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Stephanie Miller on Talk Decline

The Red Lion case dealt with a personal attack, not political opinion. And the program in question was pay to play preaching, not a talk show.

If the fairness doctrine is the great suppressor of speech, how come they never went after Joe Pyne? Wally George? Alan Burke? Bob Grant? Morton Downey, Jr. Even Paul Harvey?
 
Small Market Guy said:
People have been saying that for 20 years. Sure it'll come to an end at some point. Everything does.
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We're in year 2 of the ad ban. How many new talk radio shows have you seen launched?

The point of this thread is that things have happened in the last year or two. Rush's show is being segregated by Clear Channel, away from their local talk shows. They won't admit it, but he clearly was hurting their local sales efforts.
 
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Avid Listener said:
You fail to factor in time, as in the passage of years. The people who listened to talk radio when it wasn't so heavily one-sided are several decades older now. People who liked to hear good music when they were in their 40's were chased away from the music format stations, and grew to be grumpy old men in their 60's who have different tastes now than they did back then.
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You have it completely backwards.

It's the older, less desirable demos that are pandered to with the one-sided wingnut nonsense. The younger, less ideologically-driven listeners are the ones who didn't age out, but just went elsewhere. That's why the pandering was so counterproductive and unnecessary. Those wingnuts were already listening before the format went poisonous. Now they have the format all to themselves...and they're all aging out to dead.
 
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FredLeonard said:
If the fairness doctrine is the great suppressor of speech, how come they never went after Joe Pyne? Wally George? Alan Burke? Bob Grant? Morton Downey, Jr. Even Paul Harvey?
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Explained in detail in an earlier post in this thread.
 
flybynight said:
You have it completely backwards.

It's the older, less desirable demos that are pandered to with the one-sided wingnut nonsense. The younger, less ideologically-driven listeners are the ones who didn't age out, but just went elsewhere. That's why the pandering was so counterproductive. Those wingnuts were already listening before the format went poisonous. Now they have the format all to themselves...and they're all aging out to dead.
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Do the math. Those who were 30-something in the 1980s are 60-something today. Those of us who are now grumpy old men were not grumpy young men in the 80's. It took some rude awakenings in the 90's and 00's to turn us into grumpy old men. It's called "real life", which is probably off-topic.
 
TheBigA said:
We're in year 2 of the ad ban. How many new talk radio shows have you seen launched?

The point of this thread is that things have happened in the last year or two. Rush's show is being segregated by Clear Channel, away from their local talk shows. They won't admit it, but he clearly was hurting their local sales efforts.
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In the same way that certain tea party activists (like Sarah Palin) are hurting some candidates they endorse, rather than helping them.

The extreme rabble-rousing has become so toxic that many people have just had enough of it.
 
FredLeonard said:
Not really.
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Since "Fariness" required stations to comply for requests for comparable time, the FCC would only "go after" someone like Joe Pyne if someone asked for comparable time and was denied same. Red Lion was not initiated by the FCC: it began as a comparable time request which was denied, causing the affected party to seek remedy with the FCC. But "Fairness" affected any expression of "editorial opinion" in the sense that the station broadcasting such was required to make comparable time available. It was not, despite your insistence, limited only to editorials.
 
FredLeonard said:
Not really.
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Yes, it was explained that the mere threat of possibly having to defend a license due to an allegation of a violation of the Fairness Doctrine at one time was frightening enough to prevent the majority of station owners and managers from running the risk of the consequences of being seen as two one-sided. It was explained that as time passed, and there weren't any license challenges, and increased competition caused some station managers and operators to become more bold, some stations began to push the edge of the envelope regarding one-sided controversy. Additional involvement of lawyers (seldom a good thing) also emboldened some of those running radio stations even further. So, you eventually saw the rise of the individuals that you named earlier, on a limited number of stations. Thanks to the involvement of the lawyers, the status quo had shifted to a situation where mounting a challenge based on the Fairness Doctrine was at least as expensive and risky as defending against one. With potential challengers sufficiently cowed by the legal hurdles, and the fact that there were many easier and cheaper paths to acquiring a new radio station than winning one in an FCC challenge, the risk of being controversial lessened even further. Finally, when an administration came along that was committed to reducing the intrusion of the Federal government into commerce, the Fairness Doctrine was quietly ended.
 
TheBigA said:
We're in year 2 of the ad ban. How many new talk radio shows have you seen launched?

The point of this thread is that things have happened in the last year or two. Rush's show is being segregated by Clear Channel, away from their local talk shows. They won't admit it, but he clearly was hurting their local sales efforts.
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Actually the point of this thread is Stephanie Miller, but that didn't last long.

Radio formats are a boom and bust deal. We're in a bust cycle. You yourself said that advertisers are shying away from ALL controversial programming. You can't blame just Rush on that. I can think of half a dozen hosts that have said even worse stuff about people who weren't in the political game, and therefore weren't fair targets.

As for new shows, we've seen a few. The only one I care about is mine.
 
Small Market Guy said:
She was right. What's your point?
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And many of us, myself included, think she was wrong. That's what discussion is, the back and forth exchange of opposing opinions and points of view. Apparently, both news/talk radio station planning personnel and some internet discussion forum participants don't understand that concept.
 
Avid Listener said:
And many of us, myself included, think she was wrong. That's what discussion is, the back and forth exchange of opposing opinions and points of view. Apparently, both news/talk radio station planning personnel and some internet discussion forum participants don't understand that concept.
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If the fairness doctrine had ever been applied to talk shows, or were brought back and applied to talk shows, that is all it would take.

Why did nobody ever go after people like Joe Pyne? I'll answer my own question. Because right-wing hosts in his day let - even looked for - callers and guests with other viewpoints and let them spout before insulting them and shooting them down. But right-wing talk radio can't stand even that much "fairness" any more.
 
Avid Listener said:
And many of us, myself included, think she was wrong.
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Except that's not what she said. She's talking about the advertising boycott and the movement by Clear Channel to put Rush & Hannity on their own station, as they did in LA and San Francisco. In that way, it's taken money and audience out of the format.
 
FredLeonard said:
If the fairness doctrine had ever been applied to talk shows, or were brought back and applied to talk shows, that is all it would take.

Why did nobody ever go after people like Joe Pyne? I'll answer my own question. Because right-wing hosts in his day let - even looked for - callers and guests with other viewpoints and let them spout before insulting them and shooting them down. But right-wing talk radio can't stand even that much "fairness" any more.
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However, again:

Fariness and balance in programming was not monitored by the FCC. It was up to affected parties to make equal opportunity requests of the stations and only if those requests were not honored would the FCC potentially become involved.
 
semoochie said:
What I always heard about Joe Pyne was that he would pick a fight with every third caller!
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It would not surprise me to learn that his call screener / producer set up up for a fight on every third call.
 
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