Talking Radio

A Talk Show Host Scorned

2008-01-14T00:07:00.000-08:00

When conservative host, John Ziegler’s nightly talk show was cancelled two months ago we received a rather innocuous email claiming that the decision was "truly mutual" and that Ziegler was recently hired to produce a documentary "on a topic that I am sure you will be interested in."

Ziegler signed off telling his fans that it would be "a waste of time" for them to complain to KFI and that he would "be in contact when I have something of importance to share."

Well that "contact" has been made and the "important thing to share" has turned out to be stinging indictment of KFI’s program director, Robin Bertolucci, and several of talk station's marquee hosts including afternoon drive talkers "John (Kobylt) and Ken (Chiampou)" and KFI’s morning man, Bill Handel.

Ziegler posted his four page diatribe on website titled "The Real KFI", which he described as follows:

This website is dedicated to telling the totally true story of John Ziegler's experience at KFI in Los Angeles. John realizes that the creation of this website probably ends any chance that he will ever again hit the highest levels of talk radio and may very well end his talk radio career totally. But he is at peace with that potential consequence because he feels there are certain truths that are worth the risk to tell, especially when you are really the only person in the world in a position to do so.

He then goes on to make nine points that we will condence to four:

That the John & Ken Show is "fundamentally fraudulent" and John, who he calls "a racist", is the main reason why Ziegler was canned.
That Ken "is presumed to be a [gay] by nearly everyone at KFI and why that should matter to KFI listeners."
That Bill Handel is "a fair weather friend", who hates John and Ken, but abandoned Ziegler when his stocks at the LA talk radio station started to fall
And that "KFI management [i.e. Bertolucci] is utterly incompetent and corrupt."

It is no secret that Kobylt did not like Ziegler. When Ziegler left the station it was reported in the LA Times that Ziegler was suspended for two days after an on-air argument with John Kobylt."

However, according to Ziegler the depth of animus that Kobylt felt for him was much deeper and ultimately resulted in his demise at KFI.

Here are just a few examples provided by Ziegler.

Kobylt blew up at him and told him to "get out of his studio" when, he questioned why he had changed his position on the War on Iraq. (Kobylt initially supported the war, but has a lately become a critic.)

Here’s the clip:

When he confronted Kobylt on September 11, 2006, about this, Kobylt told him "Actually, it is what I really believe, because trying to control Muslims is like trying to control Black people… it will never happen…it's not in their make up."

From this point on, relations between Ziegler and Kobylt continued to deteriorate and at least one other talk show host – Handel -- and management -- Bertolucci, also turned against him.

Kobylt would not accept Ziegler’s attempts to mediate their disagreement.

He stopped allowing Ziegler to do two teases for his nightly (7 to 10 PM) show
He even refused to refer to Ziegler by name. Referring to him as Voldermort, (the evil villain in the Harry Potter tales.)

Ziegler also makes unkind references to KFI management but takes his most vicious shots at Bertolucci, who he calls "totally incompetent about hiring people."

He said that "politically [she] made the decision that to keep herself safe she would need to no longer be so closely associated with me":

She cut his production staff from four to one
Made him move his show to remote location (which was the size of a closet.)
Told him that he shouldn’t talk about the war because if was "bad for ratings."
And compared KFI to a Mafia crime family "in that you might feel dirty doing some of the things you are called on to do, but in the end you are paid extra for it."

Ziegler also had some unkind things to say about Handel, who has the most successful morning talk show in the country. Handel dis-invited Ziegler to a party at his house, after the incident with Kobylt. Zeigler found this strange since he had always maintained a friendly relationship with Handel and that the morning talker had a hostile relationship with John and Ken who, according to Ziegler "he hated more than Hezbollah."

Even Ken, the mellower half of the John and Ken duo, is targeted in Ziegler’s rant.

"Ken Chiampou is apparently willing to go even further than most when it comes to selling part of himself to pursue and protect ratings," Zeigler says.

According to Ziegler, "[he] never met anyone at KFI that did not presume that Ken is a [gay]." However, on several occasions he sat quietly by while his co-host John made homophobic remarks. Once when he called two openly gay KFI talk hosts – Karel and Andrew – "Ziegfried and Roy" and another time when he played a bit on Senator Larry Craig where Kobylt referred to gays as "homos."

There’s a lot more on Ziegler’s website including airchecks and copies of documents.

Hell knows no fury greater than a talk show scorned.

What 'War on Christmas'?

2007-12-24T17:45:00.000-08:00

While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, victory has been declared in a war that has lasted almost as long. Earlier this month, Bill O'Reilly declared victory in the War on Christmas. O'Reilly has led this quixotic struggle against secularists and godless retailers who have replaced "Merry Christmas" with such blasphemous slogans like "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings." Washington Post reporter, Ruth Marcus, mused on the War on Christmas in a column that she wrote earlier this month.

I've been hearing about this "War on Christmas," so I headed to the Heritage Foundation the other day for a briefing from one of the defending army's generals: Fox News anchor John Gibson, author of "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought." Gibson -- and Bill O'Reilly, his comrade in the Fox-hole -- see this as a two-front war: Assaulting Christmas from the government end, they say, are pusillanimous school principals, politically corrected city managers and their ilk, bullied by the ACLU types into extirpating any trace of Christmas from the public square. Battering the holiday from the private sector are infidel retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart, which balk at using the C-word in their advertising in favor of such secularist slogans as "Happy Holidays."
The assault, Gibson told the Heritage crowd, has reached a "shocking level this year."
After the lecture, I wandered over to Union Station to check out a retail battlefield. Inside and out, the station was festooned with giant You Know What wreaths. A huge You Know What tree, with presents wrapped in red and green underneath, stood in the main hall, near a placard announcing "Norwegian Christmas at Union Station." A high-tech player piano was playing "Go Tell It on the Mountain," proclaiming the birth of You Know Who; the next selection was You Know Who Else Is Coming to Town. The most generic element was a small sign reading "Happy Holidays," but even then the words were bracketed by reindeer -- and let's just say, they weren't eating latkes. It was beginning to look a lot like You Know What. If the anti-Christmas forces are winning, then the war in Iraq is nothing short of total victory.
Merry Christmahanakwanza

Air America Radio to Drop the Young Turks Next Month

2007-12-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

The Young Turks Show will be dropped from the Air America Radio line-up next month, according to announcements by the surviving Turk -- Cenk Uygur -- and a spokesperson for the liberal talk radio network.

Uygur, confirmed that the Turks relationship with Air America will end amicably on January 15. Speaking to his listeners at a hastily arranged podcast earlier today, Uygur said that a new venture would be started, at that time, which will involve the internet.

When the Young Turks were added to AAR’s line-up in September, 2006 there were three of them – Uygur, Jill Pike, and Ben Mankiewicz. Pike left in July and Mankiewicz dropped out in August. Since that time, Uygur has essentially worked alone.

AAR’s publicist, Anne Strahle told Talking Radio earlier today that AAR and the Young Turks mutually agreed to end their show. "The reason being", according to Strahle, is that "their show will be going in a different direction."

AAR has not announced how they plan to fill the Turk’s 6-9 AM ET time slot.

This represents the second weekday show dropped by the liberal talk radio network since the Green brothers – Stephen and Mark – took over the bankrupt network, earlier this year. The Air Americans, featuring several AAR hosts including Mark Riley, Laura Flanders, David Bender, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio was dropped from the weekday line-up in August.

In a separate development, Dave Kaufman, AAR's VP of Affiliate Relations leaves the company to take a position with RBR/TVBR Trade Publications.

During his podcast today, Uygur was very upbeat about the future of the Young Turks franchise. He said that he was looking forward "a new direction" for the show and "couldn’t wait until he could tell everyone about it."

Uygur dismissed rumors that were circulating on the internet this morning that he was being suspended by AAR for drinking beer (to celebrate the anniversary of the end of prohibition) or for slamming Democratic party leaders like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

"Let’s put the rumors about Air America Radio aside," Uygur said. "The termination of the Young Turks Show was agreed too amicably."

The Young Turks never got much traction, despite the fact that there is not much competition in the early morning time period on liberal talk radio stations. Only 16 of the 50 plus stations that carry four or more AAR hosts picked up the Turks. The Turks also held the 6-9 AM slot on XM’s Air America Channel.

Rumors circulated on internet message boards that the Turks would return to Sirius Satellite Radio. (Before joining the AAR line-up, the Turks were carried by Sirius for several years.) Uygur would not confirm or deny these rumors on his podcast today.

One talk radio host must be very happy about AAR’s plans to drop the Turks. Bill Press, who’s 6-9 AM EST talk show is distributed by Jones Radio, would appear to be a strong candidate for carriage in the time slots soon to vacated by the Turks.

The Young Turks was definitely a different type of talk show. When Pike and Mankiewicz were on the show if often delved into non-political talk about sex and entertainment. It definitely appealed to a younger demographic than other shows on AAR’s weekday line-up. The Turks also offered a video feed of the daily radio show.

This irreverent style was displayed last month when Uygur threatened to sue Stephen Colbert for allegedly stealing one of his jokes.

While it’s hard to believe that Uygur is not unhappy about his departure from the AAR weekday line-up, there is no doubt that he is very happy that he doesn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to do his radio show. Since the Turk's show originates from Los Angeles, Uygur had to go on the air at 3 AM PST.

Those Who Are No Longer With Us

2007-12-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

Two companies involved in the radio business – Clear Channel Communications and Air America Radio – have been in the process of downsizing in the final months of 2007.

Now we all know that Clear Channel is the largest company in the radio business. It started the year with over 1,200 radio stations with access to 40% of radio listeners. It is also involved in the outdoor advertising and international radio businesses.

AAR, on the other hand, is one of the radio industry's smallest companies. It is now in the process of reorganizing after a painful bankruptcy just over a year ago and the loss of about 20% of its coverage. Regular readers of Talking Radio know that AAR provides about a dozen liberal talk radio shows to about 60 stations across the United States. According to TR, their programs account for about half of the listenership to liberal talk radio.

Clear Channel (unaffectionately known as "Cheap Channel") has been actively downsizing since the start of the year, when they announced a plan to take the company private. Since that time, they have attempted to unload 500 (or about 40% of their stations.) Almost half of those deals have been concluded as of now.

Presumably, they are doing this to make the company more attractive to the buy-out firm – Bain Capital Partners. However, the bean counters at CC haven’t stopped there. In the past few weeks we’ve noticed a lot of news about how they are cutting staff on their remaining stations.

Here are a few of the items that we have read in Allaccess.com, Radio Ink, and Radio-Info.com:

In San Francisco, the people who are, in the famous radio phrase "no longer with us", include Bob Agnew, a Bay Area veteran who’d been overseeing programming at talkers KNEW and "Green 960" KKGN. Also gone is KKSF/KNEW production director Mario Butzner. According to a CC source, about a dozen Bay Area staffers got pink slips in the past month.

In Honolulu a newsperson and a producer have been cut.

In San Diego at least seven people, mostly low level, were given the boot. Management termed it a "staff readjustment." People that were fired were given the option of a six week severance or their job back - part time and no benefits.

In Los Angeles, Mike Nolan, who for over 20 years was talker KFI's "Eye in the Sky", and about a half dozen Airwatch traffic reporters were shown the door. Motorists in L.A. are going to have pay more attention to those ugly electronic freeway traffic signs. In addition, longtime AC KOST midday host Mike Sakellarides and at least five other employees will not be playing Christmas music at the soft rock music station.

In Cincinnati, John Kieswetter, Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio writer reports that "you won't hear Gregg Doyel on WCKY-AM any more. Doyel, who co-hosted 9 a.m.-noon with Mo Egger, was fired today in a budget cut. Egger will continue to host solo, says program director Dave Armbruster."It was just part of our budget cuts. I didn't want to do it. I think he was getting a lot better," Armbruster says. Morning co-host John Phillips has exited WKRC-AM and Anchor/Reporter Will Sterrett is out at WLW-AM as part of the cluster's budget cuts.

In Louisville, talk host Joe Elliot exits WHAS after 14 years in the time slot as part of a larger layoff at the cluster. In Boston, Karl Moore, regional director of operations at CC owned, Boston's Total Traffic Network, exits along with staffers Bill Trifiro and Mike Czarnecki.

In Chicago, management has trimmed at least four staffers from the programming payroll. Those include Armando Rivera, assistant PD at V103/WVAZ "once considered a rising star." There were also cuts at WGCI and "Kiss FM" WKSC.These are items that we picked up over the past two weeks. An email that we sent to CC’s personnel department in San Antonio requesting additional information on lay-offs has not been answered.

A thread has been started at the Radio-Info News/Talk board, which we check out from time to time, entitled "Clear Channel Cuts Nationwide."

RadioDailyNews.com has named"The fired and laid-off employees of Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Citadel, Emmis, Cumulus and other large, medium and small market radio stations who have devoted their immense talents to broadcasting"as the recipients of the "2008 Radio Persons of the Year" award.

When we checked out CC’s corporate website we discovered the following quote from the company's founder and chairman Lowry Mays. It reads, in part:

"We believe Clear Channel's people are our most important asset."

We are not very surprised about the staff cutbacks at Air America Radio. After the Green brothers (Stephen and Mark) took over the struggling network, earlier this year, their first order of business was to cut costs. Mark Green told Talking Radio in August that staff was reduced from over 70 people to the low 40’s and operational loses were significantly cut.

However, in the past two months staff cutbacks at AAR started to reaching the bone of the network. The first high profile lay-off involved V.P. of Programming, David Bernstein. Recently, we learned that four more staffers have been let go.

We are not comparing the cutbacks at Clear Channel to the on-going problems at AAR – That would be like comparing watermelons to grapes. However, we wonder if the continuing problems besetting the radio industry, where station values, stock values, and ad revenue continue to slide downward, mean that we will hear about more about those who "are no longer with us."

The 'Lion of Left' De-clawed by Feds

2007-12-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

When Rush Limbaugh was charged with doctor shopping and he paid his housekeeper to buy drugs for him behind the Denny’s Restaurant in West Palm Beach, he took some time off and voluntarily entered rehab. After several weeks, he was back on the air and about a year later copped a plea. Rush's punishment represented little more than a glorified slap on the wrist.

In December of 2004, Bernie Ward, host of the longest running and highest rated liberal talk show in the country, downloaded a few images of child pornography and talked about them in an internet chat room. A police investigation of the matter revealed nothing more. There were no images on Ward’s computer and no other complaints.

However, unlike Limbaugh, Ward, who has hosted a talk show on KGO/810 (owned by Citadel Broadcasting) in San Franciso for 22 years, will probably be off the air for a lot longer than a month and faces some very serious charges which could lead to a lengthy prison term.

Friends of Bernie Ward have created a website with information about the his legal dilemna. The site also provides a way to contribute to Ward's defense fund.

Ward's attorney Doron Weinberg told the San Francisco Chronicle that the talk show host "is not a sexual predator."

"He is just being prosecuted for a mistake he made (more than) three years ago."Federal authorities seized Ward's computer in early 2005, and there was no evidence of child pornography or any other impropriety, Weinberg said. "We have been trying to convince the government that this is not something they should proceed with. They said, 'He violated the law, sorry.' "

Ward told investigators at the time that he was doing research for a book on hypocrisy. Now federal authorities have chosen to prosecute. Clearly, the feds didn’t think that Ward was a sexual predator. If they did, he would have been arrested three years ago. They appear to responding to draconian rules regarding child pornography, contending that Ward violated the letter of law.

Before we get too far into this report, I should reveal some prejudicial information. Bernie Ward is my favorite liberal talk show host. I have frequently listened to recordings of his 10 PM to 1 AM weekday show. Unlike his better known syndicated lib talk counterparts, Bernie rarely does interviews and never uses sound bites or funny bits. However, his show is stimulating because he is so passionate, smart, and articulate. Also, despite the fact that the broadcast is limited to the Northern California region, his callers are generally knowlegable and interesting. It is not surprising that while even the best lib talkers max out with 2 to 3 shares, Bernie has consistently recorded double digit shares and is always number one in his time period.

Everyone who knows Bernie Ward finds it hard to believe that the charges against him are true. While Ward can be an aggressive, even combative talk show host he is also well-known for his kindness and charitability.

Over the past dozen years, he has led the KGO Thanksgiving Charities Drive that has raised over five million dollars for several Bay Area charities. He once sat on a billboard for 24 hours to raise $75,000 for a Leukemia fund drive. Ward also hosted the popular God Talk radio show on Sunday mornings for many years. (He's is a former Catholic Priest, Congressional aide, football coach, and investigative reporter.)

His fans adore him and many KGO staffers and community leaders are very supportive, despite the seriousness of the charges against him. Here are a few comments:

"He's always been a wonderful person to work with. And he is such a wonderful father. During commercial breaks, his kids would call him. Bernie would drop everything to solve whatever crisis came up, whether it was a homework problem or somebody locking themselves in the bathroom. Then he went back on air without missing a beat." -- Margo Magowan, former producer of the Bernie Ward Show.

"Bernie Ward has been a valued, long-time employee of KGO Radio. We were just recently made aware of these serious charges and are surprised and concerned by their nature." -- Jack Swanson, KGO PD.

"Our heart goes out to Bernie and his family. (He is married and the father of four children.) Bernie has been an incredible leader. His approach is not only to talk about what is broken in society, but to inspire people to fix it."-- Poncho Guevara, executive director of Sacred Heart Community Service in San Jose.

"I think Bernie is one of a kind. He has a huge heart. He has never been cautious. Like many people he was ignorant of the law, he made a mistake and it is tragic. People who know him know that in no way is this Bernie Ward." -- Susan Prather, founder and executive director of Fresh Start, a Walnut Creek organization that helps the poor and homeless.

"I know Bernie as a dad, a talk-show guy and an investigative reporter. This is utterly inconsistent with those three facets of Bernie. It doesn't jibe with what I know." -- Stephanie Salter, former San Francisco Chronicle columnist.

Of course there have been the predictable cheap shots from right wing talkers and bloggers.

"Left wing bigmouth Bernie "Whored" of KGO (The "Lyin' of the Left") indicted on kiddie porn." -- Michael Savage

"We've since heard from broadcast professionals in California that signs of self- destructive behavior on Ward's part go back years and may be quite shocking in nature. Will some of this eventually come to light as well?" -- Brian Maloney, The Radioequalizer (Of course, no "broadcast professionals" were mentioned or quoted.)

One has to wonder, why the feds waited three years to pursue this matter. Despite the virtual zero tolerance policy that has characterized enforcement of child pornography law enforcement, there have been exceptions provided to journalists. Writing in Counterpuch, Debbie Nathan cites the case of Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter, who was not prosecuted after downloading more child pornography than what Ward is being accused of doing.

Ward has not said much since his arrest last week. He told the San Francisco Chronicle "I'd like to say what this is not, It's not child abuse. It wasn't solicitation. I wasn't part of any ring. Most importantly, there was nothing on my computer. None of this was for titillation or entertainment."

Meanwhile, it’s going to be awhile before we hear the ‘lion of left" on the radio again. Ward’s next court date will be in January. In the meantime, he has been suspended, with pay, by KGO.

Lib Talk Returns to Columbus Ohio: One Down 16 to Go

2007-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Liberal talk radio returned to Columbus, OH on Monday morning, 11 months after it was unceremoniously dropped from WTPG/1230 to by Clear Channel.

According to Brian Rothenberg, of Progress Ohio, WVKO/1580 is the new lib talk station in Central Ohio. The station, which previously programmed an urban format for many years, has most recently offered Spanish programming. Here's what Rothenberg said in an email that we received on November 30.

Thanks to the efforts of Ohio Majority Radio and longtime radio executive Gary Edwards, central Ohioans will once again hear progressive talk from favorites like Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, and Randi Rhodes. We'll also hear coverage of local high school football, boys and girls basketball, and other local sports.

The email also asked supporters to make donations to fledgling lib talk venture.

The launch of WVKO represents the first "re-flip" of a lib talk station since station owners started dropping the format about a year. Since November 2006 17 radio markets have lost their only lib talk station. Interestingly, six of the nine rated stations in these markets have seen their shares fall since abandoning the format!

The WVKO line-up features seven of top syndicated lib talk hosts:

Bill Press, 6-9 AM

Stephanie Miller, 9 AM-12 NOON

Ed Schultz, 12 NOON-3 PM

Randi Rhodes, 3-6 PM

Rachel Maddow, 6-8 PM

Thom Hartmann, 8-11 PM and

Jon Elliott, 11 PM-2 AM

WVKO, is owned by Bernard LLC, which also owns WVKO-FM/103.1 which broadcasts a Spanish format. There’s an interesting string on Radio-Info.com discussing ownership issues involving the two Columbus stations.

WVKO general manager Gary Richards told the Columbus-Dispatch, that the coming political year had a lot to do with the programming change at the station.

"[With] AM stations, you're kind of limited in what you can do," Richards said. "Music is a losing proposition on AM, and we had to find a niche, and we think there is one in political talk -- especially with 'something big' (the 2008 election) going on next year."

Clear Channel flipped WTPG/1230 (now called WYTS) from lib talk to conservative talk on Jan. 1 of this year. CC also owns and operates the number one talk station in market WTVN/610, which is also a conservative talker. Since flipping WCOL/WYTS, the station has seen is ratings in the market drop from a high of 1.4 in the Spring of 2006 to 0 in Fall of 2007.

Ohio Majority Radio has maintained an active profile on the internet with a Yahoo discussion group and a petition drive. While its attempts to convince CC management that the decision to offer a second right-wing talk station in predominantly Democratic central Ohio was a bad one, they have apparently succeeded to make that argument with the owners of WVKO.

WVKO is a 3200 watt station that offers very good coverage of the Columbus market.

Here are the other 16 markets where the only lib talk station has flipped formats in the past year:

Market/Station/New Format
Akron WARF AM Sports
Austin KOKE AM Spanish
Binghamton WYOS AM Sports
Boston WXKS AM Spanish
Burlington WTWK Womens Talk
Cincinnati WSAI AM Sports
Corpus Christi KCCT AM Sports
Duluth-Superior KQDS AM Oldies
El Paso KHRO AM Alternative
Little Rock KDXE AM Sports
Memphis WSMB AM Sports
New Haven WAVZ AM Sports
New Orleans WWWL AM Conservative Talk
Portland, ME WLVP AM Sports
Quad Cities, IA WKBF AM Christian
San Antonio KTXX FM Spanish

Good job Progress Ohio and Ohio Majority Radio! Now that’s one down 16 to go.

For more information on markets that have lost their lib talk station go to Non-Stop Radio.

"Balanced Talk" Doubles Down in Southern California

2007-11-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

The newest "balanced" talk radio station KGIL/1260, which features Michael Jackson, the highest rated liberal talk show host in the 1990s, will make a significant move to increase it’s coverage and hopefully its ratings when XESURF/540 flips from country to talk on Tuesday.

Combined the two stations offer reasonably good daytime coverage in the two largest radio markets in the Southern California region – Los Angeles and San Diego. KGIL puts a good signal over the northern two thirds of the L.A. market. 540 AM, as it is known, which broadcasts out of Tijuana, provides decent coverage in the San Diego market. We can even hear it here in the world headquarters of Talking Radio in Orange County (which constitutes the other third of the L.A. market.)

Unfortunately, the newly merged stations will be beefing up their conservative talk line up when they launch 540 AM. Lars Larsen (3-5 pm) will join Neal Boortz (7-9am) to bolster the right-side of spectrum. Jackson holds up the liberal side, with a two hour show (7-9am) that will be repeated (5-7pm).

However, the big news it that sex and relationship guru Drew Pinksy will be launching a daily talk show, targetted for syndication, calling it the "Dr. Drew Show." Pinksy is one of the country’s longest surviving talk hosts. For the past 22 years he has participated on "Loveline" which is syndicated, Sunday-Thursday nights, on over a 100 stations – mostly FM rockers. Pinksy currently co-hosts Loveline with Ted Stryker.

It’s hard to believe that Pinsky will continue to do both shows. That would be 20 hours a week of radio for a guy that also is practicing physician and the father of triplets!

Pinsky joins Dr. Joy Brown (1-3pm) on the non-political side of the new twin talker. The line-up is completed with a one hour show by Larry King (yes he still does a radio talk show) from 7-8pm. No attempt will made to continue talk in late evening and early morning when the two stations reduce power. Listeners who find either station at these times will hear standards music.

Saul Levine, owner of KGIL and operator of Mexican owned 540 AM said he was making move because he felt that the demise of KLSD/1360 created an opportunity. As we know, KLSD in San Diego dropped liberal talk two weeks ago, after a three year run, and is now offering a sports format.

"We felt the need to access an audience in San Diego as well as provide an alternative frequency for Orange County," Levine said.

It is strange that Levine has not chosen to offer other liberal hosts. There are several nationally syndicated lib talkers that are not offered in Los Angeles, including Lionel, The Young Turks, Jon Elliott and Peter B. Collins. Also, Levine must be aware that Stacy Taylor, the only local weekday talker on the now defunct KLSD, is looking for a job. We got an email from Taylor on Friday stating that he was mulling over an offer from Clear Channel to host an early evening show on their conservative San Diego station KOGO/600.

Go ahead Saul... make Stacy an offer that he can’t refuse.

KGIL/540-AM is the latest of several balanced talk stations to launch in the past two months. Others include 3WT/1500 in Washington and WTAN/1340 in Tampa.

In fact, according to our records there are at least three dozen balanced talk stations on the air right now. These stations include KGO/810 in San Francisco, WRJN/1400 in Milwaukee, WJNO/1290 in West Palm Beach, and WTDY/1670 in Madison.

We define a "balanced talk station" as a stations that offers at least two liberal talkers and at least one conservative talker on weekdays. We have identified about a 100 talk stations that carry one syndicated liberal talk host. About half of these stations offer Alan Colmes, about 25 offer Ed Schultz, and the balance contain other syndicated lib talkers. We call these stations "marginals."

Are we going to see more balanced and marginal talk stations launch in the future? It’s hard to say.

The fact is, that you count the full time liberal stations that have launched this year on the fingers of one hand and they have all shown up in small or unmeasured markets.

