Fred Thompson & Conservatives Own Talk Radio
20 June 2007 9:45 pm by Taylor Marsh
So what are they afraid of? Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, even Michelle
Malkin, who doesn’t even have a show, bemoan the ramifications if liberals get fair treatment across the airwaves. Rush might actually have to interview someone besides Dick Cheney! It’s the color coded version of wing-nut
terror alert over their radio spots being taken away. It’s a fantasy. They should
be a progressive talker. Progressives are the step child of talk radio. However, the fearmongering wingnuts are taking their “global war on terror” to a radio audience near you.
The Fairness Doctrine, first implemented in 1949, stipulated that radio –
and later, TV – stations must give equal time to opposing viewpoints
on controversial subjects. The FCC repealed the Doctrine in 1987.In an interview with Talkers magazine, Boortz – who has 3.75 million
listeners per week on 200 radio stations – was asked if there is a danger
the Doctrine would be reinstituted.“Absolutely,” he answered. “It’s drop dead. If Hillary
Clinton or a Democrat of her type becomes President of the United States and
the Democrats control the House and the Senate, the Fairness Doctrine will
pass.
Why all this sudden concern? After all, people like myself have been beating the talk radio drum for many years. Now, suddenly, the Democrats are finally listening.
“The Structural
Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” is the first study ever done on
talk radio. It’s freaking out the wingnuts. American Progress compiled it, along
with the Free Press. The pdf
is here. The statistics and evidence are staggering. Liberals are being
out talked across this country, with the imbalance impossible to combat; the outcome obvious.
And don’t let them kid you. It’s not about bankability. Some of us can’t even
get on the air for enough rating cycles to prove we can be commercially viable. Stations are closed to progressives.
Even talk radio outlets that handle liberals are very reticent to take a chance
on a new talker. Courage is lacking on our side, which is what it takes to make something happen. Air America’s failings has only made people more skittish.
As regulars around here know, having been on radio for many years via interviews,
I finally got my own show launched in 2002. I now stream daily online and have
been looking for a good radio home since mid-2003. The work is never ending.
The financial output is as well. I live in the red.
“The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” tells the story.
The highlights are below and the bottom line is depressing when you compare
right-wing radio to progressive radio. However, that doesn’t keep Hannity from
whining. Free competition isn’t anything he’s interested in; neither is Alan
Colmes, who thinks liberal hosts should evidently pull him or herself up
by the bootstraps. Colmes’s rationale is that he doesn’t want government in the content business. Nobody does, but coming from a guy who’s being subsidized by Fox “News” I don’t consider his opinion exactly informed on the reality the rest of us are facing. Nice when Fox “News” bankrolls your life. It’s
a tough slog for all of us intending to get our shows on the air. But we keep
working. It’s all up hill. Now we’ve got the proof.
– In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the
top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio
programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.– Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are
broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk —
10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.– 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets
is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive.Two common myths are frequently offered to explain the imbalance of talk
radio: 1) the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (which required broadcasters
to devote airtime to contrasting views), and 2) simple consumer demand. Each
of these fails to adequately explain the root cause of the problem. The report
explains:Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk
radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory
system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept
of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for
broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement
of local participation in management. […]Ultimately, these results suggest that increasing ownership diversity,
both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the
number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming,
more choices for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their
local communities and serve the public interest.Along with other ideas, the report recommends that national radio ownership
not be allowed to exceed 5 percent of the total number of AM and FM broadcast
stations, and local ownership should not exceed more than 10 percent of the
total commercial radio stations in a given market.
Satellite and internet streaming radio are good, but nothing beats the old democratic model of a.m. radio, which offers the biggest audience of any in the country.
When elections roll around talk radio matters. These local and national talkers are the people who inspire people to go vote and act as cheerleaders for conservative causes. From 9:00 a.m., sometimes 6:00 a.m. locally, all you get, especially on ABC, is one conservative talker after another. Fred Thompson is talking every day through his radio show, getting an edge on all the Democratic candidates. He’s even got a blog of sorts. He used it recently to attack Harry Reid, as well as the blogosphere.
… Harry Reid, though, has taken a different route. He made his statement about General Pace on a conference call with fringe elements of the blogosphere who think we’re the bad guys. This is a place where even those who think the 9/11 attacks were an inside job find a home. … ..
But on it goes, without anyone saying a word, even though Fred Thompson’s access to ABC radio’s listening audience could make the difference in ‘08. Conservatives are nakedly using every avenue of the public airwaves to push their agenda. We’re out gunned, outmanned and the radio deck is stacked against us, as the new study shows. This type of thing has been happening every day on a wingnut radio dial near you for two decades. They like the monopoly and Republicans are going to do everything they can to keep it.
