The Foxification of CNN

Next month CNN will launch a daily show on it Headline News Channel hosted by right wing talk radio host Glenn Beck. Beck will be the sixth right wing talk radio host with a cable show. The others are Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Don Imus, and John Gibson. There is one liberal talker featured on a cable show. Alan Colmes, the conservative's favorite liberal, who co-hosts the Hannity and Colmes Show. One other -- Bill Press -- was canned by MSNBC. Here is a letter that I wrote to CNN protesting their decision to give Beck a daily TV show.

Dear CNN:

I am totally outraged at your decision to give right wing talk show host Glenn Beck a show on CNN Headline News. This coupled with your decision to add Bill Bennett "why don’t we abort black babies,” as a commentator confirms that CNN, the only news network that liberals have been able to tolerate, has decided to copy the playbook's of the Fox Network and their pathetic wanna-be MSNBC. You are making a big mistake. Do you know what a well-known right wing idiot Beck is? Here are just a few quotes that are attributable to this worm.

On families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks: "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."

And on Hurricane Katrina survivors who remained in New Orleans: "And that's 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."

When you decided to cancel the provocative weekend talk show -- "Capital Gang" and hard hitting daily interview show "Cross Fire" (which was a feature on CNN before Ted Turner got rich) I was very disappointed. But at least you appeared to be following a cohesive programming strategy. The move seemed to suggest that CNN was going be different than the Fox network. Now we are seeing that you are giving up that strategy and turning to the right by hiring Bennett and Beck.


Well CNN has lost one viewer who has watched the network since 1980. I remember all the highpoints. The ground breaking launch of “Cross Fire,” the dramatic coverage of the first Gulf War and the civil war in Sudan, and Ted Turner's brash and innovative style. Now we have right wing talkers Bennett and Beck and CNN trying to be another Fox wannabe network.

CNN President Jonathan Klein thinks that the network can make moves like this without offending liberal Democratic viewers. After all wasn't it Klein who said to Charlie Rose that “liberals don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic."

Well, you tell Mr. Klein that this liberal has had it. I won't watch CNN turn into another right wing news network. I work out of my home and I am happy to listen to Air America and NPR. I guess I'll have to start watching PBS news and the BBC for my TV news fix.

I use to work in the cable TV business. I actually attended the launch of CNN on Cox Cable in San Diego when Ted Turner pushed the button starting the network. Turner said, at that time, the network would stay onuntil the world ends. For me that end occurs when Beck starts his show on Headline News.

Good bye and good luck

Bruce Kaufman

John and Ken Talk Red in a Blue State

John and Ken, who do a PM drive talk radio show on KFI, AM 640 in Los Angeles, were recently selected as the best Local Talk radio Hosts by Radio and Records Magazine. They were selected for this distinguished award over the hundreds of local talk shows hosts across the nation because:

a. They provided excellent coverage of a local public policy issue
b. They raised a substantial amount of money for a prominent local charity
c. They insulted just about every political group in Southern California especially those associated with the Democratic Party and homeless, disabled and Hispanic advocacy groups.

If you answered “c” you got it right. While John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou like to consider themselves as equal opportunity critics of local politicians in the Los Angeles area and in the State of California, they have focused most of their wrath on individuals and groups affiliated with the Democratic Party and liberal causes.

This might seem strange in State that is overwhelming Democratic with an Hispanic population of 35%, but this is talk radio -- the medium where the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage dominate the national airwaves, so there is no reason for local talk show hosts to buck the trend. In fact, John and Ken, who are number one in afternoon drive, are not the only right wing talkers in Los Angeles during that time period. The second rated PM talk show is Larry Elder on KABC with the bottom held up by Salem’s Hugh Hewitt on KRLA and the lone liberal talker in the foursome, Randi Rhodes, on Air America Radio’s LA affiliate, KTLK.

How far to the right are John and Ken. To get an idea let’s take a look at what they have to say. Or I should say what John has to say since he is the foil to the straight man played by Ken.

Commenting on the Democratic plan to allocate a small portion of a bond issue proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to social programs, John said that “the Socialists in the legislature insist on taking whatever available money is floating around and giving it to the elderly, the poor, and the disabled. It’s always the elderly the poor and the disabled.”

John was particularly outraged by the partiality of Democrats to mass transit. Here he got a shot in at three of his favorite targets – Democratic politicians, Hispanics, and disabled people.

They [the Democrats] want ugly buses for smelly poor people, illegal aliens, and homeless people, that’s what they’re into because they’re are the Socialist Democratic Party.

Remember the Fairness Doctrine. When equal time had to be provided by broadcasters on political issues. This not a concern for talk radio in general and John and Ken in particular.

Over the past five months, I have monitored about 50% of the broadcast hours of the John and Ken Show, which runs from 3 to 7 pm, Monday through Friday. (They recently started a Saturday edition of the show from 3 to 5 pm.) During that time, they interviewed 38 people, including 16 state legislators on a variety of subjects including illegal immigration, public schools, child pornography, and capital punishment. All of guests represented the conservative side of the arguments and all of the politicians were Republicans. However, despite this obvious bias, John and Ken see themselves as non-political.

Once again John tries to establish how fair and balanced they are. “We tell you the truth because we are not on any team,” John says, “The other guys are going to tell you what they wish was going on during an election year.” I guess the other guys are liberals and Democrats.

Probably, the most blatant case of how John and Ken use their radio show to promote a political agenda was in the weeks prior to the special statewide election in November, when the electorate was considering five propositions put on the ballot by Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger. They allocated virtually all of their airtime to supporting the Propositions, which called for reductions in state mandated spending for education, increased power for the Governor and decreased power for legislature. They interviewed several Republican politicians and had a number of chummy chats with Gov. Schwarzenegger.

In spite of their efforts, all five propositions went down to defeat. Were John and Ken humbled by this setback? No way. They called the electorate “stupid” and “misguided,” and were particularly angry with the unions representing teachers and firefighter.

“The Unions spent so much money lying to people that Schwarzenegger now can’t go around and get the legislature to do his bidding,” John said. “The [California] legislature is like a Middle Eastern Islamic Fundamentalist State. There is no free democracy.”

Yes, no free democracy in a fair election open to all the people, but lots of democracy on the John and Ken Show which spews right wing talking points on KFI AM 640 to hapless motorists stuck on freeways as they try to get home from work.

Peter B. to Increase his Distribution by 900%

Peter B. Collins is the latest liberal talk show host to enter the syndication market. Peter B. has been quietly broadcasting daily, 3pm to 6pm on KXRA,AM 540 in Monterey for the past six months. He announced on his Friday show that starting April 10th his daily show will be picked up by KSAC in Sacremento and KPHX, the new lib talker in Phoenix. This will increase the radio listeners that have access to Peter B's show by 900%. Not a bad a start for a syndication effort. The question is, now that that two of top three lib talkers are not affiliated with AAR --Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller -- and other non AAR lib talkers like Alan Colmes, Lionel, Liz Brown, and now Peter B. -- are gaining distribution is AAR's dominant position at risk?

XM to Offer Regional Talk Stations

One of the key advantages that over the air radio has over satellite radio is the ability to offer local talk programming. While the great majority of top syndicated talkers are available on satellite radio, over the air radio has maintained an exclusive franchise on a local and regional talk. Not anymore. A short while ago Clear Channel gave the okay to XM to add WLW in Cincinnati to its channel line-up. Most of the talkers on WLW do local/regional talk. They include the following personalities:

Scott Sloan
Gary Jeff Walker
Earl Pitts
Darryl Parks
Mike McConnell
Alan Cutler
Sterling
Bill Boshears
Tom Gamble
Richard Skinner

Now Clear Channel and XM have announced a deal to launch six more local/regional talk stations on XM. If those station offer as many talkers as WLW that would mean that XM subscribers will have access to 70 local/regional talkers. So much for over the air radio's advantage over satellite. And why would CC make such a deal? Oh yes, they are an investor in XM.

Air America Radio: No Growth in Last Six Months

Air America Radio Network launched on April 1, 2004. In the first 13 months of existence the liberal radio network grew to 61 affiliated stations serving a potential of just over 100M radio users (the so-called 12+ group)-- that's about 7.7 million new potential listeners each month! In the next six months AAR has added 14 stations and lost three -- WLTQ in Charleston, SC; WHJJ in Providence, RI and WHAT in Philadelphia.

