Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Broadcast Blues: Beck, Hannity Dropped in Philadelphia

The Right's Radio Windbags are hitting a more few bumps in the road.

As we noted in an earlier post, Glenn Beck's radio show has been dropped in New York City. Beck's station cited falling ratings for the show's cancellation.

Now Beck and Sean Hannity are losing their radio outlets in Philadelphia.

But have no fear, sports fans: Beck and Hannity will continue on Fox News. Check out the Philadelphia story here.

6 comments:

Tulsan said...

Beck and Hannity are the classic little boys who cried "Blitzer!" Why anyone would take them seriously is beyond me.

Man of the West said...

Every so often, you post one that just leaves me in slack-jawed amazement.

Lord have mercy! If Beck and Hannity losing a station or two indicate problems on the right, what do the abysmal ratings of liberal talk-show hosts indicate?

What does the utter collapse of Air America indicate?

I swear, the most consistent feature of your blogging is your utter inability to see weaknesses and flaws on your own side of the aisle.

Tulsan said...

Liberal talk show hosts are on the rise thanks in no small part to the pioneering Air America.

Rachel Maddow is a likable and incredibly well-informed host on MSNBC. Ed Schultz, also excellent at MSNBC, benefitted from AA.

Talkers Magazine calls Thom Hartmann the most important progressive host in the United States. Stephanie Miller is the most successful female liberal talk radio host.

Senator Al Franken.

Not a bad legacy at all for this pioneering network. You might call it an incubator of talent.

MotW, you often profess to be in a state of amazement. You recently said to the eminently reasonable AltTulsa:

"I have to admit that it never occurred to me that you might top yourself...I'll never make that mistake again!"

I guess, like Britney Spears, "Oops, you did it again." You might want to renormalize your expectations if your amazement isn't strictly a rhetorical conceit.

Man of the West said...

You might call it an incubator of talent.

Or you might call it, "rats jumping off a sinking ship." Seems much more appropriate to me.

Talkers Magazine calls Thom Hartmann the most important progressive host in the United States. Stephanie Miller is the most successful female liberal talk radio host.

I thought this was illustrative of the different way we approach the subject, Tulsan. Apparently, being
"the most important progressive host in the United States" or "the most successful female liberal talk radio host" is a pretty big deal to you. To my mind, that's a "So, what?"

The audience for liberal talk is--well, it's just not very large compared to the world of conservative talkers, is it? That Mr. Hartmann and Miss Miller are the most successful at it is not terrifically impressive. It's kind of like being the best cashier at McDonald's.

Same with Miss Maddow and Mr. Schulz. If they're doing well on MSNBC, great, congratulations.

But until MSNBC starts pulling ratings like FOX--sorry, just not that big a deal.

Look, Tulsan, I'm not telling you that there aren't any liberals in America. God knows there are. I figure about 20 percent of the nation is hard-core left, another ten to fifteen percent mostly leftish, and another ten to fifteen percent that can be swayed by a liberal that doesn't sound like he's batsnot crazy, which, in my opinion, is the trick that the President pulled off in the last election.

All I'm sayin' is that it's a mistake to act like Beck and Hannity losing a couple of stations indicates that the electorate is shifting left, which seemed to be the thrust of the post. If that were true--if number of radio listeners or stations indicated overall political strength--then you'd also have to conclude that the left is way, way behind!

That is not a very hard conclusion to reach. Just the result of asking yourself what must be the consequences if the premises are consistently carried out, but ALT just doesn't do things like that. If they ever bother to examine their own thinking, it is not, in my opinion, showing up in what they write--and that is what so often generates those jaw-dropping posts.

Just my two cents, and probably wasted at that.

Tulsