The Center for American Progress released a 35-page report in June, full of facts, charts, and statistics incontrovertibly demonstrating:
- 91% of commercial talk radio is right-wing.
- Right-wing bias is directly tied to ownership; and mega-ownership = mega bias.
These are two sharp arrows in the quiver for those in D.C. arguing for ownership rules.
BUT I WANT ANOTHER STUDY for those of us in the trenches (such as at OhioMajorityRadio.com ) appealing to local station owners to carry progressive programs.
Sure, we can tell them about the unfairness--but they don’t care.
What WE need is a study that proves something else we all know; that PROGRESSIVE RADIO KICKS ASS!
UPDATE: Some great links from the comments:
KILL THE MYTH THAT PROGRESSIVES RADIO FAILS
You and I may be outraged that, after John Dean credited the mere three progressive stations in Ohio for the ‘04 re-taking of the Senate, Clear Channel killed all three, and now Ohio (predictably THE key state in '08) has virtually no progressive programming
But station owners yawn.
I think station owners WOULD sit up and take notice if they knew that ALL of Clear Channel’s replacement stations(both in and out of Ohio) have TANKED--with WTPG’s replacement in Columbus zooming to last place.
And I think station owners would REALLY pay attention if we had some numbers to prove that progressive radio rocks!
Isn’t that data available? No. First, Arbitron data is not public. You gotta pay to get it.
Second, and more importantly, their data is not broken down that way. They tell you Glenn Back beats Stephanie Miller in total listeners, but they do not factor in how many fewer stations carry Stephanie; and that on a per-station basis, Momma kicks Beck’s ass! And the same for every other major progressive program.
I’m not the only one saying progressive radio is strong. No less than Center for American Progress’s Paul Woodhull--interviewed on Stephanie Miller--said the same (he even said "kicks ass").
And page 7 of his report (available in PDF, here) does address this, but not in depth.
WHAT THE SECOND REPORT SHOULD INCLUDE
A second report would help us fight back if it gave per-station, per-host numbers, progressive versus regressive. (Yes, it’s not simple. Coverage, signal strength, etc., makes it apples-to-oranges complicated. But there must be some way to show it.)
In his interview on Stephanie, Woodhull addressed some other issues that need to be covered in a second report.
- While gathering data he talked to sales staff at stations and found that they sold progressive programming LAST--apparently a self-fulfilling curse of low expectations.
- Most radio management grew up under Limbaugh’s rotund shadow. And you can bet that for them, radio=right-wing.
Something else I would like to see addressed: Has Limbaugh ruined the AM neighborhood? I know when Stephanie came on in Columbus (for 2 glorious years), time and again when I told friends about her program, the answer I heard was "I don’t listen to AM."
Tune to AM and see why; all Rush and Rush-wanna-be’s. And the call-in’s are revealing; perpetual tirades against, liberals, evolution, and Harry Potter, voiced by people who (IMHO) aren’t quite classy enough to appear on Jerry Springer. (Am I being elitist? Turn on the radio and listen for yourself!) No wonder your car has two FM buttons and one AM. No wonder on radio you hear so many ads for get-rich-quick schemes and penis-enlargers. (Progressive radio sales people need to pursue NEW advertisers who fit our demographic.)
WHAT YOU CAN DO
So I await a study on how progressive radio kicks ass. Until then, what you can do:
- Contact the Center for American Progress, thank them for the report, and say "more please." And maybe donate.
- Support Public Radio. It is mostly reactive (not proactive like progressive radio), but at least it is mostly reality-based. In much of the nation, it’s all we have.
- Call sponsors. I heard a commercial for tequila mix right after a right-wing tirade against Mexicans. I should have Googled up the company and asked them their thoughts. And all those companies on the global warming bandwagon...I wonder if they realize they are sponsoring talkers who call it a myth, and call them dupes? Let them know what their names are being associated with.
- Podcast or stream. The truth is out there--on the web. I’ve seen a 1Gig MP3 players for as cheap as $30. For some programs, check out this page.
- Join the struggle, locally. To find who in your state is fighting right-wing domination of the airwaves, you can start with NonStopRadio.com (and maybe donate too).
EXAMPLE OF THE REPORT I WANT
Some years ago a friend of mine did his own back-of-envelope figures and posted it to his web site. I extract it below. Yes, there is a mathematical flaw. For this to be accurate, all stations would have to have equal listenership. But remember that when these numbers where done, much progressive radio was on Clear Channel, and they were less than generous. E.g., Stephanie started out on at 4 a.m. on an Alaska station, and on the weakest Clear Channel signal in Central Ohio (one so weak that, after Clear Channel flipped the station to far-right-wing talk, Glenn Beck turned it down). So these numbers are a start.
This is the question you must pose: What is the average listenership per station?
I posted some numbers six months ago that programmers will find hard to dispute. We are using the numbers you found at Talkers magazine and checking affiliate lists at the hosts' websites at the time.
Rush Limbaugh--started 1988--13.5 million listeners divided by 530+ stations
Average number of listeners per station: more than 25,000.
(A drop for Rush of 250,000 from the last survey before his arrest on drug charges.)
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Al Franken--started 2004--1.5 million listeners divided by 60 stations
Average number of listeners per station: nearly 25,000.
(Al's audience increase was equal to Rush's audience drop.)
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Bill O'Reilly--started 2002--3.25 million listeners divided by 400 stations
Average number of listeners per station: over 8,000. (No change.)
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Sean Hannity--started 2001--12.50 million listeners divided by 420 stations
Average number of listeners per station: nearly 30,000. (Like O'Reilly, no change.)
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Ed Schultz--started 2004--2.75 million listeners divided by 100 stations
Average number of listeners per station: 27,500.
(Big Eddie's audience has nearly doubled from 1.75 million in the previous rankings.)
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Randi Rhodes--started 2004--1.25 million listeners divided by 60 stations
Average number of listeners per station: nearly 21,000.
(She jumped to over 1 million listeners in a big way.)
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Stephanie Miller--started 2004--1 million listeners divided by 40 stations
Average number of listeners per station: 25,000.
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Glenn Beck--started 2001--2.75 million listeners divided by 200+ stations
Average number of listeners per station: less than 14,000.
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Lionel also has 1 million listeners.