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| Fifth Column |
| The liberals are coming, the liberals are coming! |
| 2003-05-20 |
| A political explosion happened this weekend in New York, and it may be the big one that gives Karl Rove nightmares. (or make him laugh) It could mean the end of George W. Bush's seemingly unending ability to tell overt lies (such as?) to the American people and not get called on them by the American media. At a Saturday talk radio industry event put on by Talkers Magazine, Gabe Hobbs, Clear Channel Radio's vice president of News/Talk/Sports, announced that in the near future this corporate owner of over 1200 radio stations is considering programming some of their talk stations "in markets where there are already one or two stations doing conservative talk" with all-day back-to-back all-liberal talk show hosts. The rating will soar! The handwriting is on the wall for right-wing talk radio: To build profits, programmers must reach beyond diehard Republicans to unserved listeners. This means bringing in the center and left of the political spectrum. Thus, we're today seeing the early fuse-fizzing of the Next Big Boom in talk radio, and many in the industry openly acknowledge it (including Fox, which just syndicated liberal Alan Colmes). Make way for the unclean/unserved masses! Many industry watchers were dumbfounded at the overt bias and political boosterism. Even BBC Director General Greg Dyke weighed in, saying, "I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war." Across America and around the world, savvy media watchers wondered out loud why our giant networks and media companies would suddenly become so overtly partisan, loudly and unquestioningly kissing up to the Bush administration? And why did they ignore a multi-million-dollar audience of tens of millions of Democratic/liberal listeners — people with upscale demographics who advertisers would love to reach? Why are there not more 'Hate America' radio talk show hosts? Although the right-wingers love to claim that they simply balance NPR (the claim was raised again at the Talkers event), it's an argument that commercial programmers know is specious. NPR never has and never will run hour after hour of a single commentator ranting about the wonders of one party and the horrors of another. Centrist and left-wing talk radio is still an emerging product with a huge unserved market. I give this 'experiment about six months before they pull the plug. Al Gore and Ralph Nader as the only audience cannot sustain programming. Ask Phil and MSNBC. Can anyone see Al Gore taking a call that is counter to his thinking? It's almost too funny |
| Posted by:Cyber Sarge |
| #9 Mark IV, There are still smaller newspapers that don't spew the PC party line. I really don't want to see my local newspaper gulped down by some damn-yankee Eastern news conglomerate, thank-you-very-much. The battle is *not* over *or* lost, but it pretty much will just be a matter of time until it is if the FCC allows further mergers. If all you can do is whine that it *has* been lost, then you've surrendered and might as well send in your membership donation to the leftist-totalitarian party of your choice. And if that suggestion sticks in your craw, then maybe instead you'll fire off some "No more mergers!" emails to the addys I provided above. |
| Posted by: Silverdrake 2003-05-21 01:03:30 |
| #8 "I give this 'experiment about six months before they pull the plug." Big whoop. And this makes one damned bit of difference in the long run exactly how? The moron writing the article said it himself: "mergers that will help wipe out the few remaining small, local radio/TV stations and newspapers..." The mega-corps will have control over everything everyone sees, hears, and reads, 24/7, 365.24/year. Canned music, canned opinion, canned news, unresponsive and unresponsible to local audiences, responsive and responsible only to mega-corp HQ. The FCC is selling the public airwaves for thirty pieces of silver, and you all seem to think that's just fine and dandy because the "liberals" won't last. All it takes is one corporate takeover to change Clear Channel from conservative to "liberal." Think about that. Think about the anti-American bias on the major broadcast networks becoming the norm for radio and newspapers, too. Big Brother Is Watching You. Or maybe think about trying to stop the FCC from allowing more mergers, and keeping your local media responsive and responsible to *you* and *your* local concerns, and not to some mega-corp who-knows-where. www.fcc.gov Two commissioners are Democrats, three are Republicans. Click on their names to find their bios. Here are their email addresses: Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: jadelste@fcc.gov |
| Posted by: Silverdrake 2003-05-20 22:50:31 |
| #7 DING, DING, DING, DING! We have a winner! Secret Master has found the reason that Liberal radio does not and will not ever work. Because Liberals do not work. After a hard day of work who wants to listen to somebody tell them why THEY have to pay more taxes? |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2003-05-20 18:31:12 |
| #6 A majority of the folks who listen to talk radio are driving either two of from work when they tune in.... which means they have jobs they have to communte to. Which means they probably own homes. Which means they pay morgages and property tax. Which means they are probably not liberals. Hence, there is probably no audience for liberal talk radio. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2003-05-20 17:51:13 |
| #5 The dems have been contemplating how to counter the center right/right radio phenomena for some time. A decade from now they will be chattering about how to counter the center/right phenomena of the internet blogs also. Unfortunately their shrill, irrational, emotion based philosophy which promotes class and race warfare, special rights for certain groups, big government and PC (intolerance) doesn't lend itself well to the demographics of the radio audience. |
| Posted by: Jonesy 2003-05-20 17:23:09 |
| #4 Bo-o-o-o-oring... clueless, too. Yup, it's them danged liberals agin, ma! |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-05-20 12:50:46 |
| #3 "Centrist and left-wing talk radio is still an emerging product with a huge unserved market." Unserved? Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, 60 Minutes, 20/20, and the rest of 3 major networks, plus CNN, the NYT, WashPost, LA Times, and most of the rest of the media is unserved? AM air belongs to the Peoples and if there's a market for lefties, they are welcome to their share. But they don't need to tune in the low end of the dial, just to find their views represented in public. Lefties use radios for music. Criminey, if they listened to and thought about the issues all day, they wouldn't be leftists. |
| Posted by: Mark IV 2003-05-20 12:18:06 |
| #2 CC: My car stereo is busted and only picking up FM now. For liberal talk, check out NPR, paid for with your tax dollars. There are some articles that are fairly balanced, but they're few and far between the "why does George Bush want to take milk from babies and health care from the poor just so his rich friends don't have to pay their fair share of taxes on dividends" discussions. I've gotta get the stereo fixed - it's killing me |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-05-20 11:32:26 |
| #1 For liberal radio there's Ron Kuby and .... Ron Kuby. What a formidable line-up. One of the multitude of problems with liberals is that they only react through whining and bitching and fail to offer alternatives. Who wants to turn on the radio and listen to that? I can get that at home. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-20 11:15:11 |