Why Air America isn't Taking Off
A couple of years ago, a bunch of leftists got tired of losing - actually, they have been plotting ways to get their power back for a long time - and rather than realize that they have lousy, stupid, and evil ideas, they came to the conclusion that the woe to all their problems had to do with the fact that conservatives have talk radio. So if they had a talk radio format, they could overtake conservatives.
At first, they aimed this for those in the middle of the road. However, today, since the number of middle-of-the-roaders who are truly ardent about politics is about 10 (remember, it's a contradiction for moderates to be ardent about anything!), they realized that they had better market toward leftists. So they created Air America.
They have been trying for ten years. Remember the Mario Cuomo show? The only thing funny about that was the fact that Mario Cuomo had a talk show, and that he actually thought he was entertaining! Rather than learn from the fact that no one wants to listen to new left wing talk radio, they decided to go out and create a whole network of left wing stations. Then they would truly wow America!
The only wowing that's been going on is the amount of cash they have bled. In the meantime, Air America has very low Arbitron ratings. For example, in Seattle, for all four talk stations, they are at the bottom (and near the bottom of the ratings for all stations). Yes, you read that correctly - this is in the nutty Seattle area. What's even more embarrasing is that there are two voiciferous conservative stations nipping at each other, and even they have higher ratings that this Air America affiliate!!! And this is despite the fact that there is no other all-out "progressive" station (the other station is largely made up of leftists, but it does have a few conservatives on it)
So, what has been going on? I have a few ideas:
1) When talk radio started, conservatives had few places to find daily opinions they would agree with. Leftists have always had lots of outlets.
Circa 1988, when Rush Limbaugh started the conservative talk-radio craze, conservatives have always complained about the ("liberal") mainstream media, and how it is out of touch. This has recently been proven by none-other than Walter Cronkite (who offered no apologizes for this bias in his piece). So there was an audience hungry for news.
2) Conservative talk stations filled the gap left by the repealing of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine".
For a very, very, long time, if a station offered an opinion, they had to present the other side. This was due to an FCC guideline called the "Fairness Doctrine" I believe it had been in place since at least the 1930's, if not the 1920's (you can prove me wrong on this point). If one stations was not being "fair", it's licence could be pulled. This only happened once, during the Kennedy Administration, but the threat was there to be very powerful.
In the meantime, public radio existed to present all sides. At least all "educated" sides. There was a very real belief, still prevalent in some circles, that only dummies could believe in such things like free enterprise, because most who graduated from elite schools believed in either socialism, or a very heavily regulated market economy. Anyone who believed in a market economy was really not that educated. So it was ok to present someone who was a pure fabian vs a moderate fabian, on NPR, and that would pass for "balance".
In 1988, Ronald Reagan did away with the "Fairness Doctrine." No one really paid attention to this at the time. He certainly did not know what was going to result, and not in his wildest dreams did he, or anyone, realize what a boon to the conservatives this would be. However, since stations could present one side now without fear of FCC fines, they could hve an all-conservative format, and many succeeded because of this.
In the mid-1990's, there was talk of attempting to re-implement this doctrine. However, if re-implemted today, there would be little change on public policy, due largely to the internet (see below).
3) All talk, all the time, eventually gets tiring.
For a while, talk radio was quite exciting. Especially in 1994. On the eve of the Iraq liberation, it was exciting again. It felt like a revolution was going to be made.
However, after things happened, hosts could not find good topics that would get people excited. So they started sounding like a broken record. Even if someone totally agrees with the statement "Democrats suck" or "liberals suck," there is only so much they can hear before falling asleep.
On both sides of the ideological divide, there are quite a few open-minded people who do listen to the other side - and call in. In fact, many liberals only (or largely) listened to conservative stations because this was the only place where they could get the other side. And, many hosts gave thoughtful, informed arguments for their positions, so these liberals could try to find ways to counter conservatives. However, enthuiasm wanes for them, too.
4) Ratings for talk radio have faded over the last ten years
In 1994, Rush Limbaugh, the King of Talk Radio, had 21 million listeners. He has lost almost 1/3 of them. Two reasons. First, see point #3. Then, see point #5. Even if conservative talk radio went away completely tomorrow, the infrastructure is largely in place so that the conservative agenda can be pushed without much damage.
5) Between 1994 - 2003, several new news outlets developed.
First, there is the Internet - and the explosion of news sites (in fact, one of the first categories of sites that arose on the web in 1995 had to do with news). Well, basically, the internet. Most people today who are coming of age politically largely get their news off of the internet. So they do not need to find another biased source.
