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The Problem With Tracking AAR And Libtalk Here

O

OldAkronite

There's one very large problem on this board for those who wish to track the record of how liberal talk is doing in general, and Air America Radio in particular.

Since it is inherently a political talk format (much like so-called "mainstream" conservative talk), its partisans and detractors make too much of everything.

Take the thread below, which describes Clear Channel talker WHJJ/Providence's program director, who says basically that the AAR "experiment" is "essentially over". The station's ratings dropped, according to the local paper, about 16 percent from fall 2003 to fall 2004. It's replacing AAR/CC's Jerry Springer and an hour of AAR "flagship" host Al Franken with a local show hosted by a former "Survivor" contestant, who's done some fill-in on occasion.

Ah, but there's that phrase again... "the Air America experiment is essentially over". I haven't visited them, but I bet the diehard right-wing blogs are putting that in giant bold print, and celebrating like they'd just found bars of gold in their basement.

But, don't think I've let you fans of libtalk off the hook. (Yes, I can tick off both sides in one message!) Every *little* ratings gain and success for liberal talk radio and Air America is celebrated on the left wing blogs like Rush Limbaugh is about to be taken off the air nationwide for liberal hosts, and like conservative hosts are about to retire to the farm because of a tidal wave of liberal talk popularity.

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle. (See why I can't get a talk show?)

* Conservative talk, as a rule, isn't going away, particularly popular hosts like Rush, Hannity and the like. There's some thought going around that ALL political talk is currently down, because of fatigue by listeners, but we'll see if that holds up in the upcoming election season. It's hard to compete, ratings wise, with yourself...after the red hot election season interest in 2004.

* Liberal talk has shown that at least in some markets, it can gain listeners and success. It isn't "going away" either, but of course, it is still a fraction of what the folks on the other side of the aisle are doing. Liberal talk is evolving, and moving into more independent shows, with less dependence on Air America for programming. In some markets (and not just "liberal strongholds", it's doing quite well. And in some markets, like Cincinnati, it just isn't working so far.

Welcome to reality, folks...and why I don't really get on this board much anymore. I find it hard, as someone who's basically moderate and who listens to BOTH sides of the commercial talk radio aisle (I may be the only person who can flip back between Glenn Beck and Stephanie Miller on a regular basis), to discuss it here without the Talk Radio Cheerleaders on both sides of the aisle sniping at each other.

To each his or her own...this is just how I feel.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
Is there a market where conservative talk doesn't work?

One of the asymmetrical aspects of this debate is that there aren't any major markets right now where conservative talk "just isn't working." However, a few Southern markets (Charleston SC, Memphis TN and Montgomery AL come to mind) have conservatalkers that seem to underperform a bit. That could be a factor of the large percentage of African-Americans in those cities. Whereas, Portland OR, in a blue state but with a large white percentage, is able to support three AM conservatalkers in addition to the mighty KPOJ.
 
How do you define "work?"

There are many markets in which no information-based format (news, talk, news-talk, sports talk, progressive talk, traditional talk, advice talk, public radio news-information, full service) does well. These markets are usually dominated by urban and/or country format stations.

And there are other markets where information-based formats do well. The tide seems to rise all boats.

I remember a line from a political commentary years back, reviewing the results of an election, which said Richard Nixon was president of those parts of the US without bookstores. Those parts of the US probably don't listen to talk radio as much either. The prevailing political viewpoint in this country is not liberal or conservative; it's don't know/don't care.

In markets like the ones you mention, an AM station can stay in the black with syndicated talk shows (keeping local operating costs down and being part of a cluster with a good sales staff). "Work" is not based on results in Arbitron books; it's based on accounting statements.


> One of the asymmetrical aspects of this debate is that there
> aren't any major markets right now where conservative talk
> "just isn't working." However, a few Southern markets
> (Charleston SC, Memphis TN and Montgomery AL come to mind)
> have conservatalkers that seem to underperform a bit. That
> could be a factor of the large percentage of
> African-Americans in those cities. Whereas, Portland OR, in
> a blue state but with a large white percentage, is able to
> support three AM conservatalkers in addition to the mighty
> KPOJ.
>
 
The real problem

> There's one very large problem on this board for those who
> wish to track the record of how liberal talk is doing in
> general, and Air America Radio in particular.
>
Real problem: board got taken over by A.A.R. supporterss, staffers, Jones salespeople and others. You guys plug the format nonstop here, and attack anybody who presents another side.
 
> Take the thread below, which describes Clear Channel talker
> WHJJ/Providence's program director, who says basically that
> the AAR "experiment" is "essentially over". The station's
> ratings dropped, according to the local paper, about 16
> percent from fall 2003 to fall 2004. It's replacing
> AAR/CC's Jerry Springer and an hour of AAR "flagship" host
> Al Franken with a local show hosted by a former "Survivor"
> contestant, who's done some fill-in on occasion.

Springer or a showboating reality show guest as talk show host. These are my choices? :)

Why would I want to trust someone who apparently lacks enough intelligence to say "you want me to do what on TV?" I want the talk show hosted by the guy or girl who said "hell no." The 15 minutes of fame should have ended on the TV show.

As to the format itself, you are absolutely correct that the crowd that cannot stand that AAR exists will continue to stretch these kinds of stories into a broad indictment of the format. These people seem markedly less interested in monitoring the stations that add and drop Snow, Medved, Gallagher, O'Reilly, Ingraham, etc.

No talk show works on every station. Just looking at the current state of Dr. Laura or Tom Leykis or financial talk shows stations come and go. It's not a big deal, especially if your affiliate list is expanding, not contracting.

> But, don't think I've let you fans of libtalk off the hook.
> (Yes, I can tick off both sides in one message!) Every
> *little* ratings gain and success for liberal talk radio and
> Air America is celebrated on the left wing blogs like Rush
> Limbaugh is about to be taken off the air nationwide for
> liberal hosts, and like conservative hosts are about to
> retire to the farm because of a tidal wave of liberal talk
> popularity.

That's not always true. There are AAR fans out there like myself that have criticized and are unsurprised by the mediocre ratings and clearances some AAR shows draw (Morning Sedition and the Majority Report to count two.) My favorite libtalk show is now Stephanie Miller, and she's doing a comedy/political show distributed by Jones. Liberals (and conservatives) are not going to sit and listen to dull talk radio as some sort of duty to try and keep ratings up. Inevitably, shows will live and die based on how listeners respond to them. A year from now, we're probably not going to even remember some of these shows.

> * Conservative talk, as a rule, isn't going away,
> particularly popular hosts like Rush, Hannity and the like.

I particularly agree about Rush. He's now an institution. He'll probably be around, barring any mega scandal that even his listeners can't forgive, or lengthy prison sentence, as long as Paul Harvey. I don't enjoy his show since the neocon defense points arrived (he was far funnier back when he was skewing Perot), but it would be weird not to have his show around. I think Hannity is much less likely to become an institution. There is much less entertainment there and I think that is key.

> * Liberal talk has shown that at least in some markets, it
> can gain listeners and success. It isn't "going away"
> either, but of course, it is still a fraction of what the
> folks on the other side of the aisle are doing. Liberal
> talk is evolving, and moving into more independent shows,
> with less dependence on Air America for programming. In
> some markets (and not just "liberal strongholds", it's doing
> quite well. And in some markets, like Cincinnati, it just
> isn't working so far.

I agree here as well. Show quality means EVERYTHING. AAR obviously packed their lineup with whomever they could find. Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy are the only actual radio people there. Randi's show is four hours long - she is fatigued with this kind of schedule and her show has been suffering because of the lengthy article reading she likes to do. More humor and entertainment, less lecturing. Malloy's outrage works in the night timeslot. Franken's show still sounds like public radio to me.

Stephanie Miller is the host to watch. Lots of humor, laughter, and three people at the mike spare us from monotony.

Springer is probably the only AAR show that could swing a moderate into the progressive column, but I don't find his humor at all appealing, and he's just not a radio guy to me.

I think as the shows improve, so shall the ratings.
 
Re: Is there a market where conservative talk doesn't work?

> One of the asymmetrical aspects of this debate is that there
> aren't any major markets right now where conservative talk
> "just isn't working."

Format or show? Rochester has one station carrying a conservative (but plays populist) local talk show, Rush, and "Savage." Another station tried to compete with second tier conservative hosts and their ratings sucked. They flipped to AAR and now are a tiny bit better, but still nowhere near WHAM. We have Republican domination in the suburbs and Democrat domination in the city and one town (and we're in a blue state). Both formats will work just fine here with good shows.

It's all about the shows, not the format.

No state is so red that there is no audience for liberal talk. But the show quality has to be there, and the format is new and faces bigger challenges because of that.

Entertain the listeners and they will come.
 
Re: The real problem

> > There's one very large problem on this board for those who
>
> > wish to track the record of how liberal talk is doing in
> > general, and Air America Radio in particular.
> >
> Real problem: board got taken over by A.A.R. supporterss,
> staffers, Jones salespeople and others. You guys plug the
> format nonstop here, and attack anybody who presents another
> side.
>

Anyhoo- Just to indulge the tin-hat fantasy.

What is all this interrelationship between Jones and AAR. According to the press release on Hartmann:

"Terrestrial network advertising sales will be handled by Jones/Mediamerica as part of Air America's current representation agreement"

So is Jones currently handling sales for AAR? Awefully cozy relationship for competitors....

Also, is it just a matter of time before Stephanie is added to their new Syndication arm- who else do they want- not Lionel!? The press release makes it sound like AAR will be bringing on other talent soon:

"Air America Radio's first move to extend its unique brand of programming and content, the Network has formed Air America Syndication, a separate division designed to offer additional programming and services to both Progressive Talk and other talk/music formats"
 
Re: The real problem

> Real problem: board got taken over by A.A.R. supporterss,
> staffers, Jones salespeople and others. You guys plug the
> format nonstop here, and attack anybody who presents another
> side.

If you look through the threads, you'll find the majority of AAR threads start growing when someone comes in here and posts "nobody is listening to AAR" or "Al Franken is guilty of everything," or "Major AAR Scandal," or "Randi Rhodes threatened the president," etc. These are usually picked up or cross posted from right wing blog sites. For a long time, one user (PW) posted this stuff almost daily.

When nobody throws around this kind of stuff, things pipe down in here quite a bit.

Most people here don't attack "the other side." We confront the BS lines like the ones above. I'm sorry, but the days of people making wild accusations backed up by nada without a reply are over.

The latest threads regarding the Unequalizer are probably going to die rapidly, but what will probably happen is someone will come late to the party, start a new thread and throw gas on the fire, and then it's round two.
 
Re: The real problem

> Also, is it just a matter of time before Stephanie is added
> to their new Syndication arm- who else do they want- not
> Lionel!?

Lionel is part of the WOR crowd. He seems to be showing up on Clear Channel AAR affiliates quite automatically, probably because Majority Report doesn't cut it and Mike Malloy may be too fiery in many markets. Lionel is entertaining as well.
 
Re: How do you define "work?"

> There are many markets in which no information-based format
> (news, talk, news-talk, sports talk, progressive talk,
> traditional talk, advice talk, public radio
> news-information, full service) does well. These markets
> are usually dominated by urban and/or country format
> stations.

Or markets like Miami, where the population is almost all Spanish-speaking and heritage news/talkers like WIOD get one-quarter the share of similarly staffed sister stations in other markets.
 
Clarifying My Position Here

> Real problem: board got taken over by A.A.R. supporterss,
> staffers, Jones salespeople and others. You guys plug the
> format nonstop here, and attack anybody who presents another
> side.

How'd I get into this? :D

I mean, you apparently A) didn't read my message or B) aren't reading what I post here in general. You're talking to a guy who's listened to ALL KINDS of talk radio for over 30 YEARS. My radio, as mentioned, can drift from Premiere syndicated conservative host Glenn Beck, to Democracy/Jones' liberal Stephanie Miller, and back to local conservative host Howie Chizek (WNIR/100.1 in the Akron market).

Like dampier above, *entertainment* is winning the day for me. I listened somewhat to Randi Rhodes' afternoon AAR show, but have been listening less lately...Stephanie Miller is about the only libtalk host I listen to much at all, these days. There's a certain element of "firing up the converted" that doesn't appeal to me, which also leads me away from Sean Hannity from time to time.

What, because I bring up the question, I'm "the other side"? Read my message again. I also tweaked those who post about every piece of good ratings news for liberal talk in various markets with loss of breath. I'm in the middle here, and the above is one reason I'm turned off about talking about the phenomenon AS IT AFFECTS RADIO. Not as it affects political parties or the future of the country or the universe.

