So I stop down at Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin campus this morning to grab an Isthmus, our local weekly. I'm flipping through and on page 4 or so I see this crappy, crappy news. They don't publish their stuff online much, so I don't have a link. But a little blurb in there says
The Mic 92.1, the only real progressive voice in one of America's most progressive cities, is switching to ... sports!
More..
First of all, I should say that it's kind of loose to call The Mic an Air America affiliate, since it gets maybe half of its stuff from Air America. The morning drive time is local - a really great local show called The Pro Show with Lee Rayburn and Jodi Shawback. Much of the weekend stuff is local, too. Weekdays they carry Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz from Jones Radio Networks. The point is, please don't blame this on Air America.
The station's Arbitron numbers are the highest they've ever been, and that station has been through a number of music formats over the years. Still, it appears the numbers aren't good enough for ClearChannel Madison.
While it's not entirely clear, it seems to me that tomorrow might be the last day for the Pro Show. Isthmus says the rumor is that the show is cancelled as of the end of this week, anyway. Lee Rayburn, the host of the show, has not commented, but I would imagine he would not be allowed to. So. I just hope he still has a job somewhere else inside ClearChannel Madison.
The funny thing about the sports format is that ClearChannel already has the strongest sports position in Madison by far. They carry the Brewers on WIBA AM, Packers and Badgers football on WIBA AM and WIBA FM, and Badger basketball and hockey on WIBA AM or WTSO AM. I do not understand how another all-sports format makes sense for them, unless they maybe don't want to carry games on WIBA FM anymore, and want to strengthen the position on national sports coverage. I dunno. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless maybe they had trouble selling sponsorships. Who knows.
Anyway. You can maybe call ClearChannel Madison and make some noise if you want, but I'm not sure it'll do much good. The station manager is a decent guy.
I supposed there's a chance that one of the other broadcasting outfits in town will pick up the progressive talk mantle. WTDY over at Midwest Family Broadcasting already has a progressive guy in the midday in the person of Sly, though he's a total blowhard. So perhaps they will be persuaded to switch WTDY to an all-progressive talk format. Who knows.
I'm just ... I dunno ... kinda sad.