Wendell to Fill In for Malloy, Colmes, and Mr. K

2007-11-20T17:46:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving holiday is providing one talk radio host something to be thankful for.

Johnny Wendell, who regularly hosts a talk show on KTLK/1150 in Los Angeles on Saturdays from 7 to 9 am, will be busy over the coming week filling in for other hosts who will partaking in Thanksgiving holiday festivities.

On Wednesday, Wendell will be filling in Mike Malloy on Nova M Radio and on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) he will be sitting in for Fox Radio late night host Alan Colmes. You can find out how to catch Wendell here for the Malloy show and here for the Colmes show.

Listeners in Los Angeles can also catch Wendell on KTLK where he be filling in for Marc "Mr. K" Germain on Thurdsay and Friday from 3 to 7 pm.

If you haven’t had a chance to hear Wendell, try to catch his show over the next few days. He is funny and passionate and does a talk show the old fashioned way. That is, he focuses on one topic per hour and if you don’t agree with him by the end of the hour, you probably have changed the station.

Sports Talk 3 Lib Talk 0 in San Diego

2007-11-19T23:14:00.000-08:00

It has been a week since Clear Channel pulled the plug on liberal talk radio in San Diego and lib talk supporters are now finding out that they were being used while the radio station group finalized it’s efforts to launch the third sports station in the market.

While 19 lib talk stations (six owned by CC) have ceased to exist during the past year, the flip of KLSD/1360 represents the most serious blow yet to the format. (Ironically ratings for the station were up 33% in the last Arbitron Survey.)

KLSD was, by far, the largest lib talk station to drop the format. In fact, listenership for the San Diego station was more than double that of any of the other stations that have dropped lib talk.

It was the first station on the West Coast, serving an Arbitron Radio market, to drop lib talk. Arguably, before the KLSD flip, you could drive from the Mexican border to the Canadian border and always be able to tune in to lib talk station. If the format is struggling in some parts of the country, it has been doing quite well in the West Coast. (28% of lib talk listeners live in the three states bordering the Pacific Ocean)

KLSD was the only station to drop the format that had a daily local talker. Listeners in San Diego were particularly outraged to lose the morning talk show hosted by popular Stacy Taylor. Ironically, Taylor and his team had won an award at the San Diego Press Club's 34th annual journalism the night before his show was dropped. (Stacy is currently mulling over an offer to be carried in an evening time slot on KOGO/600, CC's conservative talk station in San Diego.)

One of many posters on the Save KLSD message board expressed his steadfast support for KLSD morning talker.

As one of the many loyal listeners of The Stacy Taylor Morning Show, I have to say, when the show is gone I will not suddenly decide to listen to any of the other Clear Channel stations. In fact, I will do everything in my power to never listen to a Clear Channel affiliate again.And the termination of lib talk at KLSD was handled very differently than the other format flips over the past year. Virtually all of the other flips were carried out with little or no advance notice and corporate and station managers remained tight lipped.

However, the flip of KLSD (now called 1360 Xtra Sports) was handled very differently. Clear Channel announced that they were thinking of flipping the station’s format over two months before the flip was made.

The station’s program manager, Cliff Albert, actually encouraged listeners to voice their support for continuing the lib talk format. Albert even posted encouraging messages on the KLSD website and spoke at rallies attended by hundreds of KLSD listeners.

However, despite receiving many hundreds of emails, an on-line petition with over 4,500 signatures, and several appeals from station advertisers, the flip was made. It seems that Albert’s boss, Bob Bollinger, CC’s San Diego Operations Manager, was quietly planning the change while Albert was sweet talking hundreds of lib talk fans.

Bollinger, who never spoke publicly about the matter during the two month long kabuki dance directed by Albert, told the San Diego Union Tribune on November 9 (three days before the flip.)

"I think there's always room for another great restaurant, no matter whether there's one in town or 10 in town. And we feel, with the foundation that we have through our Chargers broadcasts (on sister station Rock 105.3), that we could put on a good product with good content."

Actually, Bollinger played his hand a month earlier when he told the San Diego Union Tribune on October 13 that Clear Channel had hired Chris Ello, a longtime sports talker in San Diego.

John Bauder, writing in the San Diego Reader reported that a day earlier, John Lynch, chief executive of XX Sports parent, Broadcast Company of the Americas, tendered his resignation from the San Diego Radio Broadcasters Association. (XX Sports is the number 1 sports radio station in San Diego.) Lynch complained that the "dominant member" of the association (Clear Channel) "continues to engage in what I believe is anticompetitive behavior."

The "anticompetive behavior" concerned a move by CC to contact 19 of XX Sports employees "to discuss employment on one of their new formats."

Then on October 15, Brad Samuel, KLSD’s top ad sales executive, sent out an internal e-mail jubilantly declaring, "XTRA Sports -- Welcome Home!" It gave the details of the flip and even listed the talent.

According to Bauder’s report "the next day, Samuel tried to retrieve the e-mails, claiming he had sent them by accident. He profusely begged forgiveness but announced who the general manager and program director would be."

The mixed messages delivered by CC managers over the weeks before the KLSD flip, elicited the following response from one San Diego radio veteran.

"In my years in the business, I have never seen something so badly handled," said Ron Bain, former president of CBS Television Sports. "For months this has been rumored; they have denied it, said they were thinking about it. If you are going to flip a format, flip it."

Meanwhile, Albert is still at it. He has started a blog called San Diego Progressive Talk encouraging backers of lib talk to once again register their support for the now defunct format.

He wants them to convince lib talk syndicators like Air America Radio and Jones Radio to license their talk programs for an HD radio channel that Clear Channel could launch so that the 50 people in San Diego who own HD radios can listen to lib talk.

Finally realizing that they have been taken for ride, one commenter on Albert’s blog summed up the feelings of the legions of disgusted lib talk fans.

"Clear Channel is run by corporate swine (who care about nothing other than making money) and their gutless mid-mangers who do as they're told."

Sirius Signs Black Activist for Midday Talk Slot

2007-11-14T21:24:00.000-08:00

Sirius Left (channel 146) launched a new talk radio show today – "Make It Plain," hosted by Mark Thompson – but in doing so, the satellite radio channel had to drop one of the leading national liberal talk show hosts.

Thompson, the first African-American to get a weekday slot on Sirius Left, is a veteran talker whose career included stints on WOL in Washington and more recently as the first African American host on XM.

To make room for Thompson, Sirius dropped Stephanie Miller and cut Ed Schultz’ show from three to two hours. Schultz, Mike Malloy and Thom Hartmann are the only lib talkers carried on both satellite services.

Sirius described their new lib talker as someone who will speak passionately about political, social, and economic issues from an African-American perspective. Their press release calls Thompson "an African-American broadcast pioneer, human rights visionary, and community leader, who launches with a powerful, high-profile and stellar lineup of guests from the African-American community." Make It Plain will air weekdays, 5 to 9 pm.

The rest of the Sirius line-up remains unchanged.

Bill Press, 6 to 9 am
Alex Bennett, 9 am to noon
Thom Hartmann, noon to 1 pm
Lynn Samuels, 1 to 3 pm
Ed Schultz, 3 to 5 pm
Mike Malloy, 9 pm to midnight

All EST

In addition to Schultz (noon to 3 pm), Mike Malloy (10 pm to midnight) and Hartmann (8 to 10 pm), Air America Radio (Channel 167) on XM’s weekday schedule includes the following hosts:

The Young Turks, 6 to 9 am
Lionel, 9 am to noon
Randi Rhodes, 3 to 6 pm
Rachel Maddow, 6 to 8 pm

All EST

Sirius currently has 7.7 million subscribers (XM has 8.6 million). Arbitron reported satellite radio ratings for the first time during their Spring 07 survey. Sirius Left recorded a cume of 59,100 homes and AAR on XM recorded a cume of 109,600 according to Arbitron. The combined Sirius and XM cumes are slightly less the cumes recorded on WWRL in New York and KTLK in Los Angeles.

However, ratings scored by lib talk hosts on satellite radio do not generate ad sales. Accordingly, satellite radio does not provide a revenue stream for lib talk.

Thompson told a reporter for Tennessean that he’s looking forward to his new show on Sirius.

"It means that our audience will still have an opportunity to hear me and to continue with some of the things we started. To be able to talk about all of the political and social and economic issues of the day from an African-American's perspective is still very important."

"We all in America, the different cultures, speak different languages. That is OK; diversity is a good thing. However, in talk radio, there aren't a lot of African-Americans broadcasting nationally, so this is an important opportunity to step up to bring diversity to what is a very real cultural institution in America, and that's talk radio.

"Black talk radio has always had its own special place when it comes to the African-American community. It's something we need to keep alive, and satellite radio is one of the best places to keep that going."

Two New York Stations Shake-up Their Morning Talk Line-Ups

2007-11-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

Two New York talk radio stations – conservative WABC/770 and liberal WWRL/1600 -- have revamped their morning line-ups with new shows and new hosts.

WWRL, the Air America Radio flagship station in New York, the number one radio market, dumped its morning show co-hosted by Sam Greenfield and Armstrong Williams on Friday and launched a new show featuring two veteran lib talkers -- Richard Bey and Mark Riley.

Bey has racked up extensive experience as a talk show host and TV personality over the past dozen years. He was a weekday host on WABC, until he was fired in 2003 after coming out against the war Iraq. In addition, he has hosted comedy TV shows on WCBS/Chan 2 and WWOR/Chan 9 in New York.

Bey is teamed up with Riley, who co-hosted an AAR talk show with another funny guy named Marc Maron. It looks like WWRL is looking for same kind chemistry that has been sorely missed on the lib talk network since Morning Sedition was cancelled a year and a half ago.

The big news however, is the shake-up soon to occur cross-town on WABC. Last week it was officially announced and widely reported that Don Imus will be returning to radio as the morning host on New York’s number one talk station.

Imus, who lost his syndicated radio talk show (as well as his TV simulcast on MSNBC) after referring to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as "nappy-headed hos," replaces the duo of Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby, who had occupied the morning slot for over eight years.

According to Phil Boyce, vice president for news-talk programming at Citadel Communications, the owner of WABC, they will find a new slot for Sliwa, but it appears that Kuby the popular duo’s liberal voice, has been shown the door.

Asked about his abrupt dismissal, Kuby had the following comment:

"Our show has enjoyed the best audience: intelligent, compassionate, decent and kind. The new owners don't want that kind of show."

Boyce seems very happy knowing that Imus will part of WABC weekday line-up, which is without a local talker during AM drive, for first time since the station converted to talk in 1982.

"The truth is, the lineup is more consistent, top to bottom," he posted on the radio-info board.
"Now...I can drive traffic from morning to noon to night...and get that TSL up to astronomical numbers, which in turn gives me better shares."

However, it doesn’t appear that Imus will produce "astromical" shares for WABC. When the I-Man was carried on WFAN/660, he was consistently beaten in the ratings by Curtis and Kuby. Moreover, WABC has underperformed as New York’s top talker. In the most recent Arbitron survey the station’s average share was 3.1 – that’s 31% lower than KFI/640, the top talker in the number two L.A. Market, which recorded a 4.5 share.

Citadel plans to use WABC as a flagship station as they attempt to syndicate Imus' show.

Boyce doesn't see a problem with the fact Imus' show will be syndicated around the country, meaning it will almost certainly have less local content than Curtis and Kuby.

"I've found that if something interesting is happening in New York, the rest of the country wants to hear about it," says Boyce. "So we'll still be paying attention to what's happening here."

However, conservative blogger Brian Maloney is concerned about this development. He called the hiring of Imus, who he refers to as "the crusty old fossil" an "injustice" that "could send a number of ABC-Citadel staffers straight to the unemployment lines.

Maloney presented a list of the Citadel talkers that were at risk to be dumpled when Imus is syndicated. The list includes:

WABC -- New York's Curtis & Kuby Show (this one is already a done deal)
KABC /790 -- Los Angeles morning host Doug McIntyre
KSFO/560 -- San Francisco's Lee Rodgers & Melanie Morgan Program
WBAP/820 -- Dallas's WBAP Morning News with Hal Jay (and possibly part of Mark Davis's program as well)
WJR/760 -- Detroit's Paul W Smith

Since all of these hosts are very conservative, it would be a very unwelcome development for right-wingers, like Maloney, who consider Imus, who is opposed to the war in Iraq, to be almost a liberal.

This is not surprising. Since the passage of Telecommunications Act of 1996 which allow conglomerates like Clear Channel and Citadel to gobble up radio stations and replace local radio programs with syndicated shows and voice tracking, more than 50% of local talkers have been dumped and replaced with syndicated shows.

Blogging from South Florida

2007-11-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

We are blogging from South Florida this week (while Hurricane Nicole lingers about 150 miles offshore.) The last time out on the road we didn’t even try to blog. This time we found a comfortable business center in a Miami Beach condiminium and we're going to take a shot at it.

And there is much to blog about. Glenn Beck’s latest outrage suggesting that movies like “Happy Feet” and “Superman Returns” are attempts by Hollywood to push a “one world government"; successful efforts by minority groups in Minneapolis and Cincinnati to get station owners to take action against racist comments by talk hosts; the spat between Ed Schultz and WABC PD, Phil Boyce (and others) about whether the New York conservative talk station is poorly managed; and whether Clear Channel is trying to censor Bruce Springsteen.

Instead we’ve decided to cross-post a message that appeared yesterday on radio-info.com News/Talk board on a thread dealing with the WABC ratings issue. The message, posted by Radnowski, offers an articulate and cogent take on the state of talk radio in general and liberal talk in particular. Here it is:

This thread has been interesting, entertaining, informative and to an extent, exasperating. Much like talk radio. In some instances, this thread has devolved to a "mine's bigger than yours" posting match. In other ways, it's been an informative class in Arbitron 201: Cume, Quarter Hour Shares, Persons, Ratings Points, Turnover Ratios, TSL... I'm surprised a few sales types haven't jumped in with Gross Ratings Point, Reach and Frequency. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Somewhere between Free FM (moment of silence, please) and what passes for Talk radio from Hannity, Schultz and others (notice I use a lefty and righty) these days lies the future of the talk format. Maybe it's somehwere between the politics of Hannity/Schultz and the lunacy of Opie & Anthony. Maybe it's NPR crossbred with The Daily Show.

One thing about talk radio these days, it's old. It sounds old and it appeals to old people. What's old? 45+? 55+? 65+? A friend of mine, a 43 year old attorney who lives on Staten Island has long ago tired of me asking him about talk radio in the Big Apple. He doesn't listen. Why? "It's for old people, WABC is a parody of itself," he says. "But why?" I wonder. He reponds, "There's very little there I'd want to listen to for any length of time." I persist, "WABC is a legendary station. You're an attorney, doesn't even Kuby interest you?" "No, he's an ass... and he's hopelessly liberal." "You're a third generation Republican, a legacy... surely you'd like Hannity and Rush." "They don't speak for or to this Republican," he replies. He loved Stern and listened to NPR. What's up with THAT!?

So Phil [Boyce], what's the median age of a WABC listener these days? I'm sure the qualitatives look nice, upper demo and upper income, with plenty of white guys from the burbs who drive Mercury Marquis and Buick Park Avenues. Ah, but those land-barges do have a nice ride.

Much as I was intrigued by what Air America might do, it was readily apparent within a few weeks of their launch that they would fail. Fail across the board and fail especially when going up against stations like WFAN, WABC, WRKO, WJR, WLW, KFI and WWL... you'll recognize these as the "heritage talkers," the Big Daddy 50 kW flamethrowers. The AA affiliates and AA itself lacked discipline and substance. It had plenty of style, but very little form. It more resembled an amoeba than a vertabrate.

This having been said, it did have potential. Randi Rhodes can be shrill, but she knows how to push the buttons and work the room. Too bad the whole Air America platform reeked of poor design and execution. Leasing time? Buying stations? WTF? Get a network up and running, polish it, work it, sell it, promote it and improve it day by day.

Most Progressive Talkers are running on life support these days. I often thought that when CC committed to Progressive talk, it intentionally co-opted it. Sure, progressive talk does well in a few markets, notably Portland, Oregon. Buffalo has a 50 kW flamethrower on 1520 that, according to recent ratings, attracts about 27 people on a good day. Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz and Alan Colmes can't get arrested here.

...Wonder how WABC would fare against a full blown competitor operating on a 50 kW 1A (such as the 50 kW WCBS signal) that offered as solid (if not more resourceful) news department, as efficient vertical and horizontal promotion and equally talented and compensated (if not left of center) air talent that can be found on the very well-programmed WABC. The idea is purely hypothetical, but it's worth imagining.

A Bad News Week for Lib Talk Ends with Some Good News

2007-10-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

It’s been a bad week for liberal talk radio. We learned that one liberal talk station –KOKE/1600 in Austin had flipped to Spanish and two others will soon flip to sports– KRFT/1190 in St. Louis, which offers some lib talk, and KLSD/1360 in San Diego, the largest station yet to drop the format.

We also had to sit with our teeth clenched while master showman Rush Limbaugh humiliated 41 Democratic Senators by auctioning off a letter written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to Clear Channel CEO, Mark Mayes seeking a reprimand for Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" remark. Finally, we have Randigate and enough has been said about that matter.

So we were somewhat relieved when we learned that the embattled lib talk format was beginning to fight back. A few days ago we received a press from Air America Radio announcing that 11 stations would soon be carrying all or part of the lib talk networks schedule. Since, the press release didn’t identify when these new stations would launch and which hosts were to be offered, we contacted AAR’s VP of Affiliate Relations Dave Kaufman, for more information.

What we learned is that the network will soon (within the next few weeks) launch its entire schedule on one station add some AAR hosts to two other stations and expand coverage on two incumbent talk stations. In addition, they are still working on deals with several others.

Kaufman confirmed that KXLJ/1130 in Juneau, the first full time AAR affiliate since, WTAA/1490 in Atlantic City, launched the format in June, will start broadcasting in a few weeks. Seattle Streaming Radio LLC, owner of KXLJ, is conducting signal tests right now.

Interestingly, this will be the 11th lib talk station on the air in a state capitol. The other 10 are – WPYR/1380 in Baton Rouge, LA; WOIC/1230 in Columbia, SC; KKZN/760 in Denver, CO; KUMU/1500 in Honolulu, HI; WXXM/92.1 in Madison, WI; KTNF/950 in St. Paul, MN; KPHX/1480 in Phoenix, AZ; WCHL/1360 in Raleigh, NC; KSAC/1240 in Sacramento, CA; and KTRC/1260 in Santa Fe, NM.

The stations expected to launch before the end of the month with a partial lib talk format are WTAN/1340 in Tampa and KKEE/1230 in Astoria, OR. WTAN will launch with Lionel, who is a Tampa native, and will possibly be adding Randi Rhodes in the near future. KKEE will start with both Lionel and Rhodes.

Two other stations mentioned in the AAR press release – 3WT/1500 in Washington and KJLL/1330—already offer lib talkers, but will be adding new ones in the coming weeks. 3WT and KJLL are what we are calling "balanced" political talk stations. They offer both liberal and conservative talk hosts.

Deals with three other stations mentioned in the AAR press release – WBDB/92.7 in Ogdensberg, NY, WVPO/840 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and WPLY/960 in Allentown – are still being finalized by AAR.

According to Kaufman, AAR is moving away from the strategy of securing full time affiliates that carry all of the network’s programs. Many of these so-called turnkey affiliates have subsequently dropped the lib talk network in search of easier operations like satellite delivered sports talk.

Hopefully, Kaufman will be as successful finding radio stations as he was during his last position as Affiliate Relations VP for ABC Radio Networks. During his tenure at ABC, Kaufman was involved in the successful rollout of the Sean Hannity Show which now is carried on over 500 radio stations.

Michael Jackson to Return to the L.A. Airwaves

2007-10-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

After learning last week that one lib talk station has flipped to Spanish – KOKE/1600 in Austin – and another will soon be flipping to sports – KLSD/1360 in San Diego – it was great to learn that the legendary Michael Jackson will be returning to airwaves in Los Angeles. Not the Michael Jackson with the white sequined glove, but the one who had the highest rated local market talk show in the country until Rush Limbaugh led the transformation of talk radio from a mostly local market business into appendage of the Republican Party in the early 1990s.

Jackson will be the only local host on KGIL/1260, which will launch in Los Angeles on October 29. Formerly, KMZT or K-Mozart, the new talker will offer a “balanced” format including syndicated yakkers Larry King, Neal Boortz, and Dr. Joy Browne.

KMZT will move to HD radio.

This is the second “balanced” talk radio station to launch this month. Earlier in the month Bonneville International terminated their deal with the Washington Post and rebranded their talker 3WT/1500-AM and 107.7-FM.

The station, with its slogan “Left. Right. And whatever we want,” is attempting to fill a niche in the Washington market which has been unkind to the talk radio format. The only political talk station that gets ratings is conservative talker WMAL/630. The lib talk station –WWRC/1260 -- has such a bad signal that you can’t hear it when driving in downtown DC! It rarely shows up, in the ratings book and number one lib talker, Randi Rhodes, jumped at the opportunity to become part of the 3WT line-up. Stephanie Miller will follow Rhodes across town to the new talker next month.

In addition to the two lib hosts, 3WT has morning block of local talkers led by the popular Tony Kornheiser and two conservative talkers – Neal Boortz and Bill O’Reilly. They also have sports rights to the Washington Capitals (hockey) and Washington Nationals (baseball.)

While 3WT is well positioned to get ratings, KGIL is going to have tougher time. KMZT has not been showing up in the ratings book and the station’s weak daytime signal and weaker nighttime signal are going to be problems. However, with Jackson, a proven ratings winner, anchoring the program line-up in the morning and afternoon, there is some reason for optimism.

Jackson, a member of the Radio Hall of Fame, was the top talk host on KABC-AM/790 for over 30 years. While his politics are definitely liberal he employs an easy-going non-confrontational style. Jackson has probably interviewed more famous people and politicians than any other talk show host. Since he left, KABC in 1998 the station has gone down-hill, losing the number slot to KFI/640 which has the two best local talk shows in Southern California – The John and Ken and Bill Handel shows.

Radio entrepreneur and KGIL owner Saul Levine is quite optimistic about the new format. Levine contends that there is too much bluster and not enough news on the airwaves.

"Anybody who's going to foam at the mouth about Hillary [Clinton] or George [Bush], I'm not going to foster that, and I don't think that's what made America great," Levine said.

Is the emergence of these so-called “balanced” talk radio stations a new trend? It’s too early to tell. But there is no doubt that radio executives will be looking at how 3WT and KGIL do in the coming months.

Confessions of a Blogger

2007-10-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

The right-wing noise machine has been having a field day with Randi-gate. Once, they smelled blood in the water they attacked Talking Radio and other liberal blogs (here and here) like a school of piranhas going after fresh meat. They shouted with glee over the apparent discrepancy between what actually happened to the liberal talk radio host (which we still don't know) and how it was initially reported.

Randi Rhodes spoke out for the first time at the beginning to her October 18 show. The lib talk show host told her listeners that she "was watching football in an Irish pub. I went out to smoke a cigarette, and the next thing I knew I was down on the cement, face down, bleeding. I don't know if someone hit me from behind, or if I fainted because I hadn't eaten all day."

Talking Radio was responsible for those initial reports. Not the New York Times, the Washington Post or CNN. Not Keith Olbermann, Wolf Blitzer, or Chris Matthews. Just this "tiny little blog" as Brian Maloney AKA the Radioequalizer has smugly reported.

Here’s how it happened. We were about to close up shop in the evening of October 15 when we picked up on a string started on Democratic Underground about how Jon Elliott, Air America Radio’s late night talk radio host, had reported that Rhodes had been attacked outside her New York City apartment.

We recorded a delayed broadcast of Elliott’s show and posted a report including some of his comments about the attack. We are not going to repeat those comments because Elliott has subsequently issued of retraction. (You can see Elliott’s comments here and his retraction here)

Early on the morning of October 16 we noticed that a story was posted on the on-line edition of the New York Daily News by radio reporter, David Hinckley. The story claimed that "cops and [Rhodes’] lawyer say reports that she was mugged near her Manhattan apartment were bogus."
("Bogus"? That's unsual language for a cop or lawyer to use)

What reports were they referring to? That’s right -- it was the article that we posted in Talking Radio late the previous night. So how did the Daily News, one of largest newspapers in the U.S., find out about a report generated by a "tiny little blog." Well, most likely they read about it on the Drudge Report. It seems that Drudge picked up on our story almost immediately.

We know this because we started receiving hundreds of comments starting at about 5 AM. According to Google Analytics, 80% of those comments were linked to the Drudge Report’s web site.

Well, once the Daily News article was released, a media feeding-frenzy erupted. The story was reported in all of the New York papers – the Post, the Village Voice, Newsday, and even the Times. The Associated Press filed a story, which was carried in dozens of American newspapers.

Several right wing talk radio hosts picked it up including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and it was featured on several segments of the Fox News Channel. Needless to say the story was hit in blogosphere. Just Google <"Randi Rhodes" "Talking Radio"> and you get over 300 hits! And just think, if we closed up shop like we usually do after the Colbert Report, this probably wouldn’t have happened.

Sorry Jon and Randi.

Now right wingers love to be righteous. They love to catch the "liberal media" f—king up." Liberals don’t really get all worked up when conservatives mess up. We have this web site called Media Matters, which reports on right wing lies and misinformation on a daily basis. Check it out right now. Media Matters is currently reporting on about a dozen faux pas's by right leaning TV personalities and talk radio hosts that occurred during the past 24 hours. Just another day in the office.

However, the right wing pundits were not happy just blasting Talking Radio and Jon Elliott. They couldn’t just take their shots and move on. No, they have now become the purveyors of bad information about Randi’s Manhattan tumble.

Here are a few of the embellishments and out lies that our friends in the right-wing media have put out over the last few days

Gawker.com reports that Randi had imbibed 14 Ketel bloody-Marys before plunging to side walk. This was also reported in the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post. (If I drank four Bloody-Marys I'd be flat on my back.)

One right wing blogger suggested that the whole matter was just a publicity stunt by AAR.

