Joshua Holland sifts through the report released by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press (PDF) on talk radio and gets to the center of the tootsie roll pop – the dominance of conservative talk radio is a not a free market success but rather a classic market failure:
[T]he 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.
Mary, yes I do believe that conservative talk radio is a market success. It basically filled a space and satisfied a demand that existed and still exists. Liberal talk radio, as it has been given to us, has without a doubt been a failure though.
I will say that there is room on the radio for some type of liberal talk success. They just need to approach it differently. For example, I listen to Bob Costas on the weekend and he is unashamedly a liberal. His guest this last Saturday was John Mellancamp. Basically what I am saying is that liberal talk radio should stop trying to copy the way that conservatives have done it. They should do talk radio in a different way. They just need to change their approach.
News flash:
Kincaid proves idgaf’s point.
Now back to your regular liberal rant.
[...] Is the relative dearth of liberal talk radio simply a reflection of demand or is it indicative of market failure. Mary Mancini examines the issue. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
John, WRFN is just the beginning of the people taking back the airwaves from corporate media but it’s laughable to compare them with power of WWTN and WLAC. I guess you just don’t understand how the system works.
If you’re smart, you’ll join WRFN’s fight since all of us – Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative – are being controlled and manipulated by the corporate media.
Air America, and Jim Hightower before them, are/were unlistenable, thus no audience. No audience equals in radio extinction.
In Nashville, the liberals have an entire radio station of their own – 98.9 WRFN-LPFM give it a listen if you have need for a dose of liberal talk and programming.
Long live H.O.R.N!
Hey, look up there! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! NO! It’s a 26-percenter! (idgaf, Paul Fite) How’s that Bush vote working out for you? Bwa-hahahahahahahaha!
Isn’t it charming to watch the “conservatives” crawl out from under the bridge to decry the “librul meeja?” Confronted with real, honest-to-jeebuss science and statistics, they fall back on their “faith” that a drug addict, a draft dodger and a serial mysoginist (Limbaugh, Savage, O’Reilly) have REALLY been telling them the truth. These 26-percenters will never stand accused of looking at facts, when “faith” will keep them from dealing with reality.
Anyone who remotely understands how right-wing hateradio works knows that it’s all a Con. Listen to the ads that run in the national avails: sweedish mattresses, herbal erection remedies, patent baldness cures and vacuum cleaners that pick up bowling balls. Thus, we can see that the right-wing hateradio demographic is a sleepless, impotent, bald guy with lot of heavy dust in his house.
To the Conservatives’ credit, however, this much must be noted: they want their information out there and they don’t care how much it costs to do it. Even though most of these shows are big losers in terms of money, the right-wing keeps pumping money into them, understanding the profound value in spewing lies and hate 24/7.
You can see it in the brainless repetition of talking points that Paul Fite and idgaf put on this very thread. Not an original thought to be had; just a littany of parrotted falsehoods. That’s how the Republcan Party works: it relies on its adherents’ willingness not to think, but merely to be led.
http://www.headonradionetwork.com America’s Liberal Voice!
And the 5 or 6 companies that own the vast majority of media outlets in this country give millions of dollars to Republican candidates and Republican causes only. What is wrong with THAT picture?
We’re all being manipulated by the corporate media. The content you hear on conservative talk radio is the content they want you to hear. None of us are getting the full spectrum of news and opinions we need to be an informed electorate.
The LEFT Wing dominance of main stream media is the classic failure.
80% of the newspapers, 95% of T.V. news, and 10% of radio stations lean left.
What is wrong with THAT picture.
No one wants to listen to the hate that Liberal talk radio spews.
They have no substance ,soulutions ,ideas or alternatives for that which they whine about.