 
PaulKTF said:
Right-Wingers don't do humor very well (See Fox News' 1/2 Hour News Hour).
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Depends. The ones we have now don't, but that's because they're ideologues. We need entertainers. Tim Allen is a conservative comedian. There are quite a few more. Fox News used to draw on conservative entertainers in their early days.

There's a way to do conservative talk with humor and fun, and Imus had a team of people who were good at it. Nobody does that any more, and the format needs to get away from being angry and attacking people all the time. The emphasis on conspiracy theories is too fringe for mass media. That's what hurt Savage. Shapiro is too academic, in my opinion. I'll be curious to see what Mancow does at WLS in Chicago. Maybe he can lighten things up.
 
Speaking of conspiracy theories...have you read the last dozen posts on here? LOL. (Bad attempt at throwing humor to all of us non-conservatives, on here.) Is it possible, that the last election and prior to that, the run for the Presidency, just wore people out after trillions of hours spent saying the same old things? People generally think what they are going to think. Those that are prone to listen to Fox, WABC, KFSO, etc., are generally listening with "one ear" because they already know what the hosts are going to say. I also think that the listenership has aged really far out of the money demographics over the last election cycle and that puts heat on the format and the stations airing the format. Maybe this type of talk show radio is like the old Beautiful Music format. It's hard to cultivate new listeners when you are a talk show host over 65 and your average listener is of similar age. WABC has the "same" audience it always has had. That is the problem. There are just fewer of them to listen and fewer buying the products. Radio has two change to hope to capture new listeners and that actually is what will seal the radio's fate. Those new (ie. "younger) listeners are not going to be there the way the listeners aging out of the demo have been. I think it's just the changing of the guard. I also see your thought of a more dynamic talk show genre that is still conservative, BigA. How to pull that off is anyone's guess at this point. I guess it's is not different than politicians. They ain't what they used to be. Ready. Aim. Fire.
 
Tibbs4 said:
I also see your thought of a more dynamic talk show genre that is still conservative, BigA. How to pull that off is anyone's guess at this point. I guess it's is not different than politicians. They ain't what they used to be. Ready. Aim. Fire.
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I still think there's interest in non-political talk, but I can't get anyone else to agree. Everything non-political ends up becoming an infomercial.

But yes, we agree that young people will not listen to this format as it's being done now.
 
I'd love to hear the next Gary Burbank (who would send up everybody) but I'm not sure I see it happening.
Rush used humor in his early years; then he started taking himself seriously (or GOP insiders convinced him he was a kingmaker).
 
Andy Travis said:
By that measure, why does WABC seem so insistent on a conservative lineup at all? Isn't insisting a talk station in NYC program conservatives about as rational as insisting a Dallas talker program liberal hosts?

If the majority of your market isn't voting like either Savage or Shapiro, just maybe it's time to try other ideologies or non-ideological hosts. Not saying it would work, but given WABC's ratings, why not try it?
Click to expand...

Liberal talk radio is proven to be unsuccessful, for whatever reasons.
 
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