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| Progressive talk radio is an endangered species. |
The racist right won many battles in 2013. They've taken Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Rand Paul to the mainstream. Four men who have relatively no accomplishments managed to get more attention in the junk food media. They've been on many GOP Sunday programs ranting and raving about how they hate Barack Obama and offer no real ideas to go against him.
They've gotten Martin Bashir off MSNBC (Obama News) after he compared Palin Da Ass's comments to defecating in a slave's mouth.
They've rallied against the IRS, the U.S. Census bureau, the TSA, the NSA and the president's nominees.
How many times have you've heard about Benghazi?
I know that Lindsay Graham, Michelle Bachmann, Darrell Issa, and Mike Rogers are harping about the president letting Americans dies overseas at a Libyan consulate that was a CIA front. And despite evidence proving the president's point about a spontaneous event, these right wing agitators made a theme of it being a moment of aloof for President Barack Obama.
They managed to shuffle the deck in the fight for Congress. The Republicans lead in most national polls. They many have the potential to win Congress. They've gerrymandered districts that made it even harder for Democrats to pick up. To make this clear, even a moderate Republican can lose.
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| Alan Colmes |
They managed to put progressive radio on the ropes literally. They cheer knowing that Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Alan Colmes, Joe Madison, Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy are bumped off the air.
In part of the Cumulus firing of That Guy Who Helped Obama Win (aka Sean Hannity), the radio dials had to change flagships. Some stations are willing to take that annoying ass conservative agitator in place of a handful of progressive agitators who once held title to their stations. The shakeup has even Stephanie Miller, the 10th most listened agitator searching for a new radio home. Ed Schultz, the fifth most listened agitator on radio flagship WWRL AM, New York is going to Spanish language and he's bumped.
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| Stephanie Miller. |
It's a sad state of affairs. Most talk radio hosts are WHITE MALES. There is a strong lack of diversity in the talk radio format.
And due to the fact that those two conservative agitators caused a whole lot of trouble during 2012 U.S. presidential elections, some media outlets are trying to keep controversy to a minimum.
These two agitators really screwed up everyone's opportunity for advertising successes. Now progressive talkers and up-in-coming conservatives are struggling to find many radio affiliates and finding alternatives off the AM dial. Some are taking it to SiriusXM or the internet.
The stations that had progressive radio agitators are being replaced with conservative agitators. Some are even going to sports talk and Spanish radio.
Currently, there are fewer than 100 U.S. commercial radio stations carrying liberal talk programs, compared to around 600 stations for King Hippo and 500 for That Guy Who Helped Obama Win and many other agitators. A good example of the format's struggles is in Boston, where Clear Channel put it on AM 1200 and 1430 from 2004 until 2006. A short time later, host Jeff Santos began buying time on WWZN AM 1510 in Boston airing his own show plus syndicated offerings such as Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller.
As money dried up, and after other national hosts were offered such as Al Sharpton, his brokered time on WWZN shrank to his own show, and then that was cut loose in the fall of 2012 as the station went to all sports. Santos does have a few other stations in other areas carrying his show but is currently off in Boston, thought of as a left-leaning city (it is possible National Public Radio stations in the area cater to this audience already.)
On January 21, 2010, Air America announced that it would immediately cease programming, and the company would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy; citing some of the following reasons on their website:
"The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America's business.
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| Joe Madison left AM radio to join SiriusXM. One of the many progressive voices on radio that moved to the internet when their affiliates dropped programming. |
From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry's long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times."
It's business though.
In my opinion the top ten agitators in the talk radio format:
1) Rush Limbaugh
2) Sean Hannity
3) Michael Savage
4) Glenn Beck
5) Ed Schultz
6) Mark Levin
7) Dave Ramsey
8) Thom Hartmann
9) Howard Stern
10) Stephanie Miller
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