Monday, February 26, 2007

Lib Talk Syndication Field Filling Up

Updated, February 27, 10:30 am pst (updated portion in bold)

The fight for shelf space is starting to heat in liberal talk radio with the announcement with the announcement in the past two days that three new lib talkers will entering the syndication market.


Today we have learned that Leslie Marshall, most recently talk host on WWKB in Buffalo will be doing a syndicated talk show from 3pm-6pm. The show, which is produced by Tom Athans' new company, TalkUSA Radio, and syndicated by Envision Radio Networks.


Athans is the former head of Democracy Radio, who was involved in the successful launches of the Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller Shows and Envision is the largest independently owned syndication company in the U.S. and briefly handled affiliate sales for Air America Radio.


As we reported a few days ago, Nova M has added two new talkers to their syndication line-up --Jeff Farias and John Loftus. (See TR article.) Farias’ show runs from 6pm-8pm est and Loftus’s from 8p-9p est. Both show debut next Monday.


So it looks like Marshall will going up against AAR’s top talker --Randi Rhodes and Farias and Loftus will be head to head with Rachel Maddow and David Bender.


Marshall has been a radio host for over 19 years and is a frequent pundit on national television. The youngest person ever to be nationally syndicated on radio, she replaced Tom Snyder on the ABC Satellite Radio Network in 1992. Marshall’s career has taken her to WNWS in Miami, WGR in Buffalo, KPRC in Houston, WLS in Chicago, KGO in San Francisco and KFI, KLSX and KABC in Los Angeles.


Marshall is a frequent contributor to national news networks and can be seen on Wednesday morning on Fox News. She also has filled the liberal hot seat on "The O’Reilly Factor," "Hannity & Colmes," and "The Neil Cavuto Show" on Fox, and on "Scarborough Country" on MSNBC.

Ohio Media Watch, which is very familiar with Cleveland based Envision, notes that the syndication company might take a different approach is distributed Marshall’s show, especially considering the setbacks that the liberal talk radio has encountered lately.
OMV posts on his blog that, like Stephanie Miller, Marshall has a long history of "general market" talk and her radio career predates the recent establishment of left-leaning talk radio.

"With the upheaval in the format and changes at iconic network Air America Radio, it's anyone's guess how long ‘liberal talk radio’ lasts as a full format," OMV posts. "With various stations dropping out of the format, including in Columbus and Cincinnati, the path to success may be in whatever "crossover" appeal Marshall can muster on talk radio stations of all kinds."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been wondering what has been happening to Tom Athans. A lot of players coming in very quickly. Not all of them will make it but natural selection will improve the quality and the appeal of progressive talk radio.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Envision Radio Networks is well known in talk radio circles and was the agency of record that syndicated Air America Radio until they went bankrupt. Other than Jones, Envision is the only other company that has placed progressive talk shows on the radio throughout the country. Seems like Leslie is in good hands with TalkUSA and Envision.

Anonymous said...

If she signed on with a company that led Air America down the path to bankruptcy how good of hands could she be in?