6) Early talk show hosts were radio specialists. Air America got celebrities who know nothing about radio.
Many of the early hosts had been radio hosts for several years. For example, Bob Grant. Ken Hamlin is another example. So they had training.
Rush Limbaugh had only a few years of talk-show training. However, he had been in radio since high school. If you listen to his small talk at the beginning of each segment, you will figure out the key to his success - "Maha Rushie" "America's Doctor of Democracy," "The Truth Detector" (actually, this is in response to a rant of Bill Clinton's over ten years ago). Most importantly "I am a highly-trained broadcast engineer."
Rush came from Top-40 AM radio, which had to be the most entertaining of all, since it catered to high-school kids. He started during the late 1960's, when Top-40 radio was not the most preferred choice of music for his age group. So, to survive, he really had to hone some skills to get his points across. These had nothing to do with politics, but imagine if he applied these skills to politics.
Since he is so highly trained, he knows the most effective ways to get his points across. In the meantime, Air America consists of a failed comedian (Jeannine Garafallo) and, well, Al Franken. Al Franken stayed a long, long time on Saturday-Night Live. Over 20 years. This program is basically a training ground for actors and actresses. If you do not make it after a few years, you've "braken" it. I.e., you are not going to be a success. And Al Franken never became a successful comedian, or actor, for that matter.
Remember the "Al Franken" decade? This was supposed to be the 1980's. Reagan's decade. Oops. So there was the "Al Franken Junior" decade, the 1990's. The decade of conservative talk radio, Newt Gingrich, etc. Oops again.
So, if a man is not entertaining in a format that he was in training for 20 years, what makes one think he will be entertaining in a format for which he has no training? So now you have an idea why people may not want to listen.
7) Talk Radio built it's own subculture
While largely a marketing gimmick, the conservative subculture has been basically vulgarized into a more populist subculture. Conservative is not only an ideology, but almost, a way of life. And talk radio is largely part of it.
This is due to the fact that conservatives were largely alienated from American society (expecially in the media) for about half-a-century. So when offered a chance at their own identity, many took it up.
On the other hand, the only alienated leftists were those wierdos in the 1960 who wore funny clothes, smoked a lot of dope, engaged in lost of promiscuity - i.e., the hippies (gays were someone alienated, too). However, even then, many media outlets glorified such a lifestyle - especially since many young actors and actresses aspired to many aspects of this counter-culture.
Today, leftists are not alienated in society, but largely push social changes. So there is no real basis to create a leftist subculture like the conservatives have (which fuels much of the agenda).
8) Many cities already had left wing talk show hosts, if not left-wing stations
In Seattle, there is one station, KIRO, which primarily consists of left-wing hosts (it has a few conservatives, however). And I suppose there are other cities, too. People are often loyal to hosts to whom they listen to decades - only they listen less over time. They are not going to switch the radio to listen to some failed comedian giving their opinions, when their own hosts have studied all the issues much longer.
And finally,
9) Leftists already have very many entertainment and news outlets.
First, there is NPR. Not too entertaining, but it is very informative (the Seattle NPR station carries a lot of "Jazz", and since I cannot stand modern jazz, I never have it on my radio). If a leftist is not into news, they have tons, and tons, of places to find entertainment - like the TV, the movies, the internet, video games, and now, if they have a car, they can listen to Howard Stern on satellite radio. So here is Air America, in the middle, combining an entertaining way to present the news. For those who are not into entertainment, but are into news, they go to NPR (or conservative talk radio, or the internet, or newspapers). For those who are into entertainment, they go to those various mediums mentioned above. There is some truth to Ann Coulter's statement that leftists get their news from "Lifetime, the West Wing, and a million episodes of Law and Order where the perp is a religious fanatic who quotes the second amendment while blowing the victims away" (or something to that effect - I do not have the exact quote on hand). That leaves very few crumbs for the Air America station.
Thus, Air America is a classic case of too little, too late. People are bored with this format, they have many many more options now than the conservatives had when "hot talk" started over 15 years ago, the underlying American culture has changed significantly in the 15 years which provided the fertile ground for the conservative stations, and the hosts are largely improperly trained. Since the left almost monopolized public opinion from the Depression until the 1990's, there probably would not have been much success in creating a format for a long, long time.