The bottom line is that AAR is still available to just about 100,000 potential radio listeners. The rumor is that they will be losing their coverage on KTTX in Phoenix before the end of the year. -- That’s another 2.8 million potential listeners.

What is happening to AAR?

Have they hit the wall?

Are they just taking a pause before gaining coverage again?

Or are they starting to fade?

No growth in six months in either coverage or ratings. This is not good.

How Clear Channel Saved Air America Radio

Air American Radio launched in April 2004 and immediately fell flat on its face. In less than two months the fledgling liberal network lost its affiliates in Los Angeles and Chicago, started bouncing checks for everything from payroll to studio rentals, and fired their CEO and several other members of top management.

Then something funny happened. While the media, especially the incumbent right wing talk radio pundits, were writing Air America Radio’s obituary, AAR researchers discovered some good news in a ratings report for the networks Portland, OR affiliate. It seems that Clear Channel Communications decided to give AAR a chance on a weak AM stations that it owned in Portland, OR. The station, KPOJ, 620 AM was struggling playing adult standards and generating an average share of less than a buck. Clear Channel decided to give AAR a chance. Afterall, Portland was considered a "liberal" market and there were already three talk radio stations there programming conservative talk radio. Well after one book, KPOJ, improved its average share by 1,000% and Clear Channel took notice. So while AAR’s backers were desperately trying to keep the struggling network from going under, the good news from the left coast provided a helpful surge.

With CC on board AAR’s fortunes started to improve. It seems that CC had bought so many stations over the past half dozen years that they suddenly realized that they owned a lot of AM dogs in some top markets around the country. Most of these stations played oldies rock n’ roll or standards and their miniscule audiences were literally dying off each month. So when CC struck gold with AAR in Portland they started converting AM stations in other markets to liberal talk radio. Eventually 21 CC stations became AAR affiliates and while this only represented 30% of all stations carrying AAR programming, these stations accounted for almost 70% of AAR’s ratings. While most of CC’s AAR stations are not doing as well as KPOJ, which now getting shares over 4, these stations are doing well enough.

CC seems to be happy with the performance of their AAR stations. However, one CC station, WHJJ in Providence has dropped most of the AAR programs including Al Franken’s Show in favor of locally produced talk. Also all CC stations offer Jones’ Liberal talkers Ed Schultz and several offer Stephanie Miller. What is most disturbing is that AAR has not been acquiring many new affiliates for several months now.

For the first year of the liberal talk radio networks existence they gained coverage on stations serving 100.000.000 radio listeners. However, in the last five months while AAR has acquired about a half dozen new affiliates they have not been able to expand their total coverage at all. This is largely due to the lose of WHJJ and two non-CC affiliates in Philadelphia and Charleston, SC. Now it is rumored that AAR will be losing its affiliate in Phoenix – KXXT.

Has AAR hit a plateau and will it be stuck here for awhile or is their lack of growth something more disturbing? What they must now do is concentrate on improving ratings. While it is not reasonable to expect liberal talk radio to establish parity with the leading conservative talk stations – which reach virtually all 200,000 12+ radio listeners in the measured markets. They won’t be able to do this, if for no other reason, than the quality of the stations carrying AAR and other liberal talk programming is significantly less than the stations carrying top conservatives talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. For example, here in Los Angeles, Rush Limbaugh is on the 50,000-watt blowtorch station KFI 640-AM, that can be heard from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. I can't even get the liberal talk stations from San Diego, KLSD and Los Angeles, KTLK on my car radio here in South Orange County (which is halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego.)

However, these stations must figure out a way to increase their ratings before starting a new push for increased distribution.

Guy James

It's been a good year and half for liberal talk radio. In March, 2004 there were no liberal talk stations and probably a dozen liberal talk hosts in the top 100 radio markets. Today the situation is much better.

1. AAR launched in April, 2004 and is now carried on 70 stations.
2. The Ed Schultz Show is now carried on 100 stations.
3. There are probably three or four dozen liberal local talk show hosts in the top 100 markets.

So a guess it was bittersweet when I learned that Guy James was dropped by WINK/WNOG in Naples, FL. Guy has been broadcasting on Saturday afternoons in this reddest of counties in a red state for about three years. He had been on WINK/WNOG for about a year.

