Has Lib Talk Stopped the Bleeding?

Ten months ago the a small AM station in Palm Springs, CA became the 76th station on the air with a full-time liberal talk radio format.

Lib talk was on a roll. When KPTR/1340 flipped to lib talk on August 7, 2006 these stations were reaching more than 85 million potential radio listeners. From the introduction of Air America Radio in April, 2004 each month an average of 3.7 new stations switched to the lib talk format.

However, from that day onward, it has been all down hill for the format. In the past ten months 24 radio stations reaching 16 million potential radio listeners dropped lib talk. This represented an 18.8% decline in coverage. Most of the stations dropping lib talk offered weak signals and poor coverage.

The strange thing is that the vast majority of these stations have experienced a decline in ratings since flipping. So, it is with some optimism that we report the first new station to add lib talk in over ten months. Two weeks ago, KTAA/1490 went on the air with a format featuring mostly AAR talk hosts. It is the first of a rumored six or seven new stations that may be launching lib talk in the next few weeks.

June is the first month since last September where the format did not lose ground. (The gain in Atlantic City was offset by the loss of AAR affiliate WLVP/870 in Portland, ME.)

Actually, you could say that lib talk actually gained ground since there are 75,000 more radio listeners in the Atlantic City market.