I believe that the best time to have created a left-wing talk format would have been no later than the 1950's, when radio formats started in response to television. However, that time for success has long passed, and I believe that such a format catering to leftists will never have close to the effectiveness that the conservative formats have had over the last ten years.
At first, they aimed this for those in the middle of the road. However, today, since the number of middle-of-the-roaders who are truly ardent about politics is about 10 (remember, it's a contradiction for moderates to be ardent about anything!), they realized that they had better market toward leftists. So they created Air America.
They have been trying for ten years. Remember the Mario Cuomo show? The only thing funny about that was the fact that Mario Cuomo had a talk show, and that he actually thought he was entertaining! Rather than learn from the fact that no one wants to listen to new left wing talk radio, they decided to go out and create a whole network of left wing stations. Then they would truly wow America!
The only wowing that's been going on is the amount of cash they have bled. In the meantime, Air America has very low Arbitron ratings. For example, in Seattle, for all four talk stations, they are at the bottom (and near the bottom of the ratings for all stations). Yes, you read that correctly - this is in the nutty Seattle area. What's even more embarrasing is that there are two voiciferous conservative stations nipping at each other, and even they have higher ratings that this Air America affiliate!!! And this is despite the fact that there is no other all-out "progressive" station (the other station is largely made up of leftists, but it does have a few conservatives on it)
So, what has been going on? I have a few ideas:
1) When talk radio started, conservatives had few places to find daily opinions they would agree with. Leftists have always had lots of outlets.
Circa 1988, when Rush Limbaugh started the conservative talk-radio craze, conservatives have always complained about the ("liberal") mainstream media, and how it is out of touch. This has recently been proven by none-other than Walter Cronkite (who offered no apologizes for this bias in his piece). So there was an audience hungry for news.
2) Conservative talk stations filled the gap left by the repealing of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine".
For a very, very, long time, if a station offered an opinion, they had to present the other side. This was due to an FCC guideline called the "Fairness Doctrine" I believe it had been in place since at least the 1930's, if not the 1920's (you can prove me wrong on this point). If one stations was not being "fair", it's licence could be pulled. This only happened once, during the Kennedy Administration, but the threat was there to be very powerful.
In the meantime, public radio existed to present all sides. At least all "educated" sides. There was a very real belief, still prevalent in some circles, that only dummies could believe in such things like free enterprise, because most who graduated from elite schools believed in either socialism, or a very heavily regulated market economy. Anyone who believed in a market economy was really not that educated. So it was ok to present someone who was a pure fabian vs a moderate fabian, on NPR, and that would pass for "balance".
In 1988, Ronald Reagan did away with the "Fairness Doctrine." No one really paid attention to this at the time. He certainly did not know what was going to result, and not in his wildest dreams did he, or anyone, realize what a boon to the conservatives this would be. However, since stations could present one side now without fear of FCC fines, they could hve an all-conservative format, and many succeeded because of this.
In the mid-1990's, there was talk of attempting to re-implement this doctrine. However, if re-implemted today, there would be little change on public policy, due largely to the internet (see below).
3) All talk, all the time, eventually gets tiring.
For a while, talk radio was quite exciting. Especially in 1994. On the eve of the Iraq liberation, it was exciting again. It felt like a revolution was going to be made.
However, after things happened, hosts could not find good topics that would get people excited. So they started sounding like a broken record. Even if someone totally agrees with the statement "Democrats suck" or "liberals suck," there is only so much they can hear before falling asleep.
On both sides of the ideological divide, there are quite a few open-minded people who do listen to the other side - and call in. In fact, many liberals only (or largely) listened to conservative stations because this was the only place where they could get the other side. And, many hosts gave thoughtful, informed arguments for their positions, so these liberals could try to find ways to counter conservatives. However, enthuiasm wanes for them, too.
4) Ratings for talk radio have faded over the last ten years
In 1994, Rush Limbaugh, the King of Talk Radio, had 21 million listeners. He has lost almost 1/3 of them. Two reasons. First, see point #3. Then, see point #5. Even if conservative talk radio went away completely tomorrow, the infrastructure is largely in place so that the conservative agenda can be pushed without much damage.
5) Between 1994 - 2003, several new news outlets developed.
First, there is the Internet - and the explosion of news sites (in fact, one of the first categories of sites that arose on the web in 1995 had to do with news). Well, basically, the internet. Most people today who are coming of age politically largely get their news off of the internet. So they do not need to find another biased source.
6) Early talk show hosts were radio specialists. Air America got celebrities who know nothing about radio.