Oh, and one reason it does get talked about here a lot is simple: it's the "new" thing in talk radio. Conservative talk radio is mature and doesn't have much "news" to it, as far as how it grows and affects the talk radio marketplace. Libtalk is building up from square one, much like conservative talk did back in Rush's early days.

Though with the production and syndication of younger-skewing entertainment oriented hosts "Liddy and Hill" out of Phoenix - oddly enough by the same folks who bring you Stephanie Miller! - this might start heating up a lot, and we'll be talking about the future of conservative talk after Rush and Hannity and Savage.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
Re: Clarifying My Position Here

> Though with the production and syndication of
> younger-skewing entertainment oriented hosts "Liddy and
> Hill" out of Phoenix - oddly enough by the same folks who
> bring you Stephanie Miller! - this might start heating up a
> lot, and we'll be talking about the future of conservative
> talk after Rush and Hannity and Savage.

In addition to your above post, OA, I do agree with you... entertainment is the key. I do believe STATIONS like L&H's former KFYI/Phoenix will work very well, and as with that station, overtake the heritage talk station over a number of years in markets where there is only one real news/talker. Cleveland is an example, with WTAM focusing on sports and lacking a lot of political talk (WHK doesn't count). Someone could launch up a "next gen" talker catering to the same audience Liddy & Hill did and be successful, although KFYI for example does use Rush despite "talk for a NEW generation" positioning.

Bottom line, yes, it can work, but entertainment is the key. Liddy and Hill and "new" talk radio isn't really new (Glenn Beck tries to do this in some way), and I think there will be some new hosts in this genre, but L&H aren't the ticket. Last successful show out of Jones was Stephanie Miller... the rest are boring.
 
Re: Clarifying My Position Here

> Cleveland is an example, with WTAM focusing on sports and
> lacking a lot of political talk (WHK doesn't count).

But WTAM still runs Rush, and in an attempt to hitch onto the libtalk "star", Ohio-based Jerry Springer. Ideally, in my world, WTAM would be similar to WLW as far as a local focus...but if Rush still gets big ratings for them, obviously, it would be stupid to remove him...and Clear Channel has no other Cleveland AM station to put him on, unlike WKRC in Cincy.

> Someone
> could launch up a "next gen" talker catering to the same
> audience Liddy & Hill did and be successful, although KFYI
> for example does use Rush despite "talk for a NEW
> generation" positioning.

Rush is only talk for a "NEW" generation if "NEW" counts people who were listening in 1988.

:)

But again, if Rush still gets solid in-demo numbers for KFYI, he goes nowhere else.

> Bottom line, yes, it can work, but entertainment is the key.
> Liddy and Hill and "new" talk radio isn't really new (Glenn
> Beck tries to do this in some way), and I think there will
> be some new hosts in this genre, but L&H aren't the ticket.
> Last successful show out of Jones was Stephanie Miller...
> the rest are boring.

Again, as mentioned - and you have much more experience with L&H than I do - I'm not putting my bets on them. I have no idea if they'll be able to get traction. But in general...more entertainment oriented hosts (on both sides of the spectrum and in between), and fewer hosts who seem to have the party's talking points in front of them all the time, again, on both sides.

-OA<P ID="signature">______________
Ohio Media Watch - <a target="_blank" href=http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com>http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com</a></P>
 
Re: Clarifying My Position Here

> Again, as mentioned - and you have much more experience with
> L&H than I do - I'm not putting my bets on them. I have no
> idea if they'll be able to get traction. But in
> general...more entertainment oriented hosts (on both sides
> of the spectrum and in between), and fewer hosts who seem to
> have the party's talking points in front of them all the
> time, again, on both sides.

Just because we agree on L&H does not mean they'll go away. Seems Jones does not cancel syndicated shows like Premiere or WW1 does. Look at Clark Howard... he typifies the "Leykis effect". HUGE on two or three stations (in this case, WSB, WOKV, WDBO), weak on the remainder of his short affiliate list. Clark Howard should be a local show, along with Tom Martino in Denver. Liddy and Hill will get as far as Bill Cunningham and stay that way for the next half-decade in Jones' weak syndication roster.
 
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