| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Limbaugh, Hannity Face Armed Forces Radio Loss |
| 2006-06-05 |
| Handing liberal opponents a sudden victory in their longtime battle over Armed Forces Radio content, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity may soon be removed from broadcast outlets serving American soldiers stationed around the world. With last year's addition of liberal talk shows to the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service lineup, how could this happen now?... In this new scenario, ALL political talk shows will be nearly eliminated, including those hosted by liberals Ed Schultz and Al Franken. If Hannity and Limbaugh aren't being singled out for quasi- cancellation, that might seem fair, but the devil is in the details. And it's a particularly ugly devil: upon closer examination, an astounding picture of anti- conservative bias is clearly revealed. Was it intentional? We don't know. In a highly unexpected development, a radio consulting firm hired by the military has strongly recommended dumping these programs from stations that reach the vast majority of troops and others residing overseas. After an extensive study was conducted that included a number of focus groups, Lund Media Research determined that talk radio and country music should be largely eliminated to make room for hip-hop, rap and pop formats, according to Stars and Stripes. Only in rare cases where three military radio frequencies are available in a region would Limbaugh and Hannity survive in any manner. Even then, only about an hour of each show would remain on the schedule of the third station, rather than their entire three- hour broadcasts. Included on the cut list is NPR's programming, generally regarded as liberal, but it would still air for at least three hours daily. While the military must decide whether to act on Lund's advice, if it wasn't intending to take these recommendations seriously, we find it unlikely that AFRTS would pay a significant amount of money and assist in coordinating this research. Until now, station programming decisions have been handled locally, with area brass making the call as to what was suitable for troops stationed in a particular conflict zone or military base. Under the new proposal, that will be centralized... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #15 FOX had a report this AM about Government being desired to regulate RESTAURANT PORTION(S) SIZE(S) - ARISE, YE FASCIST = HALFCOMMUNIST MALE BRUTES OF AMERICA = AMERIKKKA, OUR PIZZAS, NACHOS, HOAGIES, DELI, etal. IS AT RISK OF BEING LEGALLY FORCIBLY CONVERTED INTO MOTHERLY COMMIE CHICK FOOD!? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-05 21:58 |
| #14 Anonymoose - it's the 'Deteriorata' from National Lampoon. The words are here. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2006-06-05 20:46 |
| #13 The USA soccer team is ranked 5th in the world, You guys have a real shot at winning. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-06-05 18:46 |
| #12 Who is the Asshat that thought the decision should be centralized? Sound like some commie reasoning to me. One size does not fit all and the local commander should be able to make those decisions and not some (very much removed) focus group. Hip hop? God where did we go wrong? FYI a lot of time I would switch over to static than listen to NPR (it made more sense). |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-06-05 16:49 |
| #11 The soccer message boards I frequent have several current and former service members bitching that AFRTS will not be carrying the World Cup which begins Friday. That's a shame, especially in the boondocks. |
| Posted by: JDB 2006-06-05 16:19 |
| #10 The censorship of AFRTS during the Vietnam War era was precisely why later station managers felt so strongly about it... The only way that they would approve killing a song or a news segment was on account of a host nation sensitivity. A local host commander trying to get them to kill something would be like showing a red flag to a bull--- it was a point of honor not to give in on anything other than host nation sensitivites. Now, with so much programming available via satellite, or DVD, or various commercially available downloads, I'm fairly sure that AFRTS has less and less reason to exist. It's been a dying carreer field for years. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-06-05 12:17 |
| #9 Sgt. Mom: One of the more well known Armed Forces Radio censorships was during the Vietnam War, when they were broadcasting the Dr. Demento show. He played National Lampoon's 'Miserata', which made reference to giving up Taiwan. It was like two minutes of dead air. Dr Demento is still on the air, BTW, and broadcast over the Internet, for you fans out there. I can't seem to find a copy of 'Miserata', though. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-06-05 11:56 |
| #8 Greeks were hypersensitive about everything Really? I never would have guessed. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-06-05 11:28 |
| #7 Boneheads. Thought police. Commie assholes. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-06-05 10:57 |
| #6 NPR Worldwide on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services |
| Posted by: ed 2006-06-05 10:48 |
| #5 "Local brass making the descision about what the troops listen too?" Hmm, they must of steamrollered right over the AFRTS management, then. One of the things that station management felt very firmly about when I was serving as a broadcaster (from 1977-1997) was that local commanders COULD NOT dictate what we aired in the way of music. They tried, sometimes, but it was a point of pride for us to not be bullied into it by a local commander. This is why AFRTS had their own chain of command--- to insulate us from a local colonel throwing his own weight around. We went by polls of the audience... and what they said they wanted to hear was what they got. What might affect what airs day to day in talk shows, is a little thing called host nation sensitivities: in other words, referances and topics that might offend the local national listeners: for instance, jokes about Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs go down like a cup of cold vomit in Japan; the Greeks were hypersensitive about everything, and the Spanish were sort of touchy about having lost the Spanish-American War. So, what the AFRTS staff always had to do was to pre-screen a lot of news shows, and if a host-nation sensitivity came up... well, have to clear that with station management, or the local PA, or whatever. If a program is notoriously apt to offend local sensitivites, at some point it's just a lot less trouble to drop the show. We tried airing NPR, BTW, when I was at Hellenikon AB in the 80ies, but there were host nation sensitivites coming up so often, it was more trouble than it was worth. And Rush was very popular with the audience, when he was finally included in the package in the early 1990ies... somewhat less so with the overnight staffer who had to listen it it all, and log the potential sensitivities. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-06-05 10:47 |
| #4 boo hoo |
| Posted by: bk 2006-06-05 10:43 |
| #3 NPR *cut* to three hours? How much time does it get now?? |
| Posted by: KBK 2006-06-05 10:27 |
| #2 This is just horrible. The talk radio recommendations are bad enough, but removing Country music to make room for rap is unconscionable. While Country has it's faults, it generally talks about traditional values, honoring your contry, loving your wife and kids, etc. Why replace it with an entire musical culture that denigrates women into whores and bitches, promotes rampant sexual promiscuity, murder, gang activity, a steady stream of vulgarity, drug abuse and gaudy materialsm? Is our military leadership so completely out of touch that they actually believe this will help the troops? Unreal. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2006-06-05 10:15 |
| #1 It will be interesting to see how vociferous the outrage gets among the troops. I suspect it will be deafening and someone in DC will hear it loud and clear. I'd bet both Hannity and Rush won't be gone long, if they ever leave. |
| Posted by: mac 2006-06-05 10:15 |