Many of the early hosts had been radio hosts for several years. For example, Bob Grant. Ken Hamlin is another example. So they had training.
Rush Limbaugh had only a few years of talk-show training. However, he had been in radio since high school. If you listen to his small talk at the beginning of each segment, you will figure out the key to his success - "Maha Rushie" "America's Doctor of Democracy," "The Truth Detector" (actually, this is in response to a rant of Bill Clinton's over ten years ago). Most importantly "I am a highly-trained broadcast engineer."
Rush came from Top-40 AM radio, which had to be the most entertaining of all, since it catered to high-school kids. He started during the late 1960's, when Top-40 radio was not the most preferred choice of music for his age group. So, to survive, he really had to hone some skills to get his points across. These had nothing to do with politics, but imagine if he applied these skills to politics.
Since he is so highly trained, he knows the most effective ways to get his points across. In the meantime, Air America consists of a failed comedian (Jeannine Garafallo) and, well, Al Franken. Al Franken stayed a long, long time on Saturday-Night Live. Over 20 years. This program is basically a training ground for actors and actresses. If you do not make it after a few years, you've "braken" it. I.e., you are not going to be a success. And Al Franken never became a successful comedian, or actor, for that matter.
Remember the "Al Franken" decade? This was supposed to be the 1980's. Reagan's decade. Oops. So there was the "Al Franken Junior" decade, the 1990's. The decade of conservative talk radio, Newt Gingrich, etc. Oops again.
So, if a man is not entertaining in a format that he was in training for 20 years, what makes one think he will be entertaining in a format for which he has no training? So now you have an idea why people may not want to listen.
7) Talk Radio built it's own subculture
While largely a marketing gimmick, the conservative subculture has been basically vulgarized into a more populist subculture. Conservative is not only an ideology, but almost, a way of life. And talk radio is largely part of it.
This is due to the fact that conservatives were largely alienated from American society (expecially in the media) for about half-a-century. So when offered a chance at their own identity, many took it up.
On the other hand, the only alienated leftists were those wierdos in the 1960 who wore funny clothes, smoked a lot of dope, engaged in lost of promiscuity - i.e., the hippies (gays were someone alienated, too). However, even then, many media outlets glorified such a lifestyle - especially since many young actors and actresses aspired to many aspects of this counter-culture.
Today, leftists are not alienated in society, but largely push social changes. So there is no real basis to create a leftist subculture like the conservatives have (which fuels much of the agenda).
8) Many cities already had left wing talk show hosts, if not left-wing stations
In Seattle, there is one station, KIRO, which primarily consists of left-wing hosts (it has a few conservatives, however). And I suppose there are other cities, too. People are often loyal to hosts to whom they listen to decades - only they listen less over time. They are not going to switch the radio to listen to some failed comedian giving their opinions, when their own hosts have studied all the issues much longer.
And finally,
9) Leftists already have very many entertainment and news outlets.
First, there is NPR. Not too entertaining, but it is very informative (the Seattle NPR station carries a lot of "Jazz", and since I cannot stand modern jazz, I never have it on my radio). If a leftist is not into news, they have tons, and tons, of places to find entertainment - like the TV, the movies, the internet, video games, and now, if they have a car, they can listen to Howard Stern on satellite radio. So here is Air America, in the middle, combining an entertaining way to present the news. For those who are not into entertainment, but are into news, they go to NPR (or conservative talk radio, or the internet, or newspapers). For those who are into entertainment, they go to those various mediums mentioned above. There is some truth to Ann Coulter's statement that leftists get their news from "Lifetime, the West Wing, and a million episodes of Law and Order where the perp is a religious fanatic who quotes the second amendment while blowing the victims away" (or something to that effect - I do not have the exact quote on hand). That leaves very few crumbs for the Air America station.
Thus, Air America is a classic case of too little, too late. People are bored with this format, they have many many more options now than the conservatives had when "hot talk" started over 15 years ago, the underlying American culture has changed significantly in the 15 years which provided the fertile ground for the conservative stations, and the hosts are largely improperly trained. Since the left almost monopolized public opinion from the Depression until the 1990's, there probably would not have been much success in creating a format for a long, long time.
I believe that the best time to have created a left-wing talk format would have been no later than the 1950's, when radio formats started in response to television. However, that time for success has long passed, and I believe that such a format catering to leftists will never have close to the effectiveness that the conservative formats have had over the last ten years.
posted by EricMatthew at 11:55 PM
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