Sunday, December 17, 2006

The Radio Equalizer is Wrong About Madison

I have tried to avoid the tactic of taking on other bloggers here, but can’t let remarks posted by well known right blogger Brian Maloney (pictured on the right) go unanswered. In a post yesterday on his blog, Maloney made the following comments (in italics) about the moves now underway in Madison to protest the decision of Clear Channel to dump lib talk on WXXM (The Mic.) They plan to replace it with a line-up consisting of high school sports and Fox’s stable of national sportscasters. Like most right-wingers, Maloney has a hard time dealing with the concept of a protest movement initiated by angry radio listeners. And why not? Over 90% of talk hosts in U.S. are conservatives.


Determined to save their failed liberal talk radio station, Madison's so- called "progressive" community has already resorted to several of its usual noisy "hey hey, ho ho!" tactics.far failed to convince station management to keep "The Mic" as a libtalker, given weak ad sales and mediocre ratings, activists are now looking to escalate their campaign.


Failed! You’ve gotta be kidding. WXXM has tripled its ratings since switching to lib talk two years. The conservative station in Madison, WIBA, has experienced a 20% loss in their ratings over the same time period. "Weak ad sales" is just a cop out.


In addition to enlisting the help of US Senator Russ Feingold (D- Wisconsin) and other Democrat Party honchos, lefties are hoping a planned "funeral procession" stunt on Wednesday will do the trick.


Why not? Do you expect them to just roll over and keep quiet. They’re keeping the pressure on a huge national radio conglomerate that wants to replace lib talk on WXXM with high school sports. They’ve aleady collected petitions with over 5,000 signatures and held a rally attended by over 500 people. They are doing the correct thing by keeping the pressure on the media giant from San Antoine.

And while they point to The Mic's supposed strong ratings, one question hasn't been answered: in a city as far to the left as Madison, why hasn't their libtalker been number one with a bullet?


Since converting to lib talk in September, 2004, WXXM has moved from number 21 to number nine in the ratings tripling its share of Madison’s radio listeners from 1.3 to 3.7. During that same period of time WIBA, who’s blowtorch signal reaches Milwaukee has dropped from number two to number four. One thing is clear – WXXM is on its way up and WIBA, also owned by Clear Channel is on its way down.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ironically, Brian Maloney knows little about radio and ratings. For one thing, conservative talk radio is not doing so well. Well maybe at one time, but not anymore. When talk show host Howard Stern was on WXRK, conservative talk show king Rush Limbaugh had more than 30 million from 500 CHANNELS! Yet Howard Stern who was on 45 stations, had more than 50 million...hmmm, why? Then when Stern left for Sirius, Limbaugh had the opportunity to attract more listeners. Guess what? He dropped down to 10 million. Sirius before Stern had 500,000. After Stern? 8.5 million. These are not projections but actually customers buying Sirius satellite. All the conservative talk show dropped drastically. Yet the progressive talk shows are growing? So where are the listeners? Apparently not to conservative talk and the growth of progressive talk is still in its infancy, and finally, Sirius is growing. Where are they? Guess: Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. According to Arbitron, Coast has up to 50 million listeners and their genre is not just ghosts and UFOs but the show that asks the tough questions like: If Osama bin Laden is responsible for 9/11, wouldn't the FBI say so in their wanted poster? Or, if our leaders are concerned about the economy, then can someone explain the outsourcing of jobs as well as the reason the president has more allegience to the Illuminati and Skull and Bones and not to the U.S.? Tough questions that even Rush or any Clear Channel conservative won't dare tread because they are too scared. Evidence? "I am no longer the waterboy for the Republican Party..." Gee I wonder why? Is it because the Bush Crime Family blackmailed Rush because of his drug addiction? Guess what, even Michael "Weiner" Savage is agreeing with George after reading the Patriot Act and said that the Bush Adfministration is betraying our country. No Clear Channel talk show host will badmouth Coast and wwith the same basic theme of most progressive talk, Bush: bad; DLC: Republican Lite, people are sick and tired of the garbage bloggers like Brian Maloney spew. Heck, if conservative talk Show hosts are successful, explain to us this:

http://tinyurl.com/33dudd

This is Ann Coulter going on Fox to announce her support of Hillary Clinton if John McCain is the Republican nominee...Hmmm, can you say Republicans are splintered?


Tim from L.A.