I enjoyed listening to Guy who has that kind of Midwest sensibility that Ed Schultz only pretends to have. He is an excellent talk radio host who is extremely patient with callers including some real oddballs and of course frequent right wing wackos. Probably the best part of Guy’s of show is a segment called "Republican Love," where he reads letters that he receives from right wingers. Guy would read the letters with a sweet love song playing softly in background. At typical letter would go like this:

“You no good communist pinko. How dare you say bad things about President Bush. President Bush is a good Christian man and we should all support him. Liberals like you are going to Hell and I can't wait til you die because you are a traitor to this great country. I am going to call the station the demand that they take you off the air.”

Guy would always joke that he was still on the air after three years of complaints from the right wing listeners who weren't happy with the three hours a week of liberal talk programming that listeners had to endure on Saturday afternoon on a station that carried wall to wall right wing talk on the rest of its schedule. He said that station dropped his show because they could allegedly make more money running football games.

The good news is you can still listen to Guy James. His show is streamed on Saturdays from 3 pm to 6 pm. EST. You link up to the stream on Guys website http://www.theguyjamesshow.com/ I hope that Guy gets back on the air real soon. I’m going to really miss listening to Republican Love.

Liberal Talk Radio Takes Off

Liberal talk radio has been steadily growing since Air America Radio launched in a handful of markets in April of 2004. Now 18 months later, the fledgling liberal talk radio network is carried in 70 markets serving over 60% of the country. However, despite the steady growth of AAR and the emergence of a few dozen other liberal talk radio hosts, the talk radio landscape is still dominated by conservative talkers. Conservative talk radio gets over 85% of the share of talk radio listeners. The other 15% is divided between liberal talk radio and non-political talkers like Dr. Laura, Dr. Joy Brown, and Phil Hendrie. In the top 25 markets there are three stations featuring conservative talk for every one station doing liberal talk. Typically, top right wing talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are getting shares of 4 and 5 while liberal talkers like Al Franken and Randi Rhodes are getting shares of 1 and 1.5. Stations featuring conservative talk are more powerful and commercially successful than liberal talk stations. For example, here in Los Angeles, Rush Limbaugh is on the 50,000-watt blowtorch station KFI 640-AM, that can be heard from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. I can't even hear the liberal talk stations from San Diego, KLSD and Los Angeles, KTLK on my car radio here in South Orange County.

Yet the growth of liberal talk radio over the past year and half has been very impressive. I attended a talk radio seminar hosted by Democracy Radio in Washington, DC in January of 2004. At that time, it was still four months before the start of AAR and Ed Schultz, who recently gained his 100th affiliated station was a talk radio host in Fargo, ND. I remember thinking how pathetic it was that we couldn't get a liberal talk radio host here in Los Angeles. (KABC had just canned Michael Jackson and Gloria Alred) and that even in San Francisco, that hotbed of liberalism, you had to stay up past 10 pm to hear to Bernie Ward and Ray Talifafero.
I remember what all the pundits (especially the right wing pundits) were saying when AAR was preparing to launch. They said liberal talk radio will never get off the ground. Liberals are too nuanced. They don't know how to succeed as talk radio hosts. The pundits noted that efforts by Mario Cuomo and Jerry Brown to do talk radio shows had failed and that AAR would certainly meet a similar fate. They chortled when AAR stumbled at the outset, when their original CEO, Evan Cohen, bounced a few checks and the network lost its affiliates in Chicago and Los Angeles.
But then a funny thing happened. While all the headlines were being generated about AAR's financial problems, the network had quietly succeeded to generate an audience in Portland, OR on KPOJ. That station which was owned by the radio industry largest group owner, Clear Channel, was converted from a struggling standards station which generated a share below one to a hot liberal talk station with a share of over 3 after its first book in the summer of 2004.
Ironically, it was Clear Channel, which gave 95% of its political money to Republicans and was the leading owner and operator of conservative talk radio that made AAR a success. Clear Channel owns twenty-seven of AAR’s affiliates and 65% of the network's listeners are tuning in to a CC station. Why did this happen? Why did it take 15 years after to emergence of Rush Limbaugh to get liberal talk radio off the ground? Why did a Texas based, Republican friendly, company become the networks prime benefactor. I'll answer those questions and more in the next edition of the Talking Radio Blog.