The conservative publication the American Spectator listed several examples of crazy liberal outrage over the alleged attack on Randi. One of the targets, was yours truly. Shawn Macomber wrote "the proprietor of Talking Radio wailed, ‘These whack jobs appear determined to do whatever it takes to silence the opposing point of view’."

Well, we did say that, but not in reference to Randi’s misfortune. Our comment was about right-wingers, who shoot up talk radio stations, issue death threats, and beat and kill lib talk show hosts. I presume that the editors of the American Spectator would agree that such psychos are "whack jobs."

On his radio talk show earlier this week, Fox News commentator John Gibson, addressing John Elliott’s accusations that right-wingers attacked Randi Rhodes, identified Elliott as Rhodes’ "sometime substitute host." For the over a year now, Elliott has worked full time as a late night host on AAR. He rarely, if ever, has substituted for Rhodes.

But our favorite was the Maloney’s feeble attempt to gain some attention at the expense of Rhodes’ misfortune. In his latest post on the matter, Maloney said "in this exclusive, Radio Equalizer- created video, listen as Randi digs a deep hole for herself."

What exclusive? Maloney was referring to a recording that he made of the first seven minutes of Rhodes’ October 18 show. You could have listened to it live at 1 PM PDT on Thursday or if you missed it, you can pick it up right now on the Whiterosesociety.com or watch it on You Tube.

As of 12 midnight PDT, Maloney’s "huge blog" had 1 post, that’s 1,402 less than our "tiny blog."

For a much more detailed account of right wing hypocrisy over this matter check today's post on Liberal Talk Radio.

As New York Magazine said regarding Randi-gate.

"Oh Talk Radio fans! You are all so insane"

What a Difference a Day Makes

2007-10-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

First of all, we would like to thank the 1,300 plus people who took the time to the post a comment on the Randi Rhodes mugging story. We especially appreciate the hundreds of right-wingers that discovered this blog for the first time. We hope you come back and visit us on regular basis.

Also, we would like to thank all conservative bloggers including such big players as the Drudge Report, Michelle Malkin, the American Spectator and Little Green Footballs for linking their stories on the Rhodes incident to our blog.

Oh yes, and then one final shout-out -- to conservative talk radio blogger Brian Maloney who for the first time mentioned Talking Radio in his "no-spin zone." Well, Maloney didn’t actually mention Talking Radio by name, but he did say that the Randi Rhodes mugging story was started by "a tiny blog whose author has been a frequent critic of [his] site."

Tiny! When’s the last time that your blog recorded over a thousand comments?

However, while we are appreciative of the response we received in the MSM and blogosphere. (We even got linked to an article in the New York Times!) we regret that the accuracy of some of the information that we presented in our post last night has come into question.

When 41 members of the U.S. Senate and members of the anti-Iraq war veterans group votevets.org expressed outrage over Rush Limbaugh’s "phony soldier" remark, the right-wing talk show host said that his critics didn’t consider the "context" in which his remark was made.

Well, we too have a "context" issue. Our coverage of the alleged attack on Randi Rhodes was presented in the "context" of several very real politically motivated attacks against liberal stations and talk hosts. We chronicled the recent shooting at a lib talk station in Houston, a death threat directed to Stephanie Miller, and a beating received by Tom Leykis. We also, referred to several incidents that may be forgotten because they occurred several years ago – e.g. shots fired at Thom Hartmann's car, transmitters blown up in Texas, and most tragically, the murder of lib talk show host Alan Berg.

If you take the time to scan the more than 1,300 comments posted to yesterday’s blog or read the posts in the right-wing publications listed above, you won’t find a single reference to any of these incidents.

We still believe that more answers are needed before we can say what happened to Randi Rhodes. The truth is not served when the media only reports part of the story.

For example, many of the comments that we received referred to an article written in yesterday’s New York Daily News by David Hinckley and Tina Moore. Also, the Drudge Report, linked to Daily News article in four items that they posted about incident.

MYSTERY: AIR AMERICA TALK SHOW HOST ‘NOT MUGGED’ IN NYC

LAWYER: She ‘fell while walking dog’ no crime

She hit her head on the street and was ‘disoriented’

ANOTHER ‘AIR AMERICA HOST ASKS ‘Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?’However, the Daily News story gives a different spin to Rhodes incident than an Associated Press article that appeared in dozens of American newspapers.

According to the Daily News, Rhodes' lawyer Robert Gaulin said that Rhodes was injured in a fall while walking her dog. Gaulin said that the lib talk host is not sure what happened, and only knows that she fell down and is in a lot of pain.

However, the AP, which also uses Gaulin as its source, confirmed that Rhodes was injured after "she was floored by someone or something" and that "she wasn't sure herself what sent her tumbling to the pavement." "She hit her head on the street and was disoriented," Gaulin said. "She's not sure what happened. She didn't see anything."

It’s funny that none of the right wing commentators or bloggers made reference to the AP story.
Furthermore, Rhodes, who is resting at her Manhattan apartment, has yet to comment on the incident.

In any case, it appears that Air America Radio wants to put an end to this story.

The lib talk radio network has posted the following item on its WebPage:

On Sunday evening, October 14, Air America host Randi Rhodes experienced an unfortunate incident hindering her from hosting her show. The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded. Ms. Rhodes looks forward to being back on the air on Thursday.Air America vice president of programming David Bernstein said "I spoke with Randi. She said that it happened, it took her by surprise and it's over."

Also, AAR’s late night talk show host, Jon Elliott has repudiated some of the statements that he made during his show last night about incident.

"I shouldn’t have speculated based on hearsay that Randi Rhodes had been mugged and that it may have been an attack from a right wing hate machine. I apologize for jumping to conclusions based on an emotional reaction. I wish Randi nothing but the best and look forward to a speedy recovery."Since our coverage of the alleged Randi Rhodes mugging was largely based on Elliott’s comments, we have decided that we cannot support the claims that were made and that we will withhold judgement on the matter until all the facts become known.

Randi Rhodes is the Victim of a Violent Attack

2007-10-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

Updated on October 18 at 1:20 PM PDT. Update set in bold face italics

We just received the 1,400th comment to this post. Needless to say, this is a record for Talking Radio. It might even be a record for political blogs, although we can't confirm that. We can confirm that on October 16 this blog was visited over 200,000 times. This says a lot about the power of the internet.

Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Ave, nearby her Manhattan apartment, while she was walking her dog Simon.

According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. At of late Monday night we have not able to locate any press accounts of the attack and nothing has been posted on the AAR website.

Several liberal blogs, including the Randi Rhodes Message Board and Democratic Underground have logged numerous posts on the Rhodes mugging with most of the posters expressing concern about the condition of the popular lib talker.

AAR's official blogger, Nancy Scola, posted the following message on the lib network's website this morning:

Air America host Randi Rhodes experienced an unfortunate incident hindering her from hosting her show. The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded. Ms. Rhodes looks forward to being back on the air on Thursday.

Morning talk host, Lionel filled in for Rhodes on Monday, but did not say anything about why she wasn’t on hand to do her show. The Randi Rhodes board reports that Sam Seder, who does a Sunday afternoon show for AAR, will be filling on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying "it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home."

Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."

"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us."

Some of blog posters also expressed concerns that the attack on Rhodes was hate crime. Other posters warned that we need more facts before any judgements are made.

According to Elliott, Rhodes was resting in her New York City apartment and was not hospitalized.

Attacks on liberal talk radio stations and their hosts are not a new thing. About a month ago a gunman fired a shot through a window at the studios of KPFT, Houston’s, Pacifica station narrowly missing a DJ who was hosting music show at the time. There is currently a $10,000 reward offered to anyone who identifies the shooter.

This is not the first politically motivated attack on KPFT. More than 35 years ago, the Ku Klux Klan blew up the station's transmitters twice within the Houston station's first year on the air.

Also, shortly after AAR morning talk show host Thom Hartmann, started doing talk radio (about four years ago), he was told by auto mechanic that there were several bullet holes in his car.

"To this day I don't know if somebody shot out my car as kids joyriding with a pistol or rifle... or was a warning or statement of displeasure about my radio show," Hartmann told TR. "I've gotten a lot of death threats and hate mail over the years - hate mail is pretty much a norm in this business - but nobody has taken a shot at me or my car since 2003."

Talk show host, Tom Leykis, who known to express liberal views on his daily "hot talk show" was assaulted outside a Seattle bar three years ago by agitated radio listeners.

According to the Seattle Times, a witness reported two men were involved in the incident:
"…One of the men said to Leykis, "I called your show once and you called me" a name. "You had no right to do that." Then a man standing to Leykis’ left kicked him in the face. The blow knocked him to his knees, leaving his right knee scraped and bruised."

Last year Stephanie Miller received a death threat from a nut case in Ohio named "Sock" Sokolowski. Here's what the letter said in part.

"As with Cindy Sheehan the best thing that could happen to you would be seeing some WONDERFUL activist sticking an AK-47 up your Glory Holes and sending you into eternity" ---
Miller called Socko during her show (yes, he actually included his phone number in the letter) and Socko claimed several times during the phone call that he didn't threaten Miller in the letter.

(Socko is not to be confused with Spocko, who is a liberal blogger who was threatened by ABC Radio's lawyers after he posted a list of advertisers to Lee Rodgers and Melanie Morgan's conservative talk show on KSFO-AM in San Francisco.)

Apparently, some right-wing critics of lib talk aren’t happy that conservative talk only accounts for 90% of the programming on talk radio. These whack jobs appear determined to whatever it takes to silence the opposing point of view.

Not surprisingly, the only talk radio host killed for his political views was a liberal. In 1984, two right wing extremists gunned down Denver talk show host Alan Berg. Berg’s tragic murder was memorialized in a chilling movie Talk Radio

Is Ed Schultz the #1 Lib Talker?

2007-10-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

Talkers Magazine has released its semi-annual survey of "The Top Talk Radio Audiences." The survey which corresponds with the Spring 07 Arbitron ratings has been published on theTalkers website. I assume paying subscribers to Talkers will see these results in the November issue, (That's four months after Spring Arbitron survey was released.)

According to the Talkers survey, Ed Schultz is the number one liberal talk radio host. They claim that Schultz is reaching 3.25 million radio listeners per week or more than twice as many listeners at the three other top lib talk hosts – Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, and Thom Hartmann. According to Talkers, Rhodes, Miller, and Hartmann each had only reached 1.5 million listeners.

Most of the hosts ranked ranked in the Talkers survey are not lib talkers. They are coservatives with Rush Limbaugh on top reaching 13.5 million listeners per week.

If you’re are regularly reader of this blog, you know that Talking Radio also releases periodic rankings of talk show hosts. However, we only rank syndicated lib talkers and release our findings quarterly corresponding with the Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall Arbitron reports.

We released our Spring report on August 2, (see below). As you can see, we did not find Schultz to be the number one lib talk host. Instead our survey found a very close race for the number one slot between the top four hosts. In a photo finish, Rhodes was first, Miller was second, Schultz was third, and Hartmann was fourth.

So how does Talkers Magazine, which calls itself the "Bible of Talk Radio", have Schultz doubling the ratings of the rest of the field while Talking Radio, a puny blog, almost finds it "too close to call."

Well, the short answer is that we are right and they are wrong. There is absolutely no way that Ed Schultz has twice as many listeners as Rhodes, Miller, or Hartmann. If you believe this, I have a bankrupt liberal talk radio network to sell you.

Earlier today, we found that several blog's were covering the release of the Talkers survey, showing Schultz as the number one lib talker. We were troubled that excellent blogs like Raw Story and Liberal Talk Radio were running with the story.

We also found ourselves to be in rare agreement with Brian Maloney, the Radio Equalizer, who blasted Talkers and its publisher, Michael Harrison on his blog today.

Maloney wasn't happy about the fact that Talkers only gave Limbaugh credit for reaching only 13.5 million listenners per week. He feels it should be closer to 20 million. Here's what he said.

"Every six months, the folks at Talkers Magazine create headaches for hosts, industry insiders and others by publishing a credibility- challenged list of the "top talk radio audiences".Using the kind of mathematics that would get one flunked out of first grade, the monthly advertorial publication clumsily attempts to rank syndicated talk hosts by audience size.While most in the industry send the list straight to their circular file, it is quoted quite often by mainstream media reporters who assume the data is reliable."
TR uses a very straightforward method of ranking talk show hosts. For each host, we add up the number of stations, the coverage of those stations, factor in the time period, and complete our analysis with ratings data. Rhodes, Miller, and Hartman are carried on about 50 stations. They all enjoy relatively good time periods. (Miller’s time slot is slightly better.) The reason why Rhodes was number one is because she had the best ratings.

Well, what about Schultz? Isn’t he carried on more stations? Yes, if you go to Big Eddie's website you will see that he is carried on about 25 more stations than the other three top lib hosts. However, unlike Rhodes and Hartmann he is not carried in New York and unlike Rhodes, Hartmann, and Miller he has a terrible time slot in Los Angeles, 7 to 10 PM with frequent sports pre-emptions.

The coverage that Schultz loses is New York and L.A (which account for 13% of the lib talk universe) is greater than the exclusive coverage he gains on those 25 stations. Moreover, since most of those stations feature conservative talk, Schultz has generally poor time slots.

The only way that Schultz has more than twice the number of listeners is if his ratings are more than double those of Rhodes, Miller, or Hartmann. While we don’t have access to all the ratings data, from what we've seen, Schultz’ ratings are comparable to his lib talk competitors.

However, the most ridiculous finding of the Talkers survey is that listnership to lib talk increased by from 8% (for Schultz) to 20% (for Rhodes, Miller, and Hartmann) from the Fall 06 to the Spring 07 surveys. During that six month period 22 stations dropped lib talk, (with an associated 12% loss of coverage) and largely because of the Air America Radio bankruptcy lib talk ratings fell by another 11% on the remaining stations. Given these conditions how can listnership of the top lib talk hosts be up so sharply. (In fact, listnership is down.)

Talking Radio will be releasing its rankings for the summer ratings period within the next 30 days. We once again expect a close contest between the top four. It will be interesting to see how Talkers sizes things up four months from now.

Top Lib Talk Hosts in Photo Finish for Leader in Q2 Rankings

2007-10-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Originally posted on August 2, 2007

The top four syndicated hosts, jockeyed for position in the Talking Radio Ranking of Liberal Talk Show Hosts and as they crossed the finish line it was once again a close race with less than two points separating the winner from the fourth place finisher.

Thom Hartmann and Ed Schultz maintained their advantage in total number of affiliates, Stephanie Miller secured her post position with the best time slots, but in the end it was the veteran Randi Rhodes, who held on to first place with a strong showing in the Spring survey.

For the second time this year, the “goddess” has secured the number one slot in the TR Ranking, beating out a surging Miller (who was fourth in the last survey), by a neck at the finish line. Schultz dropped to third position and Hartmann to fourth.

The TR survey* rates the performance of all of the syndicated lib talkers who broadcast on weekdays. You will notice that the hosts are rated by the percentage of the total audience that they reach.

Furthermore the positioning of the hosts is based on all radio listeners, not the so-called money demo, i.e. adults 25-54. You will have to go to other sources e.g. trade magazines or the host's websites to find specific data concerning ratings, shares, AQH's and cumes. Here is the ranking of syndicated lib talk hosts as of June 30, 2007:

While the distance between the top four was more than 4 points after the first quarter, it was only 1.4 points this time. It was a classic photo finish.

Rhodes secured her number one spot by continuing to improve her time periods. (Her coverage remained about the same.) and doing well in the Spring survey. The big news was Miller’s surge from fourth to second place. Stephanie did it by taking advantage of her ideal time periods, (i.e. 6am – 9am on several important west coast stations.) The slip by Schultz and Hartmann, was not due to their loses, but rather to Rhodes’ strong finish and Miller’s late surge.

However, the big news regarding the 2nd quarter “Ranking” was not the top four, but of the stunning changes in the rest of the field. Most notably, the dismal showing of the new Air America Radio talk shows.

While Rachel Maddow held her fifth place position and actually improved her standing by more than 2 points, veteran AAR talker Mark Riley, host of The Air Americans, fell from 10th to 12th place. Also new AAR talker Lionel barely got out of the starting gate falling from 7th to 8th. The Young Turks sunk from 8th to 10th.

More significantly, all three shows saw an extreme drop in their affiliations. Riley, from 40 to 13, Lionel from 55 to 15 and the “Turks” from 28 to 15. (AAR announced last week that it was canceling the Air Americans and replacing the four-hour mid-day show with two two-hour talk shows.) Lionel’s problem appears to be the fact that his new show is up against Miller, who is not giving up any ground.

Bill Press held on to his ninth position, but he lost 32% in point positioning falling from 3.4 top 2.3.

Late night talkers continue to struggle for position as their time slots do not attract many listeners.

Alan Colmes, who is actually carried on more stations than any other liberal talk show host, because of his role as the token lib on dozens of conservative talk stations, finished in 7th place beaten out by another late night talker, Mike Malloy, who secured his position by getting better time slots on several stations. While Jon Elliott improved his position by beating both Riley and the “Turks” for the first time, Elliott remained under two points in second quarter Ranking.

West coast talker, Peter B. Collins remained in last place.

For the first time since the launch of AAR, three and one-half years ago, talk hosts not affiliated with the liberal talk radio network account for the majority of lib talk listnership -- 50.2%. This is up from 34.4% at end of 2006.

The field of lib talkers, also declined in the second quarter. While there were 15 talkers on the first quarter survey, the second quarter survey only contained 13. The number of talkers will probably increase for the third quarter survey (9/30/07) with AAR introducing two new talk hosts – Richard Greene and Bree Walker – and independent talkers like Mario Solis-Marich and Leslie Marshall now starting to be syndicated.

There are 160 stations that carry at least one syndicated lib talker on weekdays. Of these 94 stations carry only one host, 11 stations carry two hosts, and 55 stations carry three or more hosts.

The Right Wing Talk Radio Echo Machine Comes to Rush's Aid

2007-10-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Updated, Saturday, October 13, 12:20 pm. Update set in Bold Face Italics

Since conservative talk accounts for over 90% of the programming on talk radio stations it is not surprising that the radio trade press sucks up to right wing talk hosts, their syndicators and the hundreds of radio stations that are dominated by the format.

After all, these publications derive much of their ad revenue from the big syndicators like Premiere Radio, Westwood One, ABC Radio Networks, and Talk Radio Network and talk radio, while flat in the ratings for the past ten years, still is the most listened to radio format.

In order to get an idea of how biased the radio trade press is to conservative talk radio, just consider the coverage of the events following Rush Limbaugh’s remark ten days ago when he apparently referred to soldiers opposed to the Iraq War as "phony soldiers."

The incident has been thoroughly chronicled in the mainstream media (or as Limbaugh calls it the drive-by media.) To be completely balanced we will link to articles in the "liberal" Washington Post and the "conservative" Washington Times. Also, Talking Radio has covered the flap and you can read our coverage by scrolling down.

Now if you didn’t read either newspaper, or don't follow this blog and your sole source of news coverage came from the radio trade press here’s what you would have learned:

On October 2 in the News-Talk-Sports Air Check, Al Peterson reported on the incident under the headline "Senate All Fired Up Over Rush"

"Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor yesterday to condemn talk host Rush Limbaugh for a recent remark Reid characterized as "an outrage." Last Friday (9/28), Limbaugh referred to Jesse MacBeth, who falsely claimed to be an Army Ranger and veteran of the Iraq war while testifying on behalf of the anti-war movement, as a "phony soldier."

Please Al. You know that’s not what happened. A complete transcript of Limbaugh’s remarks was posted on Media Matters for almost a week when you wrote this bs. You know that he said "phony soldiers" in response to the following comment made by a caller.

LIMBAUGH: I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.Jesse MacBeth’s name didn’t come up until over two minutes after this exchange. And at that time, El Rushbo didn’t even identify Macbeth as a ‘phony soldier!"

But it gets better. NTS Aircheck’s report continues:

Reid is now asking senators to sign a letter requesting Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays to "publicly repudiate" the comment and ask Limbaugh to apologize. Responding to Reid on his Premiere Radio Networks program yesterday, Limbaugh said, "You want to come on this program and call me unpatriotic, come on this program and call me unpatriotic. You want to call me a liar, you want to tell me that I did not say what I said, you come on this program and you tell me to my face that I said what I did not say. Stop hiding behind your special protections as a senator and spewing the talking points of an embarrassing, partisan hack media group called Media Matters for America. If anybody owes the military of this country an apology, Senator Reid, it is you and any and all who have joined your effort to secure defeat of the United States and the United States military in not only Iraq, but the war on terror."

Why doesn’t Peterson include any parts of Reid’s letter in his report or quote any of the other Senators who commented on the matter. How about a Republican like Norm Coleman of Minnesota who said.

"Limbaugh's suggestion that those who have served their country and express their opinions are 'phony soldiers' is wrong. There needs to be a level of civility and honest debate in this country about issues as important as this."If you were misinformed by the NTS Aircheck report, you wouldn’t have gotten any better understanding by reading the Radio Insider (an on-line newsletter provided by Inside Radio.) Under the headline "Rush Flap Linked to Fairness Doctrine," the Insider issued the following report of October 4.

"There's a genuine feeling in talk radio the current congressional attack on Rush Limbaugh is part of a larger effort to revive the Fairness Doctrine. ABC Radio's Sean Hannity says "They pick on people one by one, and the person they want most is Rush because he has the biggest audience." Hannity thinks he's on the hit list too, along with other conservative talkers like Neal Boortz and Mark Levin."
I guess that Randi Rhodes andEd Schultz never got back to the "Insider". Their syndicators also advertise in this publication.

Also, on October 12, the Insider published the following item under the headline

Limbaugh Auctions "Smear Letter"

Rush Limbaugh has put up for auction the letter Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent to Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays demanding an apology for comments Limbaugh made on his radio show. The winning bidder also gets the Halliburton briefcase in which the letter is secured 24 hours a day and a personal letter of thanks from Rush. All the money raised goes to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which helps the kids of fallen Marines and federal law enforcement officers

So I guess, the Insider agrees that the letter "smeared" his holiness Rush Limbaugh. Of course the item didn't mention that 40 other U.S. Senators signed the letter. Also, we're curious how Limbaugh got the original letter since it was sent to Mark Mays, CEO of Clear Channel.

What really disappointed us was the final paragraph in report that published in allaccess.com.

Allaccess.com is our favorite radio trade journal and generally does a good job when covering political talk radio. On October 2 they concluded a fairly balanced report of the ‘phony soldiers" flap with the following statement:

"The controversy is being promoted by MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA, the same liberal media organization that fueled the DON IMUS controversy."

So its Media Matters that’s "promoting the controversy." Not Limbaugh who will not concede an ounce of regret over the comment, who subsequently called Congressman Jack Murtha (D-PA) -- a decorated Vietnam veteran another "phony soldier," has compared Brian McGough, of votevets.org to a suicide bomber, and is now working with Republican Party to use the "phony soldiers" flap as a fund raising vehicle.

Also, allaccess's reporters know that Media Matters had little to do with Imus' meltdown. When Imus called the Rutgers women’s basketball team "nappy headed hos," it made it to the front page of most major American newspapers the next day and dominated the print and electronic media for several weeks leading up to the Imus' termination by MSNBC and CBS Radio.

Finally, we can’t let the Talkers Magazine of the hook even though it will be a couple weeks before they release their next issue.
On their website Talkers published also suspected that phony soldiers was just a way to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

"Some Americans wonder why Congress, with all the important things it could be doing, is wasting time on the comments of a talk host. On the talk radio side, some, including ABC Radio Networks and Fox News Channel superstar Sean Hannity, are concerned this is just another step toward reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine."

Limbaugh Flips, CC Station Flops

2007-10-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

Defenders of Rush Limbaugh from radio station and groups executives, and radio trade press writers to politcians and right wing bloggers have been on a mission this week trying to spin the conservative talk show host’s "phony soldiers" remark. At the same time, Limbaugh along with his fawning supporters, are claiming that the conservative talker, not the offended anti-Iraq war veterans, is the real victim.

If you are not familiar with flap that was started when Limbaugh responded to a caller’s complaint about soldiers who speak out against the war as phony soldiers. You can read previous Talking Radio posts here and here or better yet go to Media Matters, which has published "word for word" transcripts and audio clips.

Since making the statement Limbaugh has been hardly transparent in his efforts to dispute the intent of what he meant when he made the "phony soldiers" remark. Here’s what, the Vietnam error draft dodger, said and did about the controversy:

*That he was not referring all anti-war soldiers but to one soldier, -- a former soldier named Jesse Merced who was convicted of making false statements about war atrocities in Iraq.

*He put together an edited recording of the segment on his September 24 show when he made the statement. The segment excluded about four minutes of his conversation with callers before and after the comment and added his reference to Merced, which was made two minutes afterwards. You can listen to the unedited recording here.

*He said on several occasions that he was only referring to McBeth when he referred to "phony soldiers." However, when forced to consider why he used the plural (soldier[s]) he changed his story and said "we have discussed many of these phony soldiers over the course of the past few months."

*He denied calling Congressman Jack Murtha, a decorated Vietnam veteran, a "phony solder" when the transcript of his September 28 show clearly reveals that he did. Here’s what he said:

"How about this guy Scott Thomas [Beauchamp] who was writing fraudulent, phony things in The New Republic about atrocities he saw that never happened? How about Jack Murtha blanketly accepting the notion that Marines at Haditha engaged in wanton murder of innocent children and civilians?"

*But probably the most egregious flip-flop of them all was when he denied comparing anti-Iraq war vet Brian McGough to a suicide bomber. McGough, who received a traumatic brain injury during his Iraq service, cut a spot on behalf of votevets.org. (more on this below) The spot blasts Limbaugh for making the "phony soldiers" remark and challenges El Rushbo to "say it to [McGough’s] face."

Limbaugh was enraged about the votevets.org spot and McGough’s participation.

Here’s what he said:

"You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into."

Well, enough for Limbaugh. To use an expression popularized by morning lib talker Stephanie Miller. He’s "a lyin' sack of crap." Limbaugh uses his three-hour daily to pipe dis-information into the ears of his adoring radio audience of ditto-heads, seemingly unware that other people may be listening to what he is saying!

Meanwhile about the actions of some his supporters and apologists in the radio industry.
We talked about the votevets.org ad challenging Limbaugh about the "phony soldiers" remark. Well, it seems that WJNO-AM, one of the 600 plus radio stations that carry his show, has refused to run the ad.

After turning down the ad, here’s how John Hunt, vp market manager for Clear Channel's, West Palm Beach properties, attempted to defend this gutless action:

"In light of the audience composition and the tone of the commercial presented by "Vote for Vets", we cannot air the three spots requested for broadcast on WJNO AM during the Rush Limbaugh Show. Airing anti-Rush Limbaugh commercials during the Rush Limbaugh show on WJNO AM would only conflict with the listeners who have chosen to listen to Rush Limbaugh. As an alternative, we would propose airing the commercials during other dayparts on WJNO or on some of our other appropriate stations in the market, and would be happy to make advertising recommendations based on format and demographics to aid you in your station selection."

In other words, we don’t want to offend the ditto-heads here in West Palm Beach and we certainly don’t want to offend to Limbaugh who broadcasts his show from his mansion in Palm Beach.

It could be damaging to Rush's oxyCotin scared ear drums.

Votevets.org got a much warmer reception from Jim Farley, gm of WTOP-AM, the Bonneville all news station in Washington.

"Since we have accepted ads from veterans groups supporting the war, we could hardly turn down the other side. An all-news station becomes a marketplace of ideas, even when it comes to commercials."

We have more to say about "phony soldiers" flap, but this post has already gone on far enough. Over the weekend we will have more about Limbaugh apologists including CC executives, fawning radio trade media writers, bloggers, and politicians.

Stay tuned.

Limbaugh Can't Dodge "Phony Soldiers" Flap

2007-10-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

As we reported on October 1, comedian Rush Limbaugh is the gift that keeps on giving. It is now been a week, since Limbaugh uttered those two infamous words during the second hour of his daily radio show – "phony soldiers" -- and the controversy appears to growing exponentially.

At that time we blogged about controversy, which erupted when a caller to Limbaugh’s show complained about an alleged anti-war bias in the media, complaining that [they] "never talk to real soldiers." Limbaugh responded "the phony soldiers. "

Quickly, Limbaugh resorted to damage control. He made a aircheck of this segment of his show selectively deleting some 80% of the audio leading up to his comment. He also added a separate commentary that was made later about a soldier convicted of making false war atrocities charges.

He never explained why he used used the plural "soldier[s]" if he was just talking about one soldier.

Well, in the past 24 hours there have been some stunning developments.

The Hill writes this morning about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's letter to Limbaugh's bosses at Clear Channel Communications, in which the Nevada Democrat calls on the owner of Limbaugh's syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks, to make their number one talker "publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments."

The Senate overwhelming approved a Republican backed resoluton two weeks ago, condemning the liberal political action group moveon.org when moveon ran a full page ad in the New York Times critical of General David Petraeus testimony before Congress. The headline of ad was "General Patraeua or General Betry Us." No Republicans in the Senate had any unkind words for Limbaugh.

Votevets.org, which describes itself as an organization comprised of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns who oppose the current policy in Iraq, has released a TV ad that takes aim at the number one right wing talker.

The group says it will spend $60,000 to run the ad nationally Wednesday and Thursday on Fox News and CNN. A radio version will air during Limbaugh's show on WMAL-AM Washington, D.C., and in his home market on WJNO-AM Palm Beach, Fla.

In the ad, votevets.org founder Brian McGough discusses his service in Iraq and the wounds he suffered there. He says to Limbaugh, "until you have the guts to call me a 'phony soldier' to my face, stop telling lies about my service."

Patrick Murphy, a Democratic Congressmen from Eastern Pennsylvania, who is an Iraq War veteran, blogging on the Huff Po said "when someone like Rush Limbaugh says that soldiers who disagree with the failed strategies of President Bush …are 'phony soldiers,' you have to consider the source."

"Someone should tell chicken hawk Rush Limbaugh that the only phonies are those who choose not to serve and then criticize those who do. I served proudly, so did two of my fellow paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne who spoke out and died just weeks ago. Generations of American veterans have worn the uniform with pride and we know it is no contradiction to serve your country and still disagree with the Bush-civilian leadership that mismanaged this war."

And Senator Tom Harkin, (D-IA) commented on Limbaugh’s erratic and confrontational behavior by saying the following on the floor of the Senate:

"Well, I don’t know. Maybe he was just high on his drugs again. I don’t know whether he was or not. If so, he ought to let us know. But that shouldn’t be an excuse."

Yes Limbaugh and his minions of right wing supporters like Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin have been spinning the controversy like crazy over the past few days.

During the first hour of his October 1 show, Limbaugh said: "I want to apologize to all of the members of the United States military, both in uniform and out, active duty and retired, for Media Matters for America."

Remember it was Media Matters, which published a word for word transcript and sound clip, capturing the exact words that Limbaugh uttered on his September 24 show.

Limbaugh then went after Reid, challenging the Nevada Democrat to debate.

"What I want to do now is demand that Harry Reid come on this program and confront me like a man. Live, unedited, come on this show and let's go at it. I'm not going to allow hack politicians to lie about what I said, to cover up what they have said and done."

That’s interesting. As you know, Limbaugh never debates with any of his opponents and hasn’t even responded to challenges put forth by several lib talk hosts including Randi Rhodes. In fact, his TV appearances are limited to a handfull carefully choreographed puff pieces.

Conservative talk radio blogger Brian Maloney used most of his posts today (here and here) to attack the politicians and veterans who are asking Limbaugh to apologize for his remark.

Here’s what Maloney said about Sen. Reid.

Better than other Americans, Nevadans know that the Harry Reid of 2007 is remarkably like the Harry Reid of 1997, just more petty, spiteful and vindictive, even against schoolchildren and the blind… While he claims to value the American ideal of free speech, the truth is that he's much more at home with the likes of Putin, Ahmedinejad, Chavez and Mugabe. The Silver State has many reasons of which to be proud, but Harry Reid certainly doesn't provide one of them.

Maloney also called votevets.org, which is headed up by Purple Heart winner McGough, as a "partisan group." He published a link to their WebPage and added, "get a load of the lefties [their] board"

Right wing blogger Michelle Malkin also went after the politicos and vets, rather than to explain why Limbaugh used the offensive characterization.

She referred to votevets.org as "moonbats" and "phony vets for truth" and to other people who have spoken out on this issue as the "Rush hating left."

One right wing talk show host, who is probably happy about the controversy surrounding Limbaugh, is Bill O’Reilly.

Less than two weeks ago the media was all over Bill-O for his comment about Sylvia’s a popular black owned and operated restaurant in Harlem.

"If you recall Bill-O said that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship…there wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' "

If this controversy continues Limbaugh might start asking for more OxyCotin.

Is General Betray Us a Phony Soldier?

2007-10-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh is the gift that keeps on giving. If he had just let his "phony soldier" remark rest on the Media Matters website it probably wouldn't have survived the 24 hour news cycle.

But the number one conservative talk show host wouldn’t let the controversy go away. On his September 28th show, Limbaugh told his ditto-head listeners that his reference to "phony soldiers" had nothing to do with Iraq war opponents but rather to one soldier who had recently been convicted of falsifying his military record. He accused Media Matters of taking his comments out of "context" to undermine his creditability.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.

Everyone knows that Media Matters does not publish material out of context. In fact, when they post an objectionable comment on their website they almost always post a word for word transcript of what the commentator or reporter said along with an unedited audio or video clip.

If the Media Matters website gets anything right – it’s context!

Here is what Limbaugh said: (go to Media Matters if you want more context.)

LIMBAUGH: I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

LIMBAUGH: They joined to be in Iraq. They joined --

CALLER 2: A lot of them -- the new kids, yeah.

So Limbaugh decides to bring the matter up on his September 28th show. He accuses Media Matters of "selectively choosing" parts of a transcript, and then tells his listeners that he going to play all three minutes and 13 seconds of the "entire transcript" to set the record straight.

Instead, Limbaugh plays an edited audio file containing a small part of the one minute and 35 second discussion containing his "phony soldier" and subsequent comment about the former soldier who had falsely claimed to witness anti-war attrocities. (He never identified this guy as a phony soldier.)

Limbaugh apologist and right-wing talk radio blogger Brian Maloney’s definition of context is even more inclusive. Maloney suggests Limbaugh’s "phony soldiers" remark was actually prompted by an ABC News report on September 24th.

So let’s understand:

According to Limbaugh to appreciate his context you have to cut out most of the comments made right before his "phony soldiers" remark and include a separate comment that was made about an hour later.

According to Maloney to appreciate context you have to go back two days to a TV report on ABC News (which Limbaugh refers to as the drive-by media.)

Of course, Media Matters posted a verbatim transcript and unedited audio clip of Limbaugh’s feeble attempt to establish the "true context" of his offensive remark. So instead of ending in the middle of last week, the controversy continued over the weekend and now appears to heading for halls of Congress.

The Carpetbagger Report claims that Rep Mark Udall (D-CO) will be introducing a resolution today in the House Representatives condemning Limbaugh for his "phony soldier" remark.

As the "phony soldier" controversy continued Democratic and Republican politicians have weighed in.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards called on Republicans to denounce Limbaugh in the same way they came down on Democrats after the MoveOn ad.

"All these Republicans went running to the mic and the TV cameras when MoveOn ran their ad about General Petraeus. Now let's see if they really mean it," Edwards said. "Let's see if they'll speak out against Rush Limbaugh. Let's see if they'll challenge him about men and women who have worn the uniform of the United States."

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has released the following statement:

"Governor Romney would disagree with the negative characterization of those men and women who serve with honor and distinction in the United States Military. There may be disagreements with individual opinions, but no one would ever dispute the fact that those members of the military who disagree with the war have earned the right to express that opinion."

Politicians don't know a lot about context, but they do know a hot political issue when they see one.

Clear Channel Poised to Flip Lib Talk in San Diego

2007-09-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

Updated in bold face italic on September 28, 3:15 pm pdt

For over a month rumors have swirled around the beaches and mountain foothills in San Diego that the three year reign of liberal talk radio, on KLSD/1360, will soon be coming to end.

While other blogs have confirmed that KLSD will be dropping its lib talk format, (see here and here) we have avoided making this call, hoping that the station's owner, Clear Channel, would be influenced by the overwhelming display of popular support and preserve the station’s format.

In the past month there have been two well attended rally’s at CC's San Diego office and studios, the station has encouraged listeners to send supportive emails, an on-line petition has attracted over 3,000 signatures, and potential advertisers have come forward.

At one point it started looking like KLSD had manufactured the format switch story as a promotional gimmick to hike ratings and find advertisers.

However, we are now of the opinion that KLSD will be changing formats (probably to sports) in the middle of October.

We attribute this to "off the record" comments that we have received from reliable sources associated with KLSD, statements by CC’s San Diego Programming Director, Cliff Albert, and CC’s bid to take the company private.

One source told us that the switch to sports is "done deal." Another said, "you can put a fork in KLSD, it’s finished." Both sources declined to be mentioned by name.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported on Sept. 28 while there was "still no decision on whether Clear Channel will flip KLSD-AM (1360) to an all-sports format, every rumor mill in town says it will happen beginning Oct. 15."

On Monday morning, Albert appeared on the Stacy Taylor Show, the only locally produced talk show on KLSD. Three weekend shows have been dropped over the past few months. The latest firing involved popular local talker Scot Tempesta (AKA Scooter) who was also Taylor’s co-host.

Albert told the station's listeners that "no decision has been made about KLSD", but that he expected one would be made within the next week.

Then Albert started using the familiar CC argument against lib talk.

"Traditional radio advertisers, like real estate and financial management companies, are run by conservatives so they don’t want advertise on progressive talk," Albert said.

He went on to say that several formats have been discussed and even if CC goes in different direction, he has a plan to keep the format alive in the market. (Is Albert talking about HD radio or WI FI?)

Donna Halpert, a broadcast consultant from Boston, posted the following comment about the current trend to drop lib talk in several markets around the country on a Yahoo Message Group started by lib talk supports in San Diego.

"CC is dumping the format in city after city, using the same talking points yet refusing togive the progressive format a chance to succeed," Halpert blogged. "Why is progresive talk relegated to stations with poor signals and no promotion, where owners feel free to dump it at a moment's notice, no matter how many eager fans listen to it?"

If CC dumps lib talk in San Diego, this would be a serious blow to the format. KLSD has three times as many listeners as the largest station to flip lib in the past year –WSAI in Cincinnati. Also this would break the chain of lib talk stations on the West Coast from Mexico to Canada. (Currently you can drive from border to border on Interstate 5 and always stay tuned to a lib talk station.)

But most importantly, if CC goes ahead and flips KLSD from lib talk to sports, there will be a massive protest directed against the San Antonio based company by a very organized and angry group of listeners.

By deciding to let this situation linger for several weeks, CC has allowed lib talk fans in San Diego to express their opposition to the programming change and to organize.

With the exception of WXXM in Madison (where an announced flip was stopped) CC usually doesn’t back down when they announce their intention to make a programming change. Now, that the huge radio station owner has successfully converted from a publicly to a privately owned company, they are even more likely to turn a deaf ear to the angry listeners and just do what they want to do.

Talk Radio Flexes it's Black Power

2007-09-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

With over 90% of the political talk stations spewing right-wing opinions, it is not surprising that the talkers on these stations often have an impact on influencing public policy and news events.

In 1994 when the Republicans won a landslide victory in the U.S. Congress, taking over both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in over 40 years, much of the credit for this feat was attributed to conservative talk radio. In fact, at a victory dinner after the historic election, the new Speaker of the House, Newt Ginrich, made Rush Limbaugh an honorary member of the House of Representatives in recognition of Limbaugh’s contribution to the Republican victory.

Over the past decade there have been several other examples of how conservative talk radio influenced political events. Like in 2003 when local right wing talkers in California led a successful campaign to recall Democratic Governor Gray Davis and more recently when non-stop immigrant bashing resulted in the defeat of bi-partisan immigration reform legislation.

Even Republican politicians were outraged by this move. Usually conservative Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) complained that "talk radio is running America and we have to deal with that.
problem."

Well, it happened again last week, but this time it wasn’t conservative talk radio, but rather black (AKA Urban) talk radio that influenced a political event.

It is generally agreed that talk radio and internet blogs were responsible for the huge turnout in Jena, La to support the so-called Jena 6. More than 10,000 people showed up in Jena to protest the alleged double standard employed by a District Attorney who charged six black students with attempted murder for school yard fight that sent a white student to the hospital. On the other hand law enforcement and school officials were lenient when white students hung nooses from a tree at the high school and when another white student confronted a group of black students with rifle.

Black talk radio hosts such as Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, and Michael Baisden played a key role in the cause of Jena 6 and in generating the turn-out at the associated protest action.

The Washington Post attributed the success of the Jena protest to these hosts.

Yesterday morning, as the throng descended on Jena, both the Joyner and Harvey shows featured live updates from the scene. Baisden and Sharpton were in Jena, helping lead the demonstrations. It's fair to say that without black radio, the case of the Jena 6 probably never would have become a significant national story -- and certainly never would have sparked one of the biggest civil rights protests in decades.

The Orlando Sentinel credited talk radio and the internet not black leaders and the mainstream media.

Those standing in line Wednesday to board a bus from Orlando to Jena, La., heard about the racially charged arrests of six black high-school students called the "Jena 6" from the Internet and talk radio -- not civil-rights leaders or the mass media.

We are not surprised by the powerful role of urban radio in general and black talk radio in particular. While general market radio has shown no growth over the past ten years, urban radio has grown by 23% over this period.

Some black leaders have got the message. Jesse Jackson has hosted a weekly talk show syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks for the past three years. Jackson's show is carried on over three dozen stations. Also, about a year ago Al Sharpton threw his hat in the talk radio ring, with a daily show syndicated by Syndication One, which is now carried on over two dozen stations.

A Tale of Two Bloggers

2007-09-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Updated, Sept. 21 at 2:20 PM pdt

Two bloggers, who follow the talk radio business, have flipped, flopped, and then flipped again as they’ve attempted to determine the fate of Bill O’Reilly’s daily radio show.

The story broke two days ago when Steve Young, who blogs on the liberal Huffington Post, claimed that O’Reilly’s show, which is syndicated nationally to hundreds of radio stations by Westwood One would soon be cancelled.

Like a former leader of the pride, the beaten old lion is losing his power -- and his sexual appeal to the under-65 year old lionesses -- to a younger, more virile young leader. But that's not what is driving the Nospinster bat-crazy. It's more. ..The buzz around the watering hole is that the Big Cat may be losing his radio gig and it's got to be driving him off the deep end.

Young's blog was posted at 10:42 AM on Monday.

Fourteen hours later, right-wing blogger, Brian Maloney, AKA the Radio Equalizer, called Young the "anti-Fox pit bull on the HuffPo" and went on to say that a source at Fox told him that Young’s claim was "complete disinformation."

And while Bill O'Reilly's radio performance has been mixed in some locations and stronger in other cities, there hasn't been any known industry buzz about his radio show being cancelled. In fact, he's picked up several new cities in the past few weeks.

Fast forward to 8:39 AM on Wednesday and Young blogged a complete mea-culpa stating that O’Reilly show was going to be renewed – not cancelled.

There comes a time in all good journalists' lives when they must confront an agonizing truth. Be it that I am neither a good journalist, nor even a journalist, the pill, a mixed metaphor the size of Fox News' success, doesn't go down the throat any easier.

(That’s right Steve…you’re a blogger which is lower than a re-write editor for The National Enquirer.)

This week I chased a rumor-laced story that had holy grail of Bill O'Reilly-contrarians written all over it. Holy grail with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Bill O'Reilly was soon to lose his radio gig… In fact, he is close to signing a contract renewal. So says a well-placed, inside source who is paid to know.

Well right away I checked out Maloney’s blog expecting him to say that another liberal smear job has been thwarted. Instead, he was blogging, under a banner "Exclusive to the Radio Equalizer" that Young had it right the first time – O’Reilly’s show was going off the air before the end of year.

Though not yet confirmed by the man himself, top- level industry sources tell the Radio Equalizer that Bill O'Reilly is giving up his nationally syndicated radio show. We're hearing his last broadcast will occur sometime in December.

Why do bloggers feel like they have to attribute their prognostications to "top-level industry sources," "well-placed inside sources" and the "buzz around the watering hole." Why can’t they just pull it out of the asses like many major talk radio hosts.

In any case, we are not going to weigh in on the O’Reilly watch. Instead we’ll call it a tie. Two bloggers say he’s out and the same two say he’s in. Sounds like a draw to us.

Inside Radio, a leading radio industry trade publication has weighed in the question of O'Reilly's fate. On Friday their on line newsletter claimed that "insiders say O'Reilly has signed a one year contract extension that will keep him on radio."

OK. Their "insiders" are more reliable than Young's and Maloney's "insiders."

Then they went on to make this bizarre statement:

Chat room rooms of his exit were far-fetched, heading into the talk radio frenzy of election year and the recent pick-up of major market clearances in San Francisco, Denver and Washington, DC.

What?

I assume that they meant to say "rumors" not "rooms. Also, don't they know the difference between a chat room and a blog? And what are they trying to say about "talk radio frenzy of election year."

Are these guys too cheap to hire a copy editor?

Air America Host Sues Stephen Colbert

2007-09-21T02:13:00.001-07:00

If the New York Times, the Associated Press, and hundreds of other media outlets around the world are going to pick up this story, we certainly aren’t going to ignore it.

By now you’ve probably heard about Cenk Uygur’s (pronounced Jenk YOO-gurr) $65 million law suit against comedian Stephen Colbert.

Uygur is the host of a lightly distributed morning show on the Air America Radio Network called the Young Turks. The show should be called the "Young Turk", because over the past few months the two other "Turks" have left – Ben Mankiewicz to pursue a hosting assignment on the AMC cable channel and Jill Pike, who realized that she was just too good looking for a career in radio.

Uygur, who has been doing the show solo for past few weeks, probably got bored and thought of doing something outrageous. So he decided to sue Colbert, who hosts the popular Colbert Report on Comedy Central, for allegedly stealing one of his jokes. Here’s how Uygur described the caper in a press release on Wednesday.

Cenk Uygur, host of Air America’s morning show "The Young Turks" is suing Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" for $65 million. Mr. Uygur charges that Mr. Colbert has stolen his jokes on many occasions, but he can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his "Klingon joke" of September 7th was directly pilfered by Mr. Colbert and recycled on his September 11th program on Comedy Central. Mr. Uygur is considering adding Comedy Central, MTV Networks, Viacom, Bus Boy Productions, the head of Bus Boy Productions, Jon Stewart, to his lawsuit. Anyone and everyone related to stealing the aforementioned joke should "lawyer up" according to Mr. Uygur.

Uygur also posted a video containing the joke, which was first told by him on the Young Turks radio show and later performed by Colbert on his TV show.

ABC Radio Networks Cuts Back on News/Talk

2007-09-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Since Citadel took over ABC Radio Networks earlier this year, the once dominant syndication operation has cancelled about half of their news/talk radio shows and now it appears they have bailed out of the satellite radio business.

XM announced today that they are closing down their ABC News and Talk Channel and are folding three surviving ABC properties – The Sean Hannity Show, The Mark Levin Show and Money Talk with Bob Brinker – into their America Right Channel. (Tom fro m Albuquerque will not be happy with this move since he considers Brinker to be a liberal.)

In a separate announcement, the radio syndicator announced that they were dropping the Satellite Sisters -- probably the second most successful women’s talk show. (Dr. Laura’s daily "guilt fest" is the number one show directed to women.)

Also, within the last month ABC Radio has pulled talk shows hosted by Larry Elder and Mark Davis from their syndication line-up. Those two shows continue on their flagship stations – Elder on KABC/790 in Los Angeles and Davis WBAP/820 in Dallas.

While ABC is still a force in the radio syndication and still offers over two dozen spoken word shows (mostly sports and Spanish language programs) it is rather curious that they are cutting back in the news/talk format.

Citadel, which also acquired a few dozen stations owned by ABC when they purchased the alphabet network's radio assets, is the only station owner in the top five that does not own a liberal talk radio station. ABC Radio Networks syndicated news/talkers include four conservative talkers from the right to the far right -- Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Paul Harvey and Dr. James Dobson, three financial talker, and America's Most Wanted hosted by John Walsh.

According to an article in Media Week, ABC has left its initiative in women’s programming (The Satellite Sisters) "to wane" now that they are under new management.

"You didn’t have to be a weather girl to see which way the wind was blowing," said Liz Dolan, one of "Sisters." Dolan noted that ABC, under Citadel, recently signed Bob Grant and is reportedly wooing Don Imus.

According to Dolan, "The Sisters" are not going away and will be "pursuing other syndication and distribution options, including satellite radio."

This has not been a good month for women’s talk radio. In mid-August GreenStone Media shut down their women’s talk radio network and with the exception of Dr. Laura, radio is, for the most part, a "no-mans land" for women’s talk.

A Tempest in a Teapot

2007-09-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

Why anyone would pick a fight with Ed Schultz is beyond me.

I’m guessing Schultz is about 6’3” and weighs about 240 lbs. He’s a former collegiate and professional football player and a self-identified hothead.

Also, expecting big Eddy to remain calm after calling his lovely wife Wendy, a “c--t” is like expecting a lion to purr after pulling its tail.

That’s apparently what happened in Fargo area dinner spot last weekend. For those of you who haven’t heard about the “barroom brawl” (which was more like a tempest in teapot) here’s an account of the incident that appeared in the Fargo Forum on September 5:

Local and national radio talk show host Ed Schultz spent 45 minutes of his local show this morning defending his actions in a weekend altercation at Hotel Shoreham along Lake Sallie near Detroit Lakes, Minn. Schultz said a man approached him inside the hotel bar and wanted to talk about their differing political views and the war in Iraq.

Schultz, who was with his wife, Wendy, said the man (Kevin Nagle, a businessman and Republican party donor from California) and a woman with him would not end the conversation despite Schultz’s attempts to do so. He said everyone involved had been drinking.

“Finally, I put my beer on the bar and put my finger in his face,” Schultz told listeners to KFGO’s “News and Views” morning radio show. “I told the guy, ‘I didn’t come here for this.’”
Schultz said the woman with the man also addressed his wife with profanity. “If someone comes up to you in public and calls your wife (references to expletives), what are you going to do?”

Schultz said he engaged in harmless shoving with the man. He said he knew if he hit the man, he could be arrested, and that could sink his professional career.

Apparently Schultz made reference to incident on nationally syndicated talk show on Wednesday morning and the Forum picked up the story later that day.

Sounds like it wasn’t much of fight. So why do so many right-wingnuts have their panties in a wad?

Here’s what the Brian Maloney the Radio Equalizer had to say:

The fight “ought to give the team of national Democrat Party leaders and syndication suits who initially backed his show pause.”

(I think the Dems are probably chuckling over this episode.)

Captain Ed seems to think that Ed's political philosophy made the "fight" happen.

It's always amusing to see the violence inherent in the anti-war Left. When was the last time a conservative radio host got into a barfight? Do you suppose Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, or Michael Medved would take a swing at someone in a bar over a political disagreement?

(Not likely to happen since Limbaugh only goes to restaurants that serve $100 steaks and Hewitt, Prager, and Medved would probably not be recognized.)

Meanwhile, this weekend Jack Zaleski, a columnist for the Fargo Forum, who claims to be "no friend of Schultz" wrote the following in column under the headline “In Bar Tiff, Talk Show Host was Right”

While there are at least two versions of what transpired, the evidence suggests that a bar patron from California apparently believed it was open season on Schultz and his wife because Ed is a “progressive” (read, liberal), anti-President Bush talk show host.

Schultz' temper is not only directed to his political opponents. A few months ago we reported on a outburst against lib talk network Air America and some its hosts.

"The Air Americans" to be Grounded in September

2007-08-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

A big shake-up is in the works at Air America Radio. Mark Riley, one of the three original AAR hosts still on the air (Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow are the other ones) will be gone and so will Riley’s nightly ensemble show The Air Americans to be replaced by a pair of two-hour talk shows. AAR weekend host, Richard Greene will move his show to weeknights – 8-10pm and Bree Walker, who has been hosting a weekend show on KTLK-AM in Los Angeles, will yak from 10pm-midnight.

Greene is new to talk radio, but not to talking and politics. His current AAR show –Clout with Richard Greene, which airs on Saturday Nights from 8-10pm, was launched just a few months ago. Prior to the start of his AAR show, Greene was known as speech coach, author, and political activist. He wrote a book on public speaking called Words That Shook the World and on his website there is a description of a high school public speaking contest.

According to Greene who's weekday show on AAR, which will also be called Clout! will "give Air America listeners ways to get involved, influence the political process and show their 'clout'." The show will include briefings from Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressman Charlie Rangel, a "Cause of The Week" segment and the regular use of informed and passionate celebrities/VIPs to serve as co-hosts.

Walker on the other hand is broadcast news pro. She has had a 25-year career that started on KGTV, Channel 10 in San Diego in 1980. Walker was both a news reporter and anchor in San Diego, winning several awards and taking the station to number one in the market. She also was an anchor on WCBS, Channel 2 in New York and KCBS, Channel 2 in Los Angeles.

After leaving KCBS five years ago, she focused on disability rights and social activism eventually returning to broadcasting at KTLK where she has hosted a weekly talk show on Saturday’s from 2-4pm.

Walker generated national attention about month ago, when she purchased Camp Casey near the Texas retreat of President Bush, where anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has conducted a two-year vigil on behalf of her son who killed in action in Iraq.

It is not surprising that AAR has cancelled The Air Americans. The ratings have been low and while Riley’s morning show on the lib talk network had as many as 40 affiliates, The Air Americans have only been picked up by just over a dozen stations. Four contributing hosts on the show – Robert Kennedy Jr., Mike Popantonio, David Bender, and Laura Flanders will continue to appear on weekend AAR programs.

Meanwhile, AAR’s other new weekday show – hosted by Lionel from 9am-noon is also not doing well. While the veteran broadcaster was carried by dozens of stations when he was offered as a late night talker by WOR Syndication, his morning AAR show has only been picked up by 15 stations.

(Talking Radio will be publishing its quarterly ranking of the Top Syndicated Liberal Show Hosts next week. The ranking will gauge the performance all the AAR weekday hosts as well as other syndicated talkers like Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press and others.)

Meanwhile the staff of the embattled lib talk network, which was rescued from bankruptcy earlier this year by Stephen and Mark Green, continues to shrink.

According to allaccess.com four AAR staffers have been let go and AAR’s current staff has been cut back to 44 people. It was double that size about a year ago.

Mark Green, who is President of AAR said that network is “continuing to cut costs and consolidate functions as we dramatically reduce our expenses and move toward profitability,”

Green also had nice things to say about Riley and his soon to be cancelled talk show.

"I'm especially grateful to Mark Riley, who has been an exemplary and loyal Air American since the very start of the network three years ago,” Green said. “From Mark and his producer Ron Dodd to the four staff members --all are consummate professionals who have done their jobs exceedingly well.”

The two new talk shows will start on September 4th. No other programming changes have been announced at this time.

Radio Reporter Involved in Helicopter Crash

2007-07-30T13:56:00.001-07:00

Updated Friday, August 10 in bold face

There is now a radio connection to the rash of news helicopter crashes, killing four and injuring three others, which have occurred over the past two and one half days.

This morning, Julie Deharty, traffic reporter for KRLD-AM and KVIL-FM in Dallas, was one of three people aboard a news helicopter that lost power, after covering a traffic accident, and crashed near a lake in Grand Prairie Texas.

According to the Dallas Morning News Deharty received a received a severe gash in her head.

It appears that DeHarty's injuries were more severe than the ones described in the intial reports, The traffic reporter underwent surgery on Saturday, Aug 4th for head and neck injuries is recovering and in stable condition.

She told WFFA that she would have to wear a halo screwed into her skull for at least three months. DeHarty also said she suffered a gash on her head that required seven staples. E-mail wishes can be sent to Julie at getwelljulie@gmail.com.

The other reporters, Chip Waggoner with KDFW-TV and the pilot Curtis Crump sustained minor injuries. All three were transported by ambulance to a local hospital.

Go here to view a video of this morning's crash.

On Friday, the results of a crash involving two news helicopters in Phoenix, that were covering a high speed car chase, were much more catastrophic. According to AP,two pilots and two news photographers were killed when the helicopters they were flying collided, crashing in flames on the ground.

The helicopters involved in the crash were from two Phoenix TV stations -- KTVK and KNXV.

Killed on board the KTVK helicopter were pilot Scott Bowerbank and photographer Jim Cox. On board the KNXV aircraft were reporter-pilot Craig Smith and photographer Rick Krolak. No one on the ground was injured.

Meanwhile, the man suspected of starting the chase was booked into jail on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of theft and one count of resisting arrest.

Christopher Jermaine Jones, 23, also may be held responsible for the helicopter crash, police said.

According to court documents, Jones told officers that he didn't remember stealing two trucks, ramming a police cruiser and leading officers on a chase through Phoenix. He said he woke up as officers were trying to arrest him at his friend's house.

Though the mid-air collision in Phoenix and the close call in Dallas are cautionary examples of the dangers of helicopter journalism, don’t expect to see fewer news choppers hovering over whatever the next big story of the moment is.

Texas is Not Big Enough for Liberal Talk

2007-07-26T00:39:00.000-07:00

Houston’s two largest talk stations – KPRC/950 and KTRH/740 are doing a major programming makeover that will take effect on July 30. However, don’t expect an emergence of liberal talk radio in Texas’ largest radio market. The Clear Channel programming execs are just moving around the furniture for the mostly right-wing and a few apolitical talkers who they will be offering.

Yes, the state that brought us $3 per gallon gas and two of three worst presidents in the past 50 years – Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush -- is the only major state where liberal talk radio is not welcome. Remember it was Johnson and Bush that started the only two wars that the U.S. has lost -- Vietnam and Iraq, (including over 60,000 American lives)

It is also the state that contains two of the four top ten markets that don’t offer liberal talk --Dallas and Houston. (Philadelphia and Atlanta are the other two.) In fact, the only city in Texas that offers liberal talk is Austin, which some people feel is not really part of Texas. In any case, only 1 out of 20 people in Texas are able to receive a liberal talk station over the air.

There are three political talk stations in Houston. You will not find a liberal on even one of these stations – Clear Channel stations KTRC and KTRH and Salem station KNTH/1070. According to the new line-ups, KTRC will be known as “Mojo Radio.” While the daytime programming will be anchored by local hosts and non-political syndicated talkers like Erich “Mancow” Muller and satirist Phil Hendrie, the night time and late night slots will feature five conservative talkers from the second tier – Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Bill O’Reilly, Jerry Doyle and Glenn Beck.

Meanwhile on CC’s other talker -- KTHH -- it will be wall to wall conservative yakking. The line-up will feature the first tier of right-wing talkers – Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dennis Miller for comic relief. The rest of the daytime slots will be filled by conservative local talkers – Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo, Chris Baker, and Michael Berry, who is also CC’s Houston Operations Manager.

And rounding out the Houston right-wing trifecta is KNTH. This is a station for conservatives with a Texas sized appetite for right wing politics – for those talk radio listeners who need more than Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, O’Reilly, Beck, Levin, Doyle, and Miller to get through the day.

Don’t look for a liberal on any of the other 120 talk radio stations in Texas. Those stations offer 20,160 hours per week of mostly conservative talk. In fact, conservatives fill 90% of slots on these stations, 9% are non-political talkers and 1% are those crazy libs on KOKE/1600 in Austin.

Suspect Arrested in Slaying of Talk Radio Host

2007-07-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

The mystery surrounding the murder of former Seattle talk show host, Mike Webb, appears to be solved with the arrest yesterday of a homeless man, who used to be a room-mate of the troubled liberal talker.

According to the Seattle Post Intellingencer, Scott Brian White, 28 has apparently confessed to police that he committed the crime and is being held on $1 million bail for investigation of second-degree murder.

Evidence found at Webb's house "unequivocally tied White to the murder scene," court records said. White's friends told investigators that he admitted killing Webb, 52, and described details of how the slaying was committed that only the killer or someone present at the death would know.

Ironically, White’s arrest occurred on the same day that a memorial service was being held for Webb at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Seattle based blogger Michael Hood AKA Blatherwatch was attending the memorial service. Today, he attended the court hearing where White was charged with Webb’s murder.

Since Webb went missing in April, suspicions were circulated that the former KIRO/710 talk host had met with foul play. The sad saga was carefully reported in Blatherwatch, which covered the conviction of Webb for insurance fraud, followed by his dismissal by KIRO, and a 30-day stay in a psychiatric facility.

Despite the fact that his Seattle home was searched by police and family members, Webb’s body was not found until June 28 when a property manager made the grim discovery while cleaning out a crawl space.

Evidence found at Webb's house unequivocally tied White to the murder scene, according to court records. White had been a person of interest to police because he was using Webb's debit cards after his death.

Apparently, he lived with Webb until November, 2006. At that time, he was told to leave by Webb who had made an unsuccessful attempt to get White off drugs.

Webb is the second the liberal talk show host to be murdered. In 1984, Denver talk show host Alan Berg was gunned down by two right wing extremists. Berg’s tragic murder was memorialized in a chilling movie – Talk Radio.

Savage: "Free Speech for Me, Death for You"

2007-07-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

At their annual gabfest in New York last month, Talkers Magazine bestowed their coveted Freedom of Speech Award to Michael Savage, whose syndicated talk show is carried on over 350 stations.

Savage enjoys speaking freely on his show and dishing out the red meat that his 3.75 million radio listeners love to hear. He has amassed a lavish record of on-air bigotry -- dismissing child victims of gunfire as "ghetto slime," referring to non-white countries as "turd world nations," calling homosexuality "perversion" and remarking that Latinos "breed like rabbits."

However, Savage doesn’t think some people deserve to have free speech. In fact, he apparently doesn’t think that some people even have the right to live. Like when he a told a gay caller to his short lived TV show on MSNBC "to get AIDs and die."

Well, the host of The Savage Nation has done it again. He was so angered by the behavior of a group of Hispanic students, who were conducting a hunger strike at San Jose State University that he told his listeners that they too should die. (not of AIDs but of starvation.)

According to Media Matters, on the July 5 broadcast of his radio show Savage discussed a recent hunger strike organized by students in the San Francisco area to show their support for The DREAM Act, a provision of the 2007 Comprehensive Immigration bill. The DREAM (or Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act would provide a pathway to citizenship and other benefits for certain illegal immigrants who entered the United States before the age of 16 if they graduate from high school and enroll in either college or the military. In discussing the students, Savage stated:

"I would say, let them fast until they starve to death then that solves the problem. Because then we won't have a problem about giving them green cards because they're illegal aliens, they don't belong here to begin with."

So let me understand, it’s okay for Savage to say all kinds of hateful things, on his radio show, for three hours a day and five days a week, but if someone else -- like the gay caller or this group of Hipanic students want to express their opinion they should just die. And this clown gets a "Freedom of Speech" award.

Could you imagine what would happen if a liberal talker expressed a similar sentiment. Randi Rhodes was pretty upset when Randall Terry held a sit-in at Terri Schiavo’s hospice. What would have happened if Rhodes said that Terry should be given a fatal dose of barbituates by Schiavo's nurses?

Or Stephanie Miller was outraged when a group of anti-gay Christians wanted to protest at the funerals of some of the Virginia Tech victims. Imagine if Stephanie said "too bad there isn’t someone around who would shoot them."

According to the San Jose Mercury News the two dozen Hispanic students, who were conducting the hunger strike are asking Savage’s syndicator, Talk Radio Network to fire him and are also asking for apologies from the radio stations that carry "The Savage Nation."

They have also posted a letter on the activist website Indybay.org articulating their outrage over Savage's death wish.

Little do they know that TRN, which specializes in right talk, is probably delighted with Savage’s comments. Also, they will not get any apologies from Savage or the managers of affiliated stations. In fact, Savage will probably string out this controversy as far as he can.

Afterall, he holds the Talkers Magazine Freedom of Speech Award.

Glenn Beck Stinks up CNN's Ratings

2007-07-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

One of the arguments put forth by defenders of status quo in political talk radio, where there are 10 hours of conservative talk for every one hour of liberal talk, is the so-called liberal bias of the cable news channels.

The allegation, which has been made in numerous published comments on blogs over the past few weeks, was made by Paul Weyrich, CEO of the Free Congress Foundation in the National Ledger.

"In addition to dominating the network news, cable news (with the exception of Fox News) and much of the social agenda we see in television programming, the liberals want equal radio time – free equal radio time – to take on the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity."

Liberals dominate cable news!

Let’s not even talk about Fox Noise. However, is that why liberals get one hour of Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, offset by six hours of Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and Chris Matthews?

It sure isn’t because of the ratings. Olbermann’s show is the highest rated opinion show on MSNBC (it reaches 28% more homes than the number two show which is hosted by Scarborough)

Remember it was MSNBC that cancelled Phil Donahue’s show, which at the time was the news nets number one show and replaced it with Carlson’s show which is now in last place.

CNN isn’t any better. Liberals get no shows and right wingers like Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck get regular slots on Headline News and special appearances on CNN.

And what is this thing that CNN has for Beck? Despite the fact that his show on Headline News is the lowest rated political opinion show on network television, he was given the opportunity to replace the low-rated Paul Zahn on CNN last week. Well, the results are in and Beck has even done worse than Zahn!

"According to New Corpse, Beck’s HLN program averaged 139,400 viewers in the 25-54 demo the week prior to his CNN stint. Moving to the much more widely viewed CNN, he was only able to increase his audience by 1.7%. Even worse, he under-performed the teetering Paula Zahn by over 23%. Zahn, it should be noted, is rumored to be on the way out because of her lackluster ratings."

Beck’s performance stunk up CNN’s ratings so badly that the news net wound up in third place – behind MSNBC -- for the first time in over three months. The last time MSNBC won a week against CNN was in April, when it hosted the presidential debates in South Carolina.

Maybe the suits at CNN like Beck’s provocative style.Like when he said of the 9/11 widows:

"This is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this—you know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year."

Or maybe it was the uncompassionate comment he said about some of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"All we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones that we're seeing on television are the scumbags...It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention."

But then again, these comments were made on the radio, and we all know that talk radio is liberal free zone.

Right-Wing is Apoplectic About Radio Re-Regulation

2007-07-04T23:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank and Free Press, a media reform group, issued a report called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio" confirming what we already knew – that conservative talk dominates political talk radio.

Since then, after the bi-partisan Immigration Bill went down to defeat in the Senate, several Senators attributed part of blame to right-wing talk radio and hinted that it may be time to consider the re-enactment of the Fairness Doctrine.

Ironically, this cabal of Senators included two Republicans:

Trent Lott (R-MS) told the New York Times on June 19th that "talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem," and George Voinovich (R-OH) said this about the Fairness Doctrine on Sean Hannity’s talk radio show.

"The Fairness Doctrine – I'm all for it, whatever it is. I think everyone should be open to show the other side. That's what you do every night on Fox. That's great!"

Then he hung up on Hannity

But it was comments by three leading Democrats that made the right-wing apoplectic.

First, Diane Feinstein (D-CA), when pressed by Chris Wallace of Fox Noise said, "talk radio tends to be one-sided. It also tends to be dwelling in hyperbole. It's explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot of information."

Feinstein went on to say that she was reviewing the Fairness Doctrine because "talk radio is overwhelmingly one way."

Then Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told The Hill, a political journal, "It’s time to re-institute the Fairness Doctrine."

"I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision," Durban said.

Finally, one of the right-wing's least favorite Democratic Senators, John Kerry (D-MA) weighed in.

Kerry said he thought the doctrine should return. Calling it one of the "most profound changes in the balance of the media." He said "conservatives have been able to "squeeze down and squeeze out opinion of opposing views. I think it has been a very important transition in the imbalance of our public dialog."

Now the right-wing is fighting back. Fearful that the virtual monopoly that they enjoy on talk radio is being challenged, they have put together a fierce counter-attack.

First, they devoted considerable time on Fox Noise to the subject. The same Fox Noise that devotes less than 10% of its time to coverage of the war in Iraq found lots of time to cover the Fairness Doctrine flap.

In addition to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, it was a hot topic on Hannity and Colmes and the O’Reilly Factor.

The right wing blogosphere was inundated with posts about the liberal attacks on conservative talk radio. They compared the rumored return of Fairness Doctrine to the re-emergence of Communism. For a sampling of some of the hyperbole you can look here, here, and here.

Of course, it was also a hot topic on conservative talk radio. Rush blamed it on a campaign by "Stalinist-type people."

"These are people who are openly saying we are going to use the power of the federal government to silence you," Rush said "High government officials are trying to stifle speech, and it's not the first time."

Next to bashing the Immigration Bill, discussion about the Fairness Doctrine and liberal efforts to undermine the talk radio format have been the hottest topics on right-wing talk radio over the past two weeks.

But the highlight of their counter-attack occurred in the House of Representatives when Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) attached an amendment to a spending bill that would prevented any future president or the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

Legislation similar to that proposed by Pence, (not surprisingly a former talk show host) is now being offered in the Senate.

The Democrats were not too concerned about Pence’s bill. If an effort to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine or stiffen radio regulations takes place, it won’t come unless a Democratic President is elected in 2008.

If that occurs, we would expect a Democratic led FCC to follow the recommendations of the CAP/FP report. The report does not call for re-enactment of the Fairness Doctrine, but rather revised ownership caps and tighter licensing requirements for radio stations owners. In an effort to moderate an FCC led by Democrats, the radio industry will magically find ways to offer more balance in scheduling political talk radio.

Who will be WFAN's New Morning Host -- Imus or Scarborough?

2007-07-02T23:52:00.000-07:00

Depending on which "Post" writer you believe the new morning host on WFAN/660 in New York will either be Don Imus or Joe Scarborough.

Writing in their respective newspapers on Monday, Don Kaplan of the New York Post says it will be Imus and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post suggests it might be Joe Scarborough.

In his article, Kaplan reported that Imus’ return to WFAN could be "just around the corner."

While celebrating the sports station's 20th anniversary last Friday, Imus pals Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, of "Mike and the Mad Dog," hinted that a deal to bring the crusty talk-radio cowboy back is in the works.

"When we return to our regular schedule this September, I hope the team will once again be complete," Francesa said.

A few minutes before that, longtime Imus co-host Charles McCord also made a cryptic comment about having "looked into the rearview mirror . . . and some objects were closer than they appear."

Meanwhile, Imus' lawyer, Martin Garbus, has reportedly been trying to use his client's threatened multimillion-dollar lawsuit against CBS Radio as leverage for reinstatement.

However,in article in Washington Post, Kurtz hints that not has Scarborough locked up the morning gig on MSNBC, but he might also have the inside track for morning slots on CBS Radio stations.

According to Kurtz' story MSNBC producers are finalizing the details for the launch of "Morning Joe" to permanently take over the 6 am – 9 am slot formerly occupied by the I-Man.

It’s ironic that MSNBC would pick Scarborough as the permanent replacement for Imus. Remember it was the shock jock’s racist and sexist remark about the Rutgers women’s basketball team (he called them "nappy headed hos") that resulted in the cancellation of both his syndicated radio show and cable TV simulcast.

After all, wasn't it Scarborough who joked about former senator Fred Thompson’s wife Jeri --asking whether the attractive Mrs. Thompson "works the pole" to stay in shape.

In any case, it appears that Scarborough's nightly show on MSNBC has been cancelled. The cable news network’s general manager, Dan Abrams, has been sitting in for Scarborough for the past two weeks and MSNBC will soon stop calling the show "Scarborough Country".

It appears that there might also be a radio strategy for Scarborough’s new show. According to Kurtz, CBS radio is considering carrying the "Morning Joe" show on some its talk radio stations.

So who gets on WFAN -- Imus or Scarborough?

Has Lib Talk Stopped the Bleeding?

2007-07-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

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.

CAP/FP Report Drives Right-Wingers into a Frenzy

2007-06-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

Since the release of the release of a report entitled "Structural Imbal ance of Political Talk" by the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress and Free Press, a media reform group, the right wing noise machine has been operating in high gear.

From the halls of the Senate to top radio executives to Fox News to a slew of right wing bloggers to every conservative talk radio host, the noise has been loud, angry, and more often than not, filled with lies and half truths.

For example, Senator Jim Inhofe, told KFI/640 in Los Angeles', right-wing talker, John Ziegler on Thursday night, that he had overheard Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer say (in an elevator ride) that a "legislative fix" was needed to control talk radio. This was extensively reported on Fox News and picked up by virtually every right-wing talk host.

However, a few days later when it was revealed that Clinton was hundreds of miles away when her conversation with Boxer was alleged to occur, Inhofe, who has called congressional moves to curtail global warming a ploy to increase the ratings for the Weather Channel, back-tracked. He said the conversation did not happen "the other day" but rather "three years ago!"

Of course Fox never really cleared up this matter. Rich Lowry, substituting for Sean Hannity, failed to make a correction on Friday. As he spoke, the screen showed Boxer above a chyron that read, "Left-wing group tries to silence conservative talk radio."

Inside Radio published comments from several radio industry executives that kept the misinformation flowing.

Former New York Post radio writer and journeyman programming director John Mainelli warned "it's clear that these people want to bring the Fairness Doctrine back as soon as possible in order to force their viewpoints down people's throats."

Mainelli clearly has not read the 40-page CAP/FP report, which does not call for the re-introduction of Fairness Doctrine. In fact, the report calls the Fairness Doctrine "irrelevant" and instead calls for a revision of the station ownership caps and license renewal procedures.

Tom Traddup is VP News/Talk Programming for Salem Communications, one of the five companies that were evaluated in the CAP/FP report, which offers zero hours of liberal talk on their 43 talk radio stations.

Traddup also thought the report was about the Fairness Doctrine.

"Those… in need of the Fairness Doctrine or more restrictions on media ownership do so to make up for their lack of appeal to the American radio audiences," he said.

He then showed why he does such lousy of programming for Salem, which is the lowest rated talk radio network.

"Failed radio personalities—including Mario Cuomo, Alan Dershowitz, Al Franken, former Texas agriculture commissioner Jim Hightower and others—have attempted to force-feed liberal ideology and dour, unentertaining doctrine to American radio audiences."

Does Traddup realize that it has been over ten years since Cuomo, Deshowitz, and Hightower attempted to do talk radio. Is this clown even aware of Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes?

Clear Channel is by far the number one owner of talk radio stations. According to CAP/FP 86% of the talk radio hosts on CC stations are conservatives.

So it is not surprising that Matt Scafaldi, programming coordinator for CC’s Brevard County, FL stations doesn’t think much of lib talk.

"When you really break it down, the vast majority of liberal positions cannot be defended against the fact, logic and common sense brought forth by listeners. The host then looks like an idiot, and the audience moves on," Scafaldi said.

But the last words go the yahoos who listen to right wing talk radio.

Several of them weighed in on the Breitbart.tv message board which posted the link to the lie Senator Inhofe blurted out on the John Ziegler Show about the elevator conversation that never happened between Senators Boxer and Clinton.

Here are a few that we found

Rodham: your ass is grass.

I will take to the streets, for the first time, if Clinton, Boxer, or any others try to stifle reasoned voices from their right or left…TYRANTS!!…Wanna play rough?

I have heard it said that attempts to stifle radio talk shows (which means conservatives and free speech generally) may result in assassinations on behalf of freedom. Could there be such a thing provoked by these tyrants?

Evil traitorous wenches. Let the revolution begin…rats like these two need to be exterminated.

Report Challenges Fairness of Political Talk Coverage

2007-06-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

There is no dispute that conservatives own talk radio. The report released today by liberal-leaning Center for American Progress and Free Press, a media reform group, states in its opening paragraphs that there are over 10 hours of conservative talk for every one hour liberal talk on the 257 talk radio stations operated by the five largest station owners.

Where this report entitled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk" differs from other studies of political talk radio (Democracy Radio revealed the same 10 to 1 conservative advantage in report released three years ago) is that it attempts to identify why the imbalance exists and what can be done to correct it.

And while right wing supporters of the status quo have stacked their defense on a goal line stand against the reenactment of the Fairness Doctrine, the CAP/FD report contends that a new Fairness Doctrine is not necessary. The report contends that political imbalance can be addressed by restoring the ownership caps, license renewal, and localism standards that were discarded in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

It looks a like libs are attempting an end run.

The CAP/FD report concludes with the following statement

The gap between
conservative and progressive talk radio is
the result of multiple structural problems
in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly
the complete breakdown of the public
trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination
of clear public interest requirements
for broadcasting, and the relaxation of
ownership rules including the requirement
of local participation in management.

Needless to say conservatives are going nuts. I received at least a dozen "Google Alerts" this morning – all from right wing bloggers. Here in one diatribe and here’s another.

While anyone with a radio in his car knows that conservatives dominate the talk format, we found the methodology used in the CAP/FD report a little weak. For one thing, they only surveyed stations owned by the top five stations groups – Clear Channel, CBS, Citadel, Cumulus, and Salem. Secondly, they did not factor in the ratings or reach of the stations. So weak lib stations like WDTW in Detroit and WWRC in Washington were compared equally with 50,000-watt blowtorch stations WJR and WMAL. If ratings and reach were taken into consideration conservative talker’s advantage over lib talkers increases to 13 to 1.

However, the strength of the CAP/FP report is not their analysis of the gross imbalance in political talk radio, but in their attempt to demystify why this imbalance exists. In doing so, the report takes issue with the two reasons pundits have used to explain why talk radio skews so dominantly to the right -- the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and
the consideration of market demands.

The report states:

Both of these arguments are inadequate
and both lead to specific policy recommendations
that are insufficient for correcting
the structural imbalance in talk
radio programming.

It essentially concludes that the Fairness Doctrine is an irrelevant issue. It notes that the FD was "never formally repealed" and that Court rulings authorizing its legality remain in place. Furthermore, the FCC maintains the authority to enforce equal time rules in political campaigns and Section 315 of Communications Act of 1934 gives them additional authority to regulate content.

Section 315 of the Communications
Act still requires commercial broadcasters
"to operate in the public interest and
to afford reasonable opportunity for the
discussion of conflicting views of issues
of public importance."

The report also challenges the often stated mantra that radio station owners are just responding to market demands. It takes the position that the convenience of syndication, cutting back local talk, national ad sales strategies, and insensitivity to local market needs are the factors that influence the programming strategies of the large station owners.

When 91 percent of the talk radio programming
broadcast each weekday is
solely conservative—despite a diversity of
opinions among radio audiences and the
proven success of progressive shows—the
market solution has clearly failed to meet
audience demand. Even greater deregulation
and consolidation of radio station
ownership is therefore not likely to meet
audience desires or serve the public interest
in any meaningful way.

The report underscores this point by demonstrating that stations owned by local or small group owners, minority-groups, and women are more likely to offer some balance in the presentation of political talk than large group owners like Clear Channel and Citadel.

It goes on propose three steps that need to be taken to correct the gross imbalance in political talk programming:

1. Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations
Noting that since the radical changes put in place by Telecommunications Act of 1996, there has been 34% decline in station owners and 11.7% decline in minority owners, the report proposes that current rules which allow a station group to own up to eight stations in some markets must be changed:

We recommend that radio ownership
caps be revised as follows:
National radio ownership by any one
entity should not exceed 5 percent
of the total number of AM and FM
broadcast stations.
In terms of local ownership, no one
entity should control more than
10 percent of the total commercial
radio stations in a given market, or
specifically, more than:
– Four commercial stations in large
markets (a radio market with 45 or
more commercial radio stations).
– Three stations in mid-markets (between
30 and 44 total commercial
radio stations).

These changes still allow a station group to own more stations that they could before the enactment of the new rules ten years ago.

2. Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing
The current rules extended license renewal from three to nine years and despite assurances that there would be spot audits and other controls, the vast majority of renewals are completed by simply filing out a postcard. The report proposes the following changes including the restoration of the three-year license renewal schedule:

We recommend the following steps the
FCC should take to ensure local needs
are being met:
Require radio broadcast licensees to
regularly show that they are operating
on behalf of the public interest and
provide public documentation and
viewing of how they are meeting these
obligations.
Demand that the radio broadcast
licensee announce when its license is
about to expire and demonstrate how
the public can participate in the process
to determine whether the license
should be extended. In addition, the
FCC should be required to maintain
a website to conduct on-line discussions
and facilitate interaction with the
public about licensee conduct.

3. Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting
As we know, radio station owners often resist even the modest level of regulation that they have faced during the current deregulatory period. For example, consider the payola scandals in New York. The report proposes consequences for station owners who resist the new regulatory requirements.

It proposes that station owners who do not comply with the new rules be assessed with a "spectrum use fee" of one percent for small markets and five percent for the largest markets.

If commercial radio broadcasters are
unwilling to abide by these regulatory
standards or the FCC is unable to effectively
regulate in the public interest,
a spectrum use fee should be levied on
owners to directly support local, regional,
and national public broadcasting.

The conclusion of the report is that these changes, will not only lead to a more level playing field in political talk radio but also assure that localism is returned to airwaves.

Mike Malloy Returns to Georgia

2007-06-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

There’s a rumor circulating that Air America Radio will soon be announcing six or seven new affiliates. However, while we wait for the AAR news we can confirm that Nova M has added two new affiliates this week.

In a press release today, Nova M has announced that their top host, late night talker M ike Malloy, can now be heard weeknights -- 10 pm to 1 am -- on WAAW-FM/94.7 in Augusta. This represents a return to Georgia airwaves for Malloy, a resident of Atlanta who was dropped from WWAA/1690 in his hometown about a year ago. He was also dumped by AAR at about the same time.

This represents the 13th affiliate for Malloy, who remains the marquee talent in the Nova M stable.

Gospel music is the primary format of WAAW which is known in the Augusta area as "Rejoice Radio."

Sounds like a perfect fit to us.

In other Nova M news, "The Pulse of the Nation" with Jeff Farias and John Zogby will debut this Saturday on WIBX/950 at 9 am. Don’t look for lib talk weekdays on WIBX, as they offer wall to wall conservative talk Monday to Friday.

O'Reilly Spun Out of Mets Clubhouse

2007-06-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

The New York Mets clubhouse is clearly not a spin free zone.

The New York Daily News reports that talk radio and TV commentator Bill O’Reilly found this out when he and his party were escorted out of the Mets clubhouse prior to the start of Mets-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium on Sunday night. A stadium security guard noticed that Bill and his entourage didn’t have the proper credentials and led them out out the door.

"You don’t need to escort us out," O’Reilly complained. "We’re leaving."

Two days earlier, MSNBC’s liberal commentator, Keith Olbermann, was also hanging out in the Mets clubhouse without credentials, but was not asked to leave. Is it possible that the Mets were making some kind of political statement?

Not likely. Remember, Olbermann was an ESPN sportscaster for five years in the 1990’s. He will also be returning to TV sports this fall when he joins Cris Collinsworth as co-host of the pregame show for NBC's Sunday night NFL telecasts.

Phil Hendrie to Return to Terrestrial Radio

2007-06-12T17:36:00.000-07:00

We have a good news and bad news to report.

The good news is that the Phil Hendrie Show, the most innovative and creative talk show since the legendary Bob and Ray Show 30 years ago, will be returning to the airwaves on June 25.

The bad news is that Phil’s show will be distributed by Talk Radio Network, a right wing syndication company. Also, according the Phil Hendrie News site, the veteran host has said that the show might not have a comedy focus.

While all talk radio syndicators (with the exception of Air America Radio and possibly Westwood One) are dominated by right wing talkers, TRN is particularly committed to spreading its right wing ideology.

The company is headed up one time hypnotist and current right wing Christian theologian Roy Masters and his son Mark Masters. Similar to Laura Schlessinger (see story below), Masters was brought up in a Jewish home and converted to Christianity as an adult.

We asked Hendrie if he was going to change the format of his previous syndicated show and whether it was going to be similar to the other shows carried on TRN that feature right wing hosts.

"Well, I don't know what you think a right wing show is," Hendrie replied. "My show will not be the ones you mentioned. But, I may take the same general position as those people on certain issues. Don't let the radio brainwash you into thinking right and left are relevant anymore."

Hendrie started his show on a low power AM station in the Los Angeles suburb of Ventura County over 20 years ago. He refined his craft in Minneapolis and Miami, eventually returning with his show to LA doing on the nation's number one talk station – KFI. Hendrie also landed a syndication deal with Premiere Radio Networks that included over 100 stations.

The only way to appreciate Phil Hendrie’s comical genius is the listen to his show. (You can download podcasts on his website.) Hendrie, and his stable of fictitious characters including Ted Bell, Bud Dickman, R.C. Collins, Margaret Gray, Steve Bozell, and dozens of others, engage unwitting callers in some of the funniest bits you will ever hear on radio.

However, a year ago, Hendrie gave it all up to pursue a career as a TV writer and performer. He has voiced characters on several episodes of Futurama and had a starring role in NBC's short-lived midseason replacement sitcom, Teachers, in the spring of 2006.

When he gave up his show last year, Hendrie said that he would never return to terrestrial radio. He was done.

Cindy Sheehan Sells 'Camp Casey' to Bree Walker

2007-06-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

Former Southern California TV news anchor and current weekend host on LA’s liberal talker, KTLK/1150 Bree Walker purchased a 5-acre plot of land near President Bush’s Crawford, TX compound from anti-war protestor gold star mother Cindy Sheehan.

Sheehan, called the property Camp Casey in honor of her son who was killed in Iraq in September, 2004. She has been encamped in Crawford for a good part of the past three years attempting (unsuccessfully) to ask Bush a simple question. "For what noble cause did Casey die for." Bush, who has spoken with dozens of family members of soldiers killed in the four-year old war, has refused to meet with Sheehan.

Walker, told Brad Blog this past weekend that she intends to keep the property "as a ground for freedom and peace" and is considering erecting a memorial there for troops killed in Iraq. She hopes to create a meditation garden on the grounds and to keep it open to the public.

"I'm cashing out my capitalist corporate stocks and buying into a legacy of peace," Walker said. Sheehan will be selling the property for the same price she purchased it for so as not to be seen as profiting from the sale.

An associate of Sheehan's, Tiffany Burns, told the Associated Press, that "Cindy is happy the land is going to be used for something positive,"

Sheehan appeared on Walker’s show on Sunday, and discussed the sale with the talk show host and her listeners.

The Iraq War initially planned to sell the land on eBay but scrapped the idea after getting an offer from Walker.

She spurned an offer from the pro-war group Move America Forward, which wanted to buy the land to erect a monument. The land in Crawford, about 100 miles south of Fort Worth, is near downtown and is about seven miles from Bush’s ranch.

Do What I Say Not What I Do

2007-05-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

The guru of conservative family values, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, probably has some work to do at home if a story reported in the Salt Lake City Tribune about the aberrant behavior of the radio talk show host's son are true.

According to the report, published in the May 19 edition of the Tribune, Schlessinger’s son Deryk, who is currently serving in the Army in Afghanistan, is under investigation for a graphic personal web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."

The site, believed to be Deryk's, reportedly featured "cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned 'My Sweet Little Habib'; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets"

It was shut down on Friday.

"Yes . . . F---ING Yes!!!" said one blog entry on the site. "I LOVE MY JOB, it takes everything reckless and deviant and heathenistic [sic] and just overall bad about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it . . . and some that don't."

The site indicated Schlessinger's team has survived numerous mortar, rocket and roadside bomb attacks. It also included several graphic cartoons. In one of the stick drawings, a top-hatted man laughs as he rapes a bound and bleeding woman in front of her family. In another depiction, a man forces a boy to perform oral sex at knifepoint as the child's mother pleads for her son's life.

The talk radio host, who refers to herself as "my kid’s mom" and has recently taken to calling herself "the proud mother of a deployed American paratrooper" speaks frequently about her soldier son before military audiences nationwide.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mike Paul, a spokesman for Schlessinger suggested that the web page could be a fake.

This contention was echoed by Army spokesman Robert Tallman, who said "it may be possible that our enemies are actually behind this."

"Our enemies are adaptive, technologically sophisticated, and truly understand the importance of the information battlespace," Tallman continued. "Sadly, they will use that space to promulgate and disseminate untrue propaganda."

It's unclear who created the cartoons, but Army spokesman Robert Tallman said the drawings "are repulsive and not anywhere near being acceptable," for a soldier's personal web page.
David Accetta, public affairs director for the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan, said the Army "will investigate thoroughly and impartially."

Laura Schlessinger's appeared last week in Utah. At that time she met with Army families at Fort Douglas and in an interview with The Tribune, she said, "We raised our son to be a warrior."

After her Utah visit, Schlessinger received criticism for telling The Tribune that she didn't want to hear the complaints of military wives whose husbands are deployed.

"He could come back without arms, legs or eyeballs, and you're bitching?" Schlessinger said. "You're not dodging bullets, so I don't want to hear any whining."

This is not the first time that Dr. Laura has been associated with behavior that appears to be inconsistent with her message of conservative family values.

On her daily radio show, she advocates the basic "family values" -- no sex outside of marriage, moms shouldn't work, divorce is wrong, abortion is wrong, living together without marriage is wrong, getting married too young is wrong and foolish, a marriage without children is hardly a marriage at all, homosexuality is destructive and "a biological error", gay marriage is wrong, girls should not dress like "sluts", and the family unit is of paramount importance.

However, her own behavior and family life have not lived up to this standard.

When she broke into the radio business in the mid- 1970’s she was the protégé of Bill Balance, who some consider the father of modern talk radio. While still married, she apparently had an affair with Balance, before taking up with her current husband Lew Bishop, who is Deryk’s father. Her relationship with Balance would have been a small footnote in her career, if not for her decision to pose for a series of nude photos that have circulated on the internet for several years.

Another questionable aspect of Schlessinger's character is her decision to call herself Dr. Laura, suggesting that her doctorate is in psychology. Actually, it is in physiology, which dictionary.com defines as a branch of biology dealing with the functions and activities of living organisms and their parts. In her website drlaura.com, Schlessinger is referred to as "Dr. Laura" more than 40 times. "

In addition, to her marital infidelities and the problems displayed by her son, Schlessinger also, has displayed some strange behavior with other members of her immediate family.

According to the biographical website NNDB.com, Schlessinger describes her childhood as "difficult" due to the rocky, "unloving" marriage between her father, a Jewish US citizen, and her mother, an Italian Catholic war bride.

Schlessinger never got along with her father, and she and her mother had been estranged for at least 14 years before her mother's death in 2002. (Her partially decomposed corpse had been on the floor of her apartment [a few miles away from Schlessinger's home] for several weeks before being discovered. Police initially suspected foul play.)

Schlessinger has also been estranged from her sister since the mid-1970s, and has reportedly told friends she is an only child. She says it was her family that shunned her, not the other way around.

"My door is open", Schlessinger has said, on those rare occasions when she mentions her sister. On her show, however, she has often advised listeners to break off contact with troublesome family members. "I love shunning", she says. "It reminds people they have an obligation to others".

Schlessinger has also exhibited some ambivalence about her religious views.

NNDB reports that she has changed her religious orientation several times during her life.
In 1996 Schlessinger and her son Deryk converted to Conservative Judaism, then switched to Orthodox Judaism in 1998. She has said that her husband Lew, raised an Episcopalian, also converted, but he later admitted he had not completed the conversion.

In 2003, Schlessinger announced on the air that she was no longer an Orthodox Jew, that she felt frustrated by the effort she had put into the religion, and complained that she felt little or no connection with God. NNDB claims that she converted to Christianity that same year.

Schlessinger's radio show can be heard on 200 stations across the nation or on-line here.

Worst Talk Show Hosts of the Week

2007-05-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

Week Ending: May 18, 2007

The worse talk show host of the week was Michael Savage. Savage called the National Council of La Raza, a leading Hispanic civil rights organization "the Ku Klux Klan of the Hispanic people" and "the most stone racist group of I’ve ever seen in the country."

In the May 17 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Savage blasted the NCLR because their name includes the Spanish word ‘raza."

While the term "la raza" in Spanish literally means "the race," it often translated as "the people" and usually refers collectively to Mexican-Americans.

The NCLR describes itself as "the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States." They conduct research, policy analysis, and advocacy, providing a Latino perspective in five key areas -- assets/investments, civil rights/immigration, education, employment and economic status, and health.

So it appears that Savage based his characterization of the NCLR on the term "la raza." He said, "they certainly stand only for one race. That's the name of their group: La Raza -- 'The Race.' "

He didn’t point out any other problem with the group, or identify any activity that the group is involved with to suggest that they were similar to the Ku Klux Klan. Nor did explain why the group is racist.

You can listen to Savage's rant here.

The worser talk show host last week was Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh was angry with the "drive-by media" because of comments made by some journalists that the all of the Republican candidates for President are white men. On the other hand, the Democratic candidates include a woman, (Hillary Clinton) an African-American (Barack Obama) and an Hispanic (Bill Richardson).

On the May 17 edition of his nationally syndicated show, Limbuagh accused the "drive by media" of not playing fair because they did not consider the Democratic field in 2004.

"There's a template developing for the Republican debate last night," Limbaugh said. "How come there are no women and minorities on stage?" I guess you forgot about 2004. And I guess -- you know, the Democrats never get those kinds of questions because it's always assumed that they're fair and just, and not discriminatory and all that."

Limbaugh’s claim, which was no doubt blindly accepted by his minions of dittoheads, was that in 2004 all the Democratic Presidential candidates were also white men.

The only problem with his claim was that it isn't true! In 2004 there were two African-Americans actively campaigning for the Democratic nomination -- Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun (who is also a woman.)

Here's what El Rushbo said.

However, Savage and Limbaugh got beat out for worst talk show host of the week by a local market talker.

"Gunny Bob" Newman, who yaks on KOA/850 in Denver defamed more than a civil rights organization or a group of Democratic Presidential candidates. Newman defamed an entire religion.

On his daily talk show, "Gunny Bob," upset over an alleged plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey, said "I want every Muslim immigrant to America who holds a green card, a visa, or who is a naturalized citizen to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times."
He also proposed that the government "bug their places of work and their residences" and "monitor all mosques and community centers. If they don't like the idea ... throw their asses out."

His boss at Clear Channel, Kris Olinger defended Newman’s right to insult all Moslems in the U.S.

"I think 'Gunny' was expressing an opinion, an extreme one, but his opinion. Hosts are paid to express opinions. That's the nature of what we do, Olinger said.

Apparently, Clear Channel will be paid less to continue expressing harsh and inflammatory opinions in Denver. At least three metro-area businesses have asked KOA to pull their advertisements from "Gunny Bob’s" show.

The companies, Excel Roofing, Ralph Schomp Automotive and Three Tomatoes Catering, asked that the ads run in different time slots on KOA after being petitioned by ProgressNowAction, an political action group in Denver.

Here's what "Gunny Bob" had to say.

"Gunny Bob" Newman. The worst talk show host of the week.

2007-05-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

***Breaking News***

Air America Radio Gets a Makeover

Well, it’s taken over three years, but Air America Radio finally has a user friendly website, where you can find information about the network and interact with the hosts.

The liberal talk radio network launched its website today and will introduce a new ad campaign in conjunction with the official "re-launch" of Air America 2.0 on May 21.

At that time, all 12 AAR hosts will air some 30+ taped interviews with prominent headliners-- including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Gloria Steinhem and Mike Bloomberg --who discuss their thoughts on the Iraq war, campaign finance reform and the ’08 election, among other topics.

The new campaign even has a slogan – "Become an Air American." and a new logo.

According to AAR Prez Mark Green "the completely redesigned website will give AAR listeners another platform to participate in the progressive movement through an interactive blog where they can read and give commentary on topical issues of the day,"

The network's hosts will begin to regularly blog on the new site. Nancy Scola, who has been chosen to head up the blog, is a Brooklyn-based blogger and writer who has served as a congressional aide and a presidential campaign staffer. Scola writes widely online, on everything from the latest in technology policy to the rebuilding of New Orleans.

The network will also be kicking off a new "I'm an Air American!" ad campaign in various radio trade publications, featuring the actor Paul Newman, as well as several of the AAR hosts.

AAR is now in the midst of programming makeover.

On Monday, the Lionel Show launched in the 9 AM to 12 Noon EST time period formerly occupied by Sam Seder.

"The Air Americans" hosted by veteran Mark Riley, with correspondents Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Mike Papantonio, David Bender and Laura Flanders, airing at 8p-12a weeknights. New weekend shows including "Seder on Sunday" from 4-7 PM and "7 Days in America" 6-7 PM Saturdays, with Arianna Huffington, Mark Green, Bob Kerrey and Bob Shrum will also be launching over the next few weeks.

Green said that this new AAR phase in has three goals:

"First, we’ve created an even stronger lineup based on proven veterans, like Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, and The Young Turks. Second, we’ve rebuilt the website to create a community and conversation that becomes the go-to progressive bulletin board and social network in the country. And third, we’re asking all progressive patriots interested in talk radio to become 'Air Americans.' "

We have forth and fifth questions.

Will the listening public respond to the new AAR and will they be able to stop (and hopefully reverse) the trend where stations are dropping the lib talk format (23 in the past 14 months!)

2007-05-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

XM Suspends Opie & Anthony for One Month

Conservative Talk Hosts Sees Congressional Action Against Conservative Talk

Opie & Anthony have been Imused by XM Satellite Radio for a bit they performed on their show last Wednesday. During the bit, a fictitious caller named Homeless Charlie detailed a fantasy where he would have rough sex with Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth.

Also, two leading right-wing talk show hosts issued warnings that Congressional Democrats will use this controversy to limit the free speech rights of conservative talkers.

In an announcement issued about an hour ago, XM indicated that they were suspending the shock jock duo for 30 days "to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them."

The details of Homeless Charlie’s sexually explicit interview with Opie and Anthony are contained in a previous post on Talking Radio as well as a link to the audio segment.

Opie & Anthony (AKA Greg Hughs and Anthony Cumia) apologized to their listeners for the bit, issuing the following statement on their Friday Show:

"We apologize to the public officials for comments that we made on our XM show on May 9th. We take very seriously the responsibility that comes with our creative freedom and regret any offense that this segment has caused," they said.

However, the XM statement issued today didn’t accept the shock jock’s apology.

“Comments made by Opie and Anthony on Friday's broadcast put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter," XM stated.

Outrage over the “Opie and Anthony” bit has been growing steadily over the past few days. Ironically some of the most vocal critics have been right-wing talk radio hosts, who fear that public outrage over the matter might lead to restrictions on their ability to make strong statements about liberals and other opponents of the Bush administration.

In piece posted on the conservative Townhall Hall site, right-wing talk show host Neal Boortz blasted O & A, who he referred to as “two extremely immature and sick people trying to be cute.”

“These two pathetic fools need to be removed from XM satellite radio right now. Today. No suspension. No warning. Fire them. Now, Boortz (who calls himself a free-speech proponent and libertarian) exclaimed.

However, Boortz focused most of his venom on Democrats in Congress, who he claimed would use O & A to curtail conservative talk radio.

“By the end of the day today you’re going to hear liberals in congress and the media referring to these two morons as talk show hosts. Comparisons will be drawn between them and people like Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage and myself. You’ll hear the phrases “hate speech” and “hate radio” over and over again as these leftists push their Stalinist-inspired plans to destroy conservative and libertarian talk radio,” he stated.

Boortz went on to say, “by the time the dust has settled the majority of the people in this country --- who don’t by the way, listen to talk radio --- will absolutely believe in their hearts that this O & A stunt is representative of all talk radio, and these people will be eager to support their politicians in their goal to shut us all down.”

So it appears that Boortz and other right wing talkers appear to be more concerned about their job security than the impact of O & A’s offensive bit on Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush, and Queen Elizabeth

Boortz said that Democrats will use the controversy to push legislation to regulate talk radio, which currently offers conservatives a robust 13 to 1 advantage over liberals in number of hours of programming carried by terrestrial radio stations.

“Right now we have a little gem called H.R. 3302, the “Media Ownership Reform Act,” in the congress. H.R. 3302 is a project of DC Democrats who know that conservative talk radio constitutes a real threat to their plans for total victory in 2008,” Boortz warned. “If H.R. 3302 were to become law, talk radio as you know it would be dead inside of nine months. Period. Thanks to the antics of these two idiots there will be more congressmen who will be willing to join in this and other efforts to control broadcast radio and, incidentally, to control satellite broadcasting as well.”

Boortz offered some historical perspective and challenged the concept of “the public airwaves.”

“But by the time broadcasting came around politicians were savvy enough to find a way around the First Amendment in their goal of controlling broadcast content,” he said. “They created this ridiculous fiction of “the public’s airwaves” and have exploited that asinine idea to their benefit for years. Now they’re working to increase that control through H.R. 3302 and, at the same time, considering ways to spread their censorship agenda to satellite radio.”

So at the end of the day the public outrage about Imus’s infamous “nappy-headed hos” comment last month, JV and Elvis’ racist, sexist, and vulgar phone call to a Chinese Restaurant, and O & A’s latest outburst, could damage conservative talk radio.

“Opie and Anthony just gave these control-freak politicians a huge bit of leverage with their crude little skit,” Boortz said.

Boortz is not the only conservative talk show host to view O & A supension as liberal plot to get conservatives. Syndicated radio talk host Glenn Beck, appearing on CNN's American Morning, said it "smacks of leftist witch hunt in many ways."

"There is a real feeling, I think, on the left -- they couldn't get the Fairness Doctrine out, and so what they're trying to do is to shut people down," Beck said "If you look at the people that are on the shock radio list, you will see that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity -- and I am on that list.

I guess Boortz doesn't have to worry, since according to Beck, he's not on the list."

CBS Can't Get Out of the Dog House

2007-05-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

The headline in today’s New York Post says it all:

ASIAN-SLUR SHOCK JOCKS GET 'IMUSED'

JV and Elvis, who were suspended on April 23 for a mock call made to a Chinese Restaurant on their WFNY morning show called The Dog House got canned by CBS Radio this weekend.

In the call, which was riddled with Asian stereotypes and sexual innuendo, the caller told a woman employee that he would like to "come to your restaurant so I can see your hot Asian spicy ass."

He then attempts to order "flied lice," and uses a series of racial slurs and four lettered words.

The caller tells the first restaurant employee, "I would like some Asian food, son of a bitch" as well as to the second employee; "I would love to have lots of Asian food, son of a bitch."

The caller then tells another employee that he would like some "flied lice," but not "some old dung" and indicated that "I am training in Kung Fu, bitch" before ending with "Tell that hot Asian girl answering the telephone, I'd like to tap her ass."

You Tube has the audio file of JV and Elvis bit. You can listen to it at this link.

The bit was actually performed prior to the famous Imus meltdown on April 4, when he referred to Rutgers women’s basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." For some strange reason it was rebroadcast the next day.

The first airing of the bit did not attract any attention, but when it was rebroadcast it fueled a controversy that spread from Mott Street in New York to Beijing in China.

The Organization of Chinese Americans expressed outrage over the bit, which it described as "racist, vulgar and sexist."

In a press release, the OCA called for an immediate apology from the hosts, their producer and the station. They also demanded the immediate firing of the shock jocks.

CBS still reeling from the Imus fall out, immediately suspended the duo without pay. Now over a month later, the beleaguered network has confirmed on Saturday that the "The Dog House with JV and Elvis," hosted by Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, "will no longer be broadcast on WFNY."

The OCA was pleased with CBS’s decision.

"This is a victory not only for the Asian-American community, but for all communities who find themselves constant targets of racist and sexist programming," said Jeanette Wang, an OCA executive.

No doubt complicating the situation for CBS was the outrageous bit performed by syndicated shock jocks Opie and Anthony on Thursday, where they interviewed a character named Homeless Charlie, who described his desire to have rough sex with Condaleezza Rich, Laura Bush, and Queen Elizabeth. O & A’s performance was recognized by Talking Radio, as the Worst Talk Hosts of the previous week.

CBS confirmed that O & A were not being suspended or cancelled and their show will be broadcast today in its regular time period – 6 AM to 9 AM EST.

Talk radio fans are concerned about whether the firing of JV & Elvis, represents an infringement of free speech rights of talk radio hosts.

More than 100 people turned out for a rally in New York to offer support for them, Imus and other radio personalities under fire.

"It’s not about whether you like what you heard or not," said Debbie Wolf of Far Hills, NJ, president of People Against Censorship. "I find censorship to be far more offensive than anything that was said."

Worst Talk Show Hosts of the Week

2007-05-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Week Ending: May 11, 2007

Our Worse host of the week is Glenn Beck. On Nov. 14 Beck angered American Muslims when he sandbagged newly elected Congressman Keith Ellison [D-MN] by asking him to prove that he was not "working with our enemies." Rep. Ellison is a Muslim. Now he has insulted the American Jewish population by saying that he wouldn’t vote for a Jew as President. On the May 10 edition of his syndicated talk radio show, Beck said that he "wouldn't vote for Joe Lieberman [I-CT] as president "because of the way the Middle East would use it."

Beck did not explain the distinction he drew between asserting that he would not vote for Lieberman, who is Jewish, and asserting that he wouldn't vote for any Jew for president.

He stated that although he believes Lieberman "knows how to fight this war," and "even if I didn't disagree with him on so many social issues," he would refrain from voting for him because of the "complications it would add in this country or on the planet right now."

Here’s a link to Beck’s claim that he won’t for a Jewish Presidential candidate.

Michael Savage is our Worser talk host this week. On the May 9 edition of his syndicated radio show, Savage called Rep. Maurice Hinchey [D-NY] a "rotten, stinking, verminous [sic] congressman." He went on to say "by the time I get through with you, if you should call me to Congress, I'll have you in prison, because you're in cahoots with Al Qaeda. You are enabling Al Qaeda." He added, "you are a threat to our national security, as are all the other left-wingers who have signed that that fatwa against Michael Savage, and the others who want to disseminate the truth."

What was Savage railing about? No, it was not some position that Hinchey has taken on war Iraq or the fight against terrorism, but rather a piece of legislation that the New York Congressman is sponsoring called the Media Reform Act. The MORA would reinstall the Fairness Doctrine that was removed by Ronald Reagan’s veto in 1987, even though it was passed overwhelmingly by Congress (with more than 100 Republican votes) and upheld by the U.S Supreme Court.

So somehow Savage was able to suggest that Hinchey was "in cahoots with Al Qaeda" because he supported broadcast regulation provision, which was the law of the land for about 40 years.

Here's in link to Savage's rant.

This week we have a duo of Worst talkers. Opie and Anthony, who have been shocking their radio listeners, for several years now, might have crossed the proverbial line with a bit they performed on their May 10 XM Satellite Show.

During the bit they interviewed a guest named Homeless Charlie who fantasized about have sex with Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth.

Although an early account on the bit covered in the Drudge Report suggested that Homeless Charlie said that he wanted to rape Rice, CBS Radio (O & A’s radio syndicator) denied that this occurred. Here’s a transcript of Homeless Charlie’s bit with O & A and you can make your own decision.

Charlie - "I'd love to f--- that bitch dude" (laughter)

Charlie - "She's the F---in man"

O&A - "yeah"

Charlie - "I'd F...that bitch...."

O&A - "I just imagine the horror in Condoleezza Rice's face as she realizes what's going on as you were just holding her down and F--- her."

Charlie - "Punch her all the F--- face, shut the F--- up bitch"

O&A - "that's exactly what I meant"

Homeless Charlie also went on to say that he also wanted to have rough sex with Laura Bush and the Queen of England.

In what has proved to the pattern of such incidences in the post Imus era, O & A apologized for the offensive bit on a show later in the week.

"We apologize to the public officials for comments that were made on our XM show" the duo stated. " We take very seriously the responsibility that comes with our creative freedom and regret any offense that this segment has caused."

Although the bit was only carried on the XM show, pressure remains on CBS to suspend or fire the shock jocks.

While CBS recently fired WFNY/New York talkers JV and Elvis, after the duo performed an offensive bit containing profane, racist, and sexually explicit insults directed to workers in Chinese Restaurant, they have not indicated that they will take similar action against O & A.

We aren’t suggesting what CBS should do, but have decided to make Opie and Anthony or Worst Talkers of the Week.

Listen to the O&A audio here.

The Clear Channel Flips Have Flopped

2007-05-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

About three months ago Clear Channel flipped four liberal talk radio stations to other formats claiming that the stations were not performing well.

Now, the results are in and it appears that format flips have proved to be flops.

Also, according to an article that appeared in the Columbus Dispatch, where the lib talk station, WTPG/1230, was flipped to conservative talk, it appears that CC’s motives were not to improve to the programming but rather to protect dominant status of their heritage conservative talk station WTVN/610.

During the last two weeks of December, stations operated by CC in Boston, MA and Columbus, and Cincinnati, OH dropped lib talk in favor of new formats.

WXKS/1400-WKOX/1200 in Boston became The Rumba (a music format targeting Hispanics). WTPG in Columbus became a conservative talker with new call letters – WYTS, and WSAI in Cincinnati was changed to eclectic mish mash of lifestyle talk calling itself The Source.

Now the Winter Arbitron survey results are in and the news for Clear Channel are not good.

Hispanics in Boston have not picked up on the Rumba where listenership has dropped by 75%. Conservatives in Columbus, who seem to be happy with WTVN, are not flocking to WYTS, which saw listenership fall by 38%. And talk radio listeners in Cincinnati are not tuning to The Source, which has resulted in stunning 90% decline in WSAI’s ratings.

Collectively, the three stations have lost about 70% of listenership over the past three months.

Next ratings period we will see how the other CC flips have worked out --e.g. in Akron, WARF/1350 and in New Haven WAVZ/1300 where the stations have switched to Sports.

Remember what CC managers said at the time that they announced these three flips.

"It wasn’t working. We thought it best to do something else," said Tony Bender, program director at WTPG.

Obviously, what Bender came up with is apparently working less.

We’ve reported extensively on comments made by Darryl Parks, CC’s operation manager in Cincinnati who refers to himself as "the 'Grim Reaper' of liberal talk radio."

"It was a format that was set up not to entertain, but it seemed set up to get people elected, for a lack of a better way to put it," Parks said. " "There were some good (liberal) shows, but they need to start looking to more broad-based subjects than just harping on politics."

Tom Thon, CC’s market manager in Columbus told the Dispatch that the format flip was just a "business decision".

"Unfortunately, central Ohio listeners did not respond to the progressive format," Thon said. "It’s been very underperforming in ratings and revenue."

However, that same newspaper in Columbus revealed that CC might have had a different motivation.

On Wednesday, the Dispatch, reporting on the sharp ratings declines experienced by WYTS, confirmed that CC had no desire to return to lib talk in spite of the miserable ratings they were receiving for the newly launched conservative talk format.

"The station now ties up talk-show hosts such as Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage in case another station in town wants to flip an FM station to talk,"the Dispatch reported.

So it seems that "the business" decision that CC made was not designed to get higher ratings for WTPG (WYTS), but rather to protect their conservative talk franchise on WTVN.

Lib talk radio fans in Boston, Columbus, and Cincinnati are working hard to get the format back in their respective markets. For more information check out their discussion boards.

Clear Channel Pulls a "Big One" in Cincinnati

2007-05-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

They say timing is everything. This is certainly true for a blog like Talking Radio.

On Monday we posted a story about how Clear Channel’s Cincinnati Operations Manager, Darryl Parks had challenged our accusation that he was instrumental in the purge of the Liberal talk radio format in three Ohio markets -- WSAI/1360 in Cincinnati, WTPG/1230 in Columbus and WARF/1350 in Akron.

Parks, who identified himself as "the Grim Reaper to ‘progressive’ talk radio," claimed on his blog that he was "not that powerful," and "if the radio sucks, the program will be on a suicide mission all by itself. "

Then on Tuesday we posted a story about the launch of a syndicated talk radio show. The Mario Solis-Marich Show debuted yesterday on two Entravision stations -- KHRO/1650 in El Paso and KNVO-FM/101.1 in McAllen-Brownsville, targeting the booming Hispanic market in an English language format.

Now, today we are reporting on the strange confluence of these two stories. It seems that Parks and rest of the nutty Clear Channel management team in Cincinnati decided to pull down about a dozen billboards that contained a blatantly offensive message that offended many members of community in general and virtually all Hispanics in particular.

The billboards, created by Clear Channel’s marketing department and the Lamar Advertising Agency, were intended to promote WLW/700, which is referred to in Cincinnati as "The Big One." So what those creative ad guys came up with were billboards showing a donkey and a man wearing a sombrero with the slogan "The Big Juan." (Get it?)

The response from the Hispanic community was swift and indignant.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Alfonso Cornejo presented a hand-delivered letter to the WLW station management last week demanding that the signs be taken down. The letter also demanded that Clear Channel offer a written apology to the Hispanic community and an explanation for the "hateful campaign" by the area's top-rated station.

"Perhaps someone at your station believes there was humor in this hateful campaign. But rest assured, this is not funny in the least," said the Chamber's letter.

Copies were also sent to Clear Channel corporate executives in San Antonio, Texas.

Chamber board members also have discussed a possible boycott of the station and its advertisers.

Although no written apology has been issued, Chuck Frederick, Clear Channel’s Cincinnati Market Manager told the Enquirer that all of the signs would be removed by yesterday.

A spokesman from Lamar Advertising, says one billboard could cost between $5000 and $7000 a month. However, since Clear Channel is the largest billboard operator in the U.S., it is likely that were able to get a better deal than that.

Now does anybody really think that Clear Channel executives, even Parks, the self appointed "Grim Reaper," really thought that this promotional campaign would not produce a public outcry? Of course, they knew it would, and that is why they went ahead and did it.

Since the controversy erupted last week, WLW has received tons of free publicity in the local newspapers and on all of the TV news stations.

John Kiesewetter, Enquirer radio reporter, summed it up on his blog:

Was anybody surprised that the Spanish-language billboards were put up by WLW-AM? In phase two of the campaign, there's a Mexican fellow, "The Big Juan." But we already knew that WLW-AM was the ugly American.... This helps build ratings? Only by having people talk about WLW.

Right wing talk radio blogger, Brian Maloney, also feels that there was a ratings strategy behind WLW's racist campaign:

Cinci's megatalker has enraged ethnic separatists at the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, as well as radical leftists at the area chapter of LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens. Was it really that easy to trick them?...just in time for the spring ratings book

And WLW aging conservative white male audience ate it up. Here are a few comments from WLW radio listeners:

Absolutely hilarious billboard. Keep it up, Clear Channel. This stuff is a riot.

I get tired of all the Mexican crap. My birth certificate says Ohio, not O-Mexic-O. If the Mexicans don't like it, leave!

To all of you who are sooooo outraged about WLW and the billboard campaign, thanks. It's tools like you who are the reason Speedy Gonzales cartoons have been banished from the face of the earth.

This appears to be the m.o. of talk radio stations in the post Imus era. They seem to follow the formula that it is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask permission. That’s why JC and Elvis are profusely apologizing to the Asian community for their five minute bit insulting several employees of a Chinese Restaurant.

New Talk Show Targeting English Speaking Hispanics Launches Today

2007-05-08T00:20:00.000-07:00

A new talk show launches today in two Texas markets. While there are many Spanish language talk shows offered in highly penetrated Hispanic markets like Miami and Los Angeles, the Mario Solich-Marich Show will be the first nationally syndicated show targeting the booming Hispanic market in an English language format.

The three-hour show debuts at 2 PM CT on KHRO/1650 in El Paso and KNVO-FM/101.1 in McAllen-Brownsville. Both stations are owned and operated by Entravision, one of the largest operators of Spanish language radio stations in the U.S. You can listen to the Mario Solich-Marich Show by selecting a link on the KNVO webpage.

KHRO already offers locally produced English language talk programming, while KNVO currently offers a music format directed to Hispanics. KNVO is expected to make additional programming changes in the near future.

For the past year, Solis-Marich has done a show on LA liberal talk station KTLK/1150, which is a Clear Channel Communications O & O station.

Hispanics are the fastest growing population group in the U.S. According to the Census Bureau, there are 46 million Hispanics in U.S. In fact, since the year 2,000 nearly half of 9.4 million Americans added to the U.S. population have been Hispanics.

According to a Talker’s Magazine survey only 7.9% of talk radio listeners are Hispanic. That same survey found that 19% of talk radio listeners were African-Americans. So despite the fact that Hispanic’s account for a larger percentage of the American population than African Americans (14.0% versus 12.5%) they are much less likely to listen to talk radio than non-Hispanics.

According to Paul Woodhull, president of Media Syndication Services and a partner in the new venture, Solis-Marich “has been honing his skills as talk show host in LA (where he is the number one weekend talk host) and now he is ready for prime time."

Woodhull should know a thing or two about talk show programming. He developed and owned The Ed Schultz Show, which he sold about two years ago to Product First --owned by radio veterans Randy Michaels and Stu Krane. He is also currently is part owner of The Bill Press Show.

Woodhull claims that while the show will attempt to bring Hispanics “to the talk radio table,” it will be presented in the familiar format of entertaining talk, interviews, and callers.

“Senor Pizza, the fastest growing pizza chain in the U.S, is owned by a company headed up by Hispanics, but they still use cheese, tomato, and dough to make their pizzas,” Woodhull said.

Solis-Marich confirmed that his new show will have an inclusive format.

“We don’t need to change the conversation, we just need to invite Hispanics into the conversation," Solis-Marich said. "Other talk shows have not invited them into the conversation. They haven’t focused on the issues that Latinos care about like the environment, education, and immigration.”

While it might be true that Hispanics are not big fans of talk radio; they seem to love all other kinds of radio, especially the Spanish language format.

According to Arbitron, Spanish language radio is far and away the fastest growing radio format. Over the past eight years (from 1998 to 2006), the combined AQH share of Spanish stations has grown from 6.7 to 11.2 -- a gain of 67.2%. The only other formats that have grown during this period are Sports -- 52.4%, Religious -- 38.1% and Urban -- 23.2%. Every music format has seen their share of the radio audience decline. News/talk, has essentially been flat over the past eight years, garnering a 14.3 share in 1998 and a 14.4 share in 2006. That’s a gain of less than 1% in eight years!

In addition to fact that the Hispanic population is growing much faster than the general population, there are other reasons why Spanish language radio has been experiencing double digit annual growth. Hispanics prefer radio to other media like newspapers and television. Also, they spend more time listening to radio than non-Hispanics – 22.5 versus 19 hours per week.

If Hispanic radio listeners accept Solis-Marich's invitation to table, that will probably be a good thing for liberal talk radio. In the last election, Hispanics favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by a 2-1 margin. Hispanics appear to be particularly annoyed with conservative talkers like John and Ken on KFI in Los Angeles.

The LA talkers spend about 50% of time bashing immigrants and making fun of Hispanic politicians like Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (who they call Villa “Reconquista”) and former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (who they call Busta “Menche”)

Clear Channel's Ohio Trifecta Revisited

2007-05-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

Like all blogs, Talking Radio provides readers with the opportunity to post comments on the stories that we cover. (See below.) However, occasionally these comments wind up somewhere else and the only way we find them is by searching the blogosphere.

This is what happened when we posted a story two months ago about Clear Channel, and its Cincinnati Operations Manager Darryl Parks' decision to cancel liberal talk radio in Ohio. In the story, we questioned CC’s decision to drop lib talk in three Ohio markets – WSAI/1360 in Cincinnati, WTPG/1230 in Columbus and WARF/1350 in Akron -- and the motives of CC in general and Parks in particular. Here's what we said:

Is it possible that a broadcasting company that gives more money to the GOP than any other broadcasting company (about 95% of CC’s political donations go to Republican candidates) is trying to influence future elections in the important swing state of Ohio. They use to say, "as Ohio goes, so goes the nation." This was definitely the case in 2006. Democrats swept all the key statewide races and went on to big a national victory.

CC’s Cincinnati Operation Manager, Darryl Parks, told the Cincinnati Post in December that lib talk needed to be dropped in the Queen City because it was "agenda driven."

"It was a format that was set up not to entertain, but it seemed set up to get people elected, for a lack of a better way to put it," Parks said. " "There were some good (liberal) shows, but they need to start looking to more broad-based subjects than just harping on politics."

Now that there are no lib talk stations in Ohio, Parks is probably less worried about losing elections.

Well, a few days ago we came across an item posted by Parks on his blog, which challenged our conclusion.

Here’s what CC’s Cincinnati Operations Manager had to say in his defense:

If you read the liberal blog-o-sphere, you know I single handedly killed off "progressive" talk radio and Air America Radio in North America. Believe me, I'm not that powerful. If the radio sucks, the program will be on a suicide mission all by itself. Well, check out this article that was written on March 28, 2007, months after I finally went on the mission of mercy and pulled the plug on the "progressive talk" station in Cincinnati, after giving it almost two years to work. They just can't stop blaming me.

Okay, Darryl, I won’t blame you for moving lib talk from WCKY to much weaker WSAI in July, 2006. I also won’t blame you for changing the format to something called "The Source", which resulted in WSAI plunging from 1.0 share in the Fall Arbitron survey to 0.0 share in Winter 07 .

However, I will hold you responsible for making the above referenced comments to the Cincinnati Post and for the closing comment that you made on your blog entry where you attacked our post on “Clear Channel's Ohio Trifecta.”

I continue to enjoy being the Grim Reaper to "progressive" talk radio.

As your friend Bill O'Reilly would say, you get the last word.

Worst Talk Show Hosts of the Week

2007-05-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

Week Ending: May 4, 2007

Our worse talk host of the week is Barb Stanton, who formerly did a noon to 3 pm talk show on KIXW/960 in Victorville, CA. We say formerly, because Stanton was immediately suspended from the Clear Channel station, which serves this small market northeast of Los Angeles, when she urged her listeners to withdraw their money from a local bank following the announcement of a merger with Pasadena-based East West Bank.

According to the Victorville Daily Press, Stanton said that customers would "see more Chinese faces in the bank than ever before." She also called East West President Dominic Eng, a "Chinese-looking guy," and "a foreigner." (Ng is an American citizen.)

Clear Channel, which is involved in multi-billion dollar effort to take the company private, did not waste any time in suspending Stanton. It’s one thing to attack Asians, it’s another thing to attack Asian bankers.

Our worser talk host this week is Glenn Beck, who shamelessly played the Hitler card in an attempt to criticize Al Gore’s campaign to heighten public awareness of global warming.

On the April 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Beck likened the former Vice President’s fight against global warming to Adolf Hitler's use of eugenics as justification for exterminating 6 million European Jews. Beck said:

"Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization. The goal is a global carbon tax. The goal is the United Nations running the world. That is the goal. Back in the 1930s, the goal was to get rid of all of the Jews and have one global government."

He continued: "You got to have an enemy to fight. And when you have an enemy to fight, then you can unite the entire world behind you, and you seize power. That was Hitler's plan. His enemy: the Jew. Al Gore's enemy, the U.N.'s enemy is global warming."

Talk show hosts are known to make unkind comments about each other, but I can’t recall when a host has spoken out unkindly about another host's mother. (Especially when that mother was recently deceased.) This is exactly what Mike McGee Sr. did on his weekday talk show on May 3, when he expressed some disparaging and disgusting comments about the mother of WTMJ/620 talk host Charlie Sykes.

Two days after Katherine Sykes died in house fire, McGee, who did a weekday talk show on WNOV/860, told his radio audience that he “ain’t got no tears” about her tragic death." He continued, “matter of fact, a woman that would have a fool like that deserves whatever is coming her. She raised a sure enough idiot.”

McGee even went so far as to suggest that Charlie Sykes was responsible for his mother’s death.

“My instincts say Charlie Sykes killed his momma, cuz she live out in this big palace in Mequon all isolated. He got tired of waiting for her money,” he said.

McGee was immediately suspended.

Sykes' boss, WTMJ general manager Jon Schweitzer, kept his cool when asked for a comment on McGee's monologue: "I won't dignify it with a comment, especially out of respect for Charlie at this time."

Sykes and McGee have maintained an on-going feud over the airwaves for several years.

WNOV CEO/President Jerrel Jones said that McGee’s comments were “absolutely across the line” and said “it would be a long time before McGee returns - if ever.”

We say that McGee’s outrageous comments wins him the title of the worst talk host of the week.

Stephanie Miller's on the Tee Vee

2007-05-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

Just got my new DVR on Sunday and I programmed it wrong -- so I missed Stephanie Miller’s debut appearance on MSNBC this morning.

So I did what any video challenged blogger would do and went to You Tube. There, I found the following clip of the first ten minutes of Stephanie’s show on Monday.

After reading several blogs by Freepers and other conservative wingnuts about how unfunny Mama was including this gem which was posted here as a comment.

"Who is this clown they have in Imus' old spot on MSNBC? This person they have on today in his slot is horrible! Forget that host sounds like a total moonbat,it's like they copied Laura Ingram's show except made the format even more obnoxious. There is a news network that has totally lost it's direction and identity. They are becoming the "Pennysaver" newspaper of cable news."

But, overall, the early reviews were much more favorable:

On You Tube, several favorable comments were recorded. Here are a few of them:

This was totally worth getting up at 3 am for! Stephanie Miller is the queen of talk radio. Yes, she is the Cher of progressive talk radio!

Oh Mama you were soooo good this morning on MSNBC. You're even better looking on TV than you were at the KPHX 1480 party in Phoenix! With your fabulous fanny and Cici Goldwaters incredible rack (meant with the utmost respect) not only do the two of you appear to have been separated at birth, but together you are the perfect woman. Can't wait 'till WTF o'clock tomorrow. Oh wait I have TiVo . . . D'Oh!

Lib Talk fans were predictably upbeat. On Air America Place almost all the comments were positive:

Steph's TV experience was very apparent. She was animated and quick - and as usual very well prepared. The overall feel of the show was smart, sassy, snarky - a good fit for MSNBC. Even the callers who never heard of Mamma before seemed to like her. I checked with a co-worker who always used to wake up to Imus (as he called it, "the only thing on the damn TV that I can stomach in the morning") was impressed.

...Mama and the mooks were fabulous this morning. Mama was smoking hot (as usual), Jim was Jim (love him), and Chris was so freaking adorable. I just want to put him in my pocket and take him home!!!!

And then there was this serious piece of criticism on Radio-Info

Stephanie was speaking in hyper-warp speed, and it turned out to be much easier to follow her on radio than on television. The mooks were also much quieter than normal, and Jim Ward resembled Christopher Reeve in his wheelchair - he definitely needs to loosen up. Reading off the spiral notebook didn't help either. Usually when Stephanie gets out of control or loses her train of thought, one of the mooks picks up the slack, but that happened a lot less this morning.

I put this all on nerves. Going into a strange studio and dealing with the equipment and atmosphere is not easy for a radio show host who normally sits in an enclosed and familiar studio every day. And because Miller's show is heavily dependent on the add-on effects and bits, when something starts to go wrong, it becomes very quickly apparent.Overall, it did work and was fun, but she needs to slow down and calm down. We'll see how Tuesday and Wednesday goes. It seems there is going to be a whole parade of guest shows on MSNBC in the morning, and Miller has said on her show she doesn't want a permanent MSNBC gig.

Fans of the Stephanie Miller are encouraged to send a note to General Manager Dan Abrams and VP Bill Wolff at MSNBC. Let them know that you'd like to see her in the mornings instead of another Fox wannabe like Michael Smerconish.

Worst Talk Show Hosts of the Week

2007-04-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

Week Ending: April 27, 2007

Our worse talker of week is Sean Hannity. Hannity was interviewing former Republican V.P. candidate, Jack Kemp, on the April 24 edition of his nightly TV Show, Hannity & Colmes, when the subject of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid’s comment about the war in Iraq came up.

Reid stated at a recent press conference that the “war [in Iraq] was lost” and that “at this stage, can only be won diplomatically, politically, and economically."

Hannity was outraged. He said "I think [Reid is] a propaganda minister for our enemies. He's emboldening our enemies, and he's taking away the morale of our troops. They're out there fighting that war, and he said it's lost."

Well, the “propaganda minister our enemies” must be doing a good job since more than half of the American people agree with him.

Our worser talker this week is Michael Savage, who just can’t stay away from those Hitler analogies. This time Savage compared Hillary Clinton with Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. It concerned a remark that Clinton made about the Supreme Court's partial birth abortion decision during a speech at Rutgers University on April 20.

Referring to the ruling Clinton said, "what message does it send when the Supreme Court decides that women's health doesn't matter?"

Savage called Clinton’s statement “rubbish” and an “Hitlerian dialogue". On the April 23 edition of his syndicated radio talk show The Savage Nation, the former Michael Weiner said, “Goebbels would be proud of you, Hillary Clinton. I know [former Chinese communist leader] Mao Tse Tung would have been proud of you." Savage also referred to Clinton as a "liar" and a "sickening person," and added, "this is life and death you are talking about. It's not about women's health."

However, our worst talker of week is Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh wins the top award this week for having a real bad sense of humor. El Rushbo has drawn much attention over the past few years for racist and other insensitive comments that he regularly makes on his nationally syndicated radio show.

First, on July 11, 2005 he repeatedly referred to Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as “Obama Osama” and “Osama Obama” Then, on March 19 he played a musical bit called “Barack the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon.” As if this wasn’t tacky enough he repeatedly referred to Obama as “Barack the Magic Negro" 27 times during his three-hour show.

Finally, as reported in Talking Radio last week, he accused Seung-Hui Cho, perpetrator of the Virginia Tech shooting, which claimed the lives of 33 people of being a “liberal.” Limbaugh said "If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other stuff -- this guy's a liberal."

Now we find out that Limbaugh’s comments about Obama and Cho were jokes that the "drive by media" just didn’t get.

He said, on the April 23 edition of his show, that Media Matters which posted all three of these comments on it is website, was "taking these comment out of context" and that "they obviously didn’t understand that he was joking".

We realize that Obama does not worry about being attacked by right wing talk radio host, but wonder if the family and friends of the dozens of people killed and injured at Virginia Tech, appreciated the fact that their loved ones where used by this sick "wanna be" comedian in effort to make a joke.

Rush Limbaugh, once again, the worst talk radio host of the week.

AAR Reveals New Program Line-up and Ad Sales Arrangement

2007-04-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

This is a day of breaking news in the world of liberal talk radio. First the announcement that Stephanie Miller will guest-host her daily radio show next week on MSNBC. Now a big announcement from Air America Radio about changes in their ad sales and affiliate relations representation and program line-up.

AAR confirmed today that they have ended their ad sales arrangement with Jones Media Group and started one with an even bigger company --Westwood One. According to the anouncement, released just minutes ago, beginning June 1, WW1 will oversee all network ad sales for the liberal talk network in addition to affiliate ad sales. WW1 will also work with AAR's affiliate relations group to secure and maintain new radio stations coverage.

Serving more than 5,000 radio stations, WW1 is the nation’s leading provider of audio content. It distributes more than 150 news, sports, music, talk, entertainment programs, features and live events and, through its Metro Networks division, provides local content to the radio and TV industries including news, sports, weather, traffic, video news services and other information. WW1 is managed by CBS Radio.

"Because Westwood One is such a renowned network ad and affiliate sales firm," said Air America Chief Operating Officer Scott Elberg. "It’s obviously exciting that Westwood One will be a vital part of AAR 2.0. We appreciated Jones Media's past work and now look forward to a new effort behind the new Air America."

"We're pleased that the new ownership and management of Air America is looking to us to expand their audience and secure their success of being informative, entertaining talk programming," said Roby Wiener EVP, Chief Marketing Officer for WW1.

AAR also announced the addition of three new shows on weekdays and five on weekends (see new line-up below).

In addition to the previously announced Lionel Show, which will be carried from 9-12 AM ET, veteran early morning talker Mark Reily will launch a new show called The Air Americans from 8-12m ET and San Diego based host, Jon Elliott will be given a permanent slot in the line-up from 12m-3am ET.

"Our line-up combines the best of proven radio stars like Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow and The Young Turks along with new programming that broadens and deepens Air America's reach," said AAR's President Mark Green. "When people ask what Air America 2.0 means, they'll hear the answer on May 21."

The biggest surprise in today’s announcement was the expanded role Riley. His new show will include contributors Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio of Ring of Fire, David Bender of Politically Direct, and Laura Flanders of RadioNation. The show will consist of various segments discussing not so much the War on Terror abroad as the War Against Democracy at home as well as talk about culture and music.

It appears that two shows have been dropped from AAR's weekday line-up -- Politically Direct, hosted by David Bender and Ecotalk, hosted by Betsy Rosenberg. Bender, a friend of AAR president Mark Green, will have a continuing role on Mark Riley's new show. However, it appears that Rosenberg will not be a part of AAR 2.0. Also, Laura Flander's Show (Radio Nation), has been significantly cut back. Currently, Radio Nation is heard three hours on Saturdays and three hours on Sundays. Next month, Flanders is scheduled for only one hour on Sunday afternoons.

The weekend line-up will receive a dose of fresh voices with five new programs:

*Your Money with Marc Sussman 9-10am ET on Saturday mornings, will be a unique show for ethical, personal planning, and socially responsible investing.

*This Week in America, 6-7pm ET Saturday, will be the network's first weekend news-of-the-week-in-review -- from a decidedly beyond-the-beltway perspective -- with "immoderator" Mark Green and panelists Arianna Huffington and Bob Kerrey.

*Clout with Richard Greene on Saturday 8-10pm ET, will explore how corporate and political muscle is exercised in the corridors of power.

*Sam Seder’s new show, Seder on Sunday, airing Sundays, 4-7pm ET, will recap and review the Sunday morning political talkfests largely from the view of bloggers and the blogosphere -- hence the program will be the first of its kind to look at the networks from the netroots.

*A new RadioNation with Laura Flanders will be an hour program at 1pm on Sunday and will focus on the articles featured that week in The Nation Magazine, the country's oldest and most read liberal magazine.

Here's the new AAR schedule which debuts on May 21. (All Time shown are ET):

Monday
6A-9A "The Young Turks"
9A-12N "The Lionel Show"
12N-3P "The Thom Hartmann Program"
3P-6P "The Randi Rhodes Show"
6P-8P "The Rachel Maddow Show"
8P-12M "The Air Americans" hosted by Mark Riley with David Bender, Laura Flanders. Robert Kennedy Jr., and Mike Papantonio

Tuesday-Friday
12M-3A "This Is America, with Jon Elliott"
3A-6A (rebroadcast) "The Randi Rhodes Show"
6A-9A "The Young Turks"
9A-12N "The Lionel Show"
12N-3P "The Thom Hartmann Program"
3P-6P "The Randi Rhodes Show"
6P-8P "The Rachel Maddow Show"
8P-12M "The Air Americans" hosted by Mark Riley with David Bender, Laura Flanders. Robert Kennedy Jr., and Mike Papantonio

Saturday
12M-3A "This Is America, with Jon Elliott"
3A-5A Best-of "The Young Turks"
5A-7A Best-of "The Thom Hartmann Program"
7A-9A Best-"The Air Americans" hosted by Mark Riley with David Bender, Laura Flanders. Robert Kennedy Jr., and Mike Papantonio
9A-10A "Your Money, with Marc Sussman"
10A-11A "State of Belief" with Reverend Welton Gaddy
11A-1P Best-of "The Lionel Show"
1P–3P Best-of "The Randi Rhodes Show"
3P-6P "Ring of Fire" with Robert Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio, & David Bender
6P-7P "This Week in America" with Mark Green, Arianna Huffington, & Bob Kerrey
7P-8P "The Time Is Now" with the Reverend Dr. James Forbes
8P-10P "Clout" with Richard Greene
10P-12M Best-of "The Young Turks"

Sunday
12M-1A Best-of "The Young Turks"
1A-4A Best-of "The Air Americans"
4A-7A Best-of "The Lionel Show"
7A-9A Best-of "The Young Turks"
9A-10A (rebroadcast) "This Week in America" with Mark Green, Arianna Huffington, & Bob Kerrey
10A-1P Best-of "The Thom Hartmann Program"
1P-2P "Radio Nation" with Laura Flanders
2P-4P (rebroadcast) "Clout" with Richard Greene
4P-7P "Seder on Sunday" with Sam Seder
7P-8P (rebroadcast) "State of Belief" with Reverend Welton Gaddy
8P-10P (rebroadcast) "Ring of Fire" with Robert Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio, & David Bender
10P-11P "The Steve Earle Show"
11P-12M "On the Real" with Chuck D. (Hour 1)

STEPHANIE MILLER TO HOST ON MSNBC NEXT WEEK

2007-04-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

MSNBC is going to give Keith Olbermann some competition next week when they will present the Stephanie Miller Show, Monday through Wednesday, in the slot formerly occupied by Imus. Liberal Talk radio fans do not want to miss this rare opportunity to catch one of its top stars on the teevee.

According to Stephanie's co-host Chris Lavioe, details of her appearance will be spelled out on tomorrow’s radio show. – 9 am to 12 noon.

"For those of you who are up late and blogging away, I wanted to let everyone know that Steph and the mooks are gonna be on MSNBC on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the old Imus slot. Woo hoo! You are going to be able to see us do the radio show from Imus' old studios at MSNBC!" Lavoie posted on several blogs.

MSNBC is testing several radio talkers in the slot formerly occupied by Imus, until his "nappy headed hos" comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, got him canned. This week they featured Michael Smerconish, a conservative talker from Philadelphia.

The show will be taped live from 6-9 am EDT on MSNBC and then rebroadcasted from 9a-12 noon EDT to Stephanie's radio affiliates.

Blatherwatch, a usually accurate blog covering liberal talk, reports that Stephanie has the inside track, in the Imus slot sweepstakes. He writes...

It's "temporary," we're assured by our spy out at MSNBC Redmond, and no done deal. But we've learned that Miller is the top contender, and the one for whom the network has the greatest hopes."They decided it was time for a woman in that slot," he told BlatherWatch.

There's a great discussion about Stephanie's MSNBC gig going on right now at Daily Kos.

Here are a few of the over 200 posts as of 12 noon PDT

Let's say the StephCasts hit a homerun, which I bet they will. Could this be a test run to see if the Olbermann effect is more than just one man doing an amazing job, and there is room for other progressives?

This IS a great day! With Stephanie's humor, I have no doubt she's going to be a hit. And this will give Billo something else to explode about!!

Stephanie Miller is the sweetest funniest show ever. She's the future, Smerconish the pasture...it's that simple. This is great news, I just heard her talk about it. Dam, there goes my sleep schedule, 3-6am. Worth it though. Woo hoo!!!

She will be better to look at then the guy who was on this week, and it will be great to watch Jim the man of a thousand and one impressions doing his act.

I for one am a big fan and get her streaming since they took AAR out of our local lineup and she's not on XM but on Sirius.

MSNBC may just go back and forth between right wing and liberal to see who sells. This will be a business decision, whoever brings in the ratings and young demo will probably get the job.
Her wit will play well to a mainstream audience. It will also open the doors of mainstream media to liberal talk shows.

I've caught Stephanie Miller's radio show. She's got talent! I like to laugh. Smart move. Make her the permanent host!

If you would like to see Stephanie get a permanent show with MSNBC send Viewer Services an email.

Randi Rhodes is Now Top Lib Talk Host

2007-04-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

The "goddess" of liberal talk radio is now the top rated lib talk host in the country. In the most recent Talking Radio survey of syndicated lib talk hosts, Randi Rhodes has ended Ed Schultz’ two year reign as the number one talker and held off aggressive challenges from number three Thom Hartmann and number four Stephanie Miller.

Despite improving his time period on about 20 stations, Schultz slipped to number two in the quarterly survey. Schultz was hurt by his continued lack of coverage in New York, a downgrade in Los Angeles, and the loss of carriage on KTRH in Houston. There is also some speculation that critical comments made by Schultz about other liberal talkers and AAR, which angered many listeners, also contributed to his decline. On the other hand, Rhodes hung on to all of her stations and received time period upgrades on eight stations.

The TR survey* rates the performance of virtually all of the syndicated lib talkers who broadcast on weekdays. You will notice that the hosts are rated by the percentage of the total audience that they reach.

Furthermore the positioning of the hosts is based on all radio listeners, not the so-called money demo, i.e. adults 25-49. You will have to go to other sources e.g. trade magazines or the host's websites to find specific data concerning ratings, shares, AQH's and cumes. Here is the ranking of syndicated lib talk hosts as of April 15, 2007:

Overall, listenership continued to fall over the past three months. The lib talk audience decreased by 7% over this period, primarily because of the loss of lib talk stations and the termination of two talkers. Since, the beginning of the year, eight stations serving 4 million potential listeners have dropped the format and two talkers – Al Franken and Sam Seder – are no longer doing weekday syndicated shows.

Of the 15 lib talk shows contained in the current survey, only one – The Young Turks – has maintained the same position. The other 14 talk shows have either moved up or moved down.

Not surprisingly, Thom Hartmann, who has taken over Franken’s slot on Air America Radio, gained the most coverage over the past three months. In January, Hartmann had a 5.4 ranking. In the current survey, Hartmann’s ranking is 16.0 -- a gain 10.6 or about 300%.

Rhodes secured her number one ranking even though her show is carried on 23 fewer stations than Schultz'. The difference was in New York and LA where Rhodes’ show is carried live. On the other hand, Schultz has no carriage in New York and is carried from 7 to 10 PM in LA with frequent sports preemptions.

Late night talker Alan Colmes is carried on the most radio stations – 85. However, Colmes is only ranked sixth on the current survey because he is always carried during the late night daypart when radio listenership is very low.

AAR hosts continue to lose lib talk audience share. Non-AAR talkers attracted 43% of the listenership in the current survey – that’s up from 34% in the January survey.

There are 161 stations that carry at least one syndicated lib talker on weekdays. Of these 96 stations carry only one host, 12 stations carry two hosts, and 53 stations carry three or more hosts.

*These estimates, pertaining to characteristics of the liberal talk radio audience across America, are excerpted from Talking Radio’s in-house, non-scientific study. It is drawn from interviews with listeners of general news-talk radio across the United States supplemented by input from talk radio programmers, hosts, sales personnel, and radio station in-house research in addition to occasional studies provided by academic institutions.

Worst Talk Show Hosts of the Week

2007-04-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Week Ending: April 20, 2007

The week before last ended with the abrupt cancellation of Don Imus' long running syndicated radio and TV talk shows, following his racially insulting description of the Rutgers women’s basketball team as "nappy headed hos." This week opened with news of the murderous rampage at Virginia Tech. Accordingly, one would suspect that talk radio hosts would lighten up a bit.

Instead it turned out to be business as usual on talk radio, and while a nation mourned the senseless loss of life in Blacksburg, VA, hosts continued to spew insulting and insensitive messages.

It seems like everybody wants to get the last word in on the Imus controversy. First, leading conservative hosts like Hannity and O’Reilly claimed that this has nothing to do with their rantings because Imus is a "liberal." Then there are local market hosts who just can’t let Imus’s racist comments go.

Our worse talker this week is one of these hosts. Austin Rhodes, who does a PM drive talk show for WGAC/580 in Augusta, GA, actually made his egregious comment when he called another station – WAAW/94.7 (which interestingly offers gospel music and Christian talk.)

According to CBS affiliate WRDW-TV, Rhodes said (referring to the Duke sex controversy) "a sex worker with multiple samples of male semen in her body, is what I call a ‘ho’." He then went of to say "as far as nappy hair goes, that's a description of myself, if I am going to say that about myself, I’m not going to be shy about saying it about somebody else either."

The Augusta branch of the NAACP and local church leaders, have calling upon Beasley Broadcasting, which owns WGAC to fire Rhodes.

However, our worser and worst talk show hosts of the week focused on an even more sensitive issue – the horrific shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, which claimed over 30 lives.

Syndicated right wing talker, Neal Boortz attributed the extent of the trajedy to "wussifcation of America". On April 17, after we knew the details of how Seung-Hui Cho carried out his murderous rampage, Boortz asked "how the hell do 25 students allow themselves to be lined up against the wall in a classroom and picked off one by one? How does that happen, when they could have rushed the gunman, the shooter, and most of them would have survived?"

We knew at this time, that the victims were not "lined up against a wall" but were shot as their desks. We also knew by Tuesday, that many of the victims – both dead and wounded – performed heroic acts like pushing doors shut even while Hui was shooting at them.

Given time to reflect on his outrageous comment, Boortz decided to continue his attack on the victimized students and faculty members at VT. In the April 18 edition of his daily program notes called Nealz Nuze, Boortz asked: "How far have we advanced in the wussification of America?" He went on to accuse the victims of being taken in by the "doctrine of left."

"It seems that standing in terror waiting for your turn to be executed was the right thing to do, and any questions as to why 25 students didn't try to rush and overpower Cho Seung-Hui are just examples of right wing maniacal bias. Surrender -- comply -- adjust. The doctrine of the left."

We were ready to make Boortz our worst talk host of the week, but then Rush Limbaugh weighed in (pun intended) on the tragedy, further characterizing the VT massacre as a left wing plot. On the Thursday edition of his program El Rushbo said:

"If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other stuff -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act."

He went on to say that he (Limbaugh that is) not the 30 plus dead people in Virginia – was the real victim:

"I can tell you from the history of this program, starting way back in the early '90s, when there was any kind of an incident, crime or what-have-you that attracted national attention, in the early days of this program, the drive-by media went out and they tried to connect the perpetrator to this program."

Of course he didn’t identify who the "drive by media" was (is there any liberal talk show host with 600 stations?) or provide any examples of how he or his show was accused by the media of inciting any "incidents" or "crimes."

It looks to us like Limbaugh is the king of the "drive by" media. Is there any part of the United States where you can't hear El Rushbo while "driving by?"

Sorry Neal, our worst talker of the week is the real victim of the Virginia Tech massacre – Rush Limbaugh.

The Worst Radio Talkers on the Topic of Race

2007-04-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

Because we now live in the post Imus era, we need to take a new look at how we define the worst talk radio hosts. For the past few months, we have been identifying the three worst talkers of the week.

Last week, ironically, we selected the Imus as the worst talker of the week for his infamous three word characterization of the Rutgers women’s basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." As a result of this politically incorrect and racist comment, a simulcast of the I-man’s daily talk show was cancelled by MSNBC on one day and the syndicated radio talk show, itself, was cancelled by CBS, owner of Westwood One, the next day.

What the Imus factor tells us, is that it's not just radio listeners who are following talk radio. Now when a host puts his foot in his mouth, like Imus did earlier this month, the statement is just as likely to show up on a blog, on You Tube, or on Media Matters.

Imus’ show may have reached only 2% of the population each week. However, when you add the Internet and cable news channels, his inflammatory language probably resonated with 250 million people.

Big advertisers like American Express, Procter and Gamble, and General Motors decided that they didn’t want to be associated with Imus and pulled the plug on potentially millions of dollars in advertising. NBC and CBS saw the writing on wall and Imus’ 30 plus year run on radio came to screeching halt.

So taking the Imus factor in consideration, we will be reformatting the worst talkers of the week. From time to time we will pick a topic and select three talkers who expressed the most outrageous comments on that topic. We will probably do this about once a month. The other three weeks we will offer our Worst Talker of the Week feature.

Unlike the Worst Talker of the Week, the talker who wins the worst talker by topic will hold that award until another talker replaces him or her at a future time. The comment had to be said on the radio, when the talker was the host (not a guest) on a regularly scheduled talk show. Also, there is no time limit. That means the talker can get credit today for something that was said many years ago.

In memory of Imus, our first topic will be racism. Unlike homophobia and misogyny, racism is the gold standard in offensive speech.

Maybe it’s because the institution of slavery lasted over 200 years and Jim Crow segregation another 100 years. Maybe because, many African Americans still face discrimination in housing, employment, and education. Or maybe it’s because of the speech itself. Calling a Caucasian a "cracker" just doesn’t match up to using the "n" word when referring to an African American.

We listened to Marc Germain, Mr. K and April Winchell on KTLK/1150 in Los Angeles, Monday, when they were trying to compare a joke made by Al Roker about gays in San Francisco (he lisped when reporting the weather in San Francisco) to Imus’ "nappy-headed hos" comment. Most of their callers thought such a comparison was preposterous – "like comparing apples to oranges" one caller said.

Germain claimed that they were not attacking Roker, who was one of the first and most prominent broadcaster to call for Imus' firing, for his comment. They were just noting that "it is a slippery slope when you try to get people fired for having bad taste."

Okay here they are – the worse, worser, and worst talk show hosts on the topic of racism.

Despite the fact that he lost his job over a racial comment, Imus is only the "worse" talker of all time on this topic. By now just about everybody who owns a TV or a radio knows that Imus called the Rutgers women’s basketball team "nappy headed hos." However, very few people remember when Imus made the following comment about the New York Times’ Washington correspondent Gwen Ifill in the late 1980’s. The I-man reportedly said. "Isn’t the Times wonderful…It let’s the cleaning lady cover the White House."

Racial comments made by Neil Boortz are not as well known as Imus’ (possibly because most of his affiliates including his flagship station WSB/750 in Atlanta are in the South where such comments are not very controversial.)

Boortz has also made two comments to earn his place in the top three. On the October 24, 2005, broadcast of his radio talk show, Boortz suggested that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution. "If that's the only way she can take care of herself," Boortz posited, "it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers."

Then on the March 31, 2006, edition of his show, Boortz said that then Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) "looks like a ghetto slut." He was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney's "new hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut."
For these two comments Neil Boortz is our worser talker on the topic of racism.

However, the nation’s number one talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, who was just named top syndicated talk host of year by Radio and Records Magazine, receives the dubious distinctiom of making the worst racial statements. We have identified six statements made by El Rushbo over his 30-year career that many people would consider being racially offensive.

As a young DJ in the 1970’s, Rush was having a hard time understanding an African-American caller, so he told the caller "take that bone out of your nose and call me back."

In the early 1990s, "after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?" Also, at that time when Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the 'Movin' On Up' theme song from TV's 'Jeffersons' whenever he mentioned her.

Everybody knows about the comment Limbaugh made about Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb. When he was a commentator for ESPN, Limbaugh said that "the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well" and, therefore, that McNabb "got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve."

He was fired from ESPN for that comment, but we can’t include this slur because Limbaugh said it on TV not on the radio.

On the August 23, 2006, edition of his radio show, Limbaugh commented on a season of CBS' reality TV program Survivor in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity. Limbaugh said that the contest was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and suggested that "blacks can't swim."

Finally, just over two months ago, on February 1, Limbaugh responded to a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated form today's government" by asserting: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives."

Rush Limbaugh the number one talk radio show host and the purveyor of the worst racial comments in the world.

Imus Fans Now In Mourning

2007-04-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

When MSNBC dropped its simulcast of the Don Imus Show, it was big news in the mainstream media, but not as big a deal in the talk radio business. However, now that CBS, which has syndicated the legendary shock jock on over 60 terrestrial radio stations, has confirmed that they have also cancelled his show-- that's another story.

This is the first time that we can recall that a syndicated talk host has been canned on the spot for a comment made on the air. Certainly, it has never hppened to anyone with Imus’ status and standing in the talk radio business.

Yes, Howard Stern abandoned terrestrial talk radio after the FCC hit him with some huge fines. However, he was not fired by CBS and only made the move to satellite radio when he received a compensation package of over a half billion dollars from Sirius Satellite Radio. Imus will not even be allowed to do a final show tomorrow! (We knew that we should have recorded his show today.)

When we selected The I-Man as the worst talk show host of week on Friday (see column right), we had no idea that our choice would generate such a firestorm.

By Tuesday his radio show syndicated by Westwood One (owned by CBS) and the TV simulcast carried on MSNBC had suspended Imus (without pay!) for two weeks.

On Wednesday several huge advertisers like Proctor and Gamble, General Motors, and American Express had told NBC they were not only going to pull advertising from the MSNBC Imus show, but also from some daytime programs on the Peacock Network. Also, the Rutgers women’s basketball team held a press conference adding human faces to controversy, which started when Imus called these young women "nappy headed hos." By yesterday, NBC threw in the towel and cancelled the MSNBC simulcast. And today’s cancellation announcement by CBS was the deathblow for long running show.

Of course, both NBC and CBS claimed it wasn’t about the loss of advertising revenue but rather a response to the outrage expressed by their employees, community leaders, and the Rutgers student athletes.

Here’s the statement that MSNBC released to press yesterday:

"This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into account many conversations with our own employees. What matters to us most is that the men and women of NBC Universal have confidence in the values we have set for this company. This is the only decision that makes that possible. Once again, we apologize to the women of the Rutgers basketball team and to our viewers. We deeply regret the pain this incident has caused."

And here’s the statement issued by CBS President Leslie Moonves today:

"From the outset, I believe all of us have been deeply upset and repulsed by the statements that were made on our air about the young women who represented Rutgers University in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship with such class, energy and talent. Those who have spoken with us the last few days represent people of goodwill from all segments of our society – all races, economic groups, men and women alike. In our meetings with concerned groups, there has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision, as have the many emails, phone calls and personal discussions we have had with our colleagues across the CBS Corporation and our many other constituencies."

Now if you think for a minute, that NBC was more concerned about the erosion of the "confidence" held by their employees or that CBS was troubled by the "goodwill from all segments of our society" than they both were about the erosion of advertising revenues, than I have a bankrupt liberal talk radio network that I would like to sell you.

According to the New York Times, while the Imus Show is not a big revenue source for NBC, it is a very big one for CBS.

WFAN, CBS’ flagship station in New York receives a $4 million fee from NBC for the MSNBC simulcast. In addition WW1 generates nearly $20 million in advertising and syndication revenue from the show; the show’s individual radio affiliates, collectively, earn another $20 million in revenue.

This is not pocket change, and there is no way that CBS would walk away from this revenue windfall unless they were genuinely fearful of an advertising boycott that could spread to other segments of their station and syndication business.

Remember that WW1 also syndicates the Bill O’Reilly Show and he is known to offend people from time to time.

After all, wasn’t O’Reilly the guy who called the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith "an extremist group that finds offense in pretty much everything" and told its president Abraham Foxman "to go back to Israel" if he didn’t like it.

Is this just a case of chickens coming home to roost?

For years we’ve heard apologists for right wing talk radio say that radio is just business. That the reason why there are 13 hours of conservative talk for every one hour liberal talk is that ratings and advertising revenues call for this ridiculous imbalance. Now that the marketplace is turning against the racism, misogyny, and homophobia espoused by right wing talkers, what will their position be?

"We have right to say anything we want and advertisers should be required to subsidize us."

Maybe it is appropriate that Imus was the target off this backlash against hate talk radio. After all he is personification of the conservative talk demographic -- aging white men.

It will be interesting to see how the "Imus factor" plays out in the coming weeks.

Will we see a backlash similar to one that occurred on network TV (and to a certain extent on hot talk radio) after the Janet Jackson’s naked breast appeared in the Superbowl half time show last year or when CBS was fined millions of dollars by the FCC for Howard Stern’s antics?

Already there are other victims. Today we learned that Gary Smith of the Gary in the Morning Show on WSBG-FM in Stroudsberg, PA, was fired by Nassau Broadcasting Partners yesterday for holding an on-air contest in which listeners were encouraged to say "nappy-headed ho." Somehow I don’t think that Smith will be the only victim of the Imus fall out.

How about the right wing talker who shared worst talker honors with Imus this week. When KSFO in San Francisco talker, Melanie Morgan told her cohost Lee Rodgers "Do you remember when [Al Sharpton] was on that rolling fast for peace with Cindy Sheehan ... and I went on television and offered him ... a loaf of bread? He did not like that, Lee.” Rodgers replied: "Well, thank God you didn't offer him watermelon."

After all, as our friends on the right always remind us, " don’t take it a personally, radio is just a business."