Once again liberal talk radio Air America is being pronounced on (excuse the expression these days after what our country has been through) life support — this time via an intriguing commentary in the Los Angeles Times.
The commentary is by Brian C. Anderson senior editor of City Journal and author of “South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias,” newly released from Regnery. In other words, someone who would not be expected to be…ahem…how shall we say it?…in Air America’s basic target audience.
We’ll let you read the commentary linked above for yourself. Suffice to say it goes through the oft-heard list of reasons why Air America can’t succeed, how it fills a different need from conservative talk radio, etc. etc.
We would like to offer our readers several bits of friendly advice on evaluating talk radio on both sides:
- Never expect an objective critique of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage from someone who is a fan of Air America in terms of its programming and ideology.
- Never expect an objective critique of anyone on Air America or that company from someone who is a fan of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage.
However, the times are-a changing. Here in San Diego the monster media giant Clear Channel Communications dumped the oldies format of its 1360 station, renamed it KLSD (an apt and memorable name) and put on Air America and syndicated liberal talk show host Ed Schulz (who sounds like Limbaugh with a slightly different accent). The new formatted station immediately made solid to modest ratings gains, depending on who you listen to. But it has an audience and is building one and is doing better than Eddie Fisher and Dinah Shore were doing.
And apparently the conservative-friendly Clear Channel didn’t consider the experiment a disastrous ratings experience or bad investment — because about a month ago it converted an L.A. station which now runs the same shows up there.
Now, people can respond with a zillion tidbits on how this is generalization, and send me this rating or that to show how Rush is more popular — but the fact is that talk radio is now as polarized as the politics in this country and they’re not pulling the plug on Air America shows but adding them. Critics like to seize on how small these stations are, etc. but the bottom line is that when you listen to them, they’re a station like any other. And many are now in major markets.
Another big bottom line: It seems like a kind of fraternity hazing rite that in the United States today you must despise all conservative talk shows and their hosts if you are on the left and you must despise liberal talk shows if you are on the right. If you dare to deviate from that mantra (and, people, much of talk radio is ENTERTAINMENT so you should be able to still disagree with someone but admire their talent or outrageous schtick) you are to be looked at with horror or scolded.
I have to admit I was impressed recently when I had dinner with my brother Roger Gandelman, who is a well-known glass blower in Connecticut. He is a big Rush Limbaugh fan and since he blows glass all day he has talk radio on all day and gets most of his news from it. He finally grew weary of Rush’s predictability and discovered Glenn Beck, another conservative. But then he wanted to hear more variety so he subscribed to a satellite radio service.
Roger now listens to a slew of talk show hosts — including Al Franken, who he found amusing, although irritating at times when Franken would dump on some of Roger’s sincerely-held ideals. But he listens to Franken. Some other liberal hosts he can’t stand.
The point is: there is room to listen to BOTH KINDS of talk radio. Listening to another idea does not cause brain cancer. (FYI, TMV listens to Franken, Michael Savage, KFI’s Jon and Ken, Ed Schulz and, when he can get him, Michael Reagan. He skips Rush and Sean because they do too many talking points and are too predictable for him).
I can usually tell the entire gist of what someone will write about a conservative talk show or a liberal talk radio network as soon as I see where they are coming from politically. They never fail to be utterly predictable in using every opportunity to push ideology by saying “our side is great and successful and the others are a bunch of losers.”
And, true to form, Mr. Anderson certainly did not disappoint me….
UPDATE: Read libertarian Dave Koppel’s take on Air America. He’s one of those who listens to all of them and makes his judgements based on each show.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.