Do you fail to find the compassion in George W. Bush's conservatism? Do you worry that neo-cons have hijacked foreign policy? Do you think Al Gore won the 2000 election? Do you wish someone would say these things on talk radio?
Then Mark Walsh may have good news for you.
Walsh, a Harvard MBA who worked as an AOL executive and a technology adviser to the Democratic National Committee, hopes to break the conservative chokehold on talk radio with a new network of liberal talkers -- led perhaps by comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo -- slated to debut in the spring. While conservatives have long com-
plained that there is a liberal tilt in the mainstream media, many liberals are frustrated with a talk radio culture in which Rush Limbaugh is king and "left" is a four-letter word. "America has for long enough been polluted with conservative right-wing bile," Walsh says.
He plans to buy radio stations in five major American cities, including Boston, and program up to 18 hours of liberal talk a day on them. It's too soon to say whether his concept will work, but there is a growing hunger on the left to do battle on the airwaves.
Liberal talk radio meets the Daily Show is Mr Walsh's plan. Al Franken has already signed on, a former producer at the Daily Show has signed, and he is putting the finishing touches on the deals to buy the radio stations. Walsh plans on launching the network in April.
The critics say not enough people will listen, but there is an untapped market out there in radio land that no one has reached on a grand scale.
At a Saturday talk radio industry event put on by Talkers Magazine, Gabe Hobbs, Clear Channel Radio's vice president of News/Talk/Sports, announced that in the near future this corporate owner of over 1200 radio stations is considering programming some of their talk stations "in markets where there are already one or two stations doing conservative talk" with all-day back-to-back all-liberal talk show hosts.
Using the analogy of how music radio stations wouldn't run different categories of music on a single programming day, Hobbs said talk radio was similarly "all about format." This, he said, is why liberal talkers haven't succeeded when sandwiched between conservatives - radio stations shouldn't mix formats but instead should market to specific listener niches. Understanding this, it's clear that only all-liberal/all-day programming can fill the demand for liberal talk radio, Hobbs' comments suggested.
Al Gore is still looking to buy his liberal news network, but Barry Diller is holding up the sale and I think it's time we put some pressure on Barry.
The final say goes to Barry Diller in whether Al Gore can get his VTV cable venture off the ground. Gore is looking to purchase Canadian-based News World International, which is owned by Vivendi Universal Entertainment but also a company Diller and his media behemoth, InterActivCorp, both own a large stake in.
Diller says his reluctance stems from the current transfer of Vivendi's media assets to General Electric, to create NBC Vivendi, which will then count NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, USA, the Sci-Fi Channel and Trio among its subsidiaries. That, or the $70 million being offered by Gore and his investors looks like a day's worth of revenue from InterActivCorp.
Diller's contact info is: Barry Diller, Chairman & CEO
USA Networks
152 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
Vivendi UNIVERSAL Entertainment
Company HQ Address
152 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-314-7300
Fax: 212-314-7309
Chairman and CEO: Barry Diller
We need voices beyond the blogs, and we need to make sure we support the voices once they are on the air, so please contact Diller, and keep your eyes and ears open once these folks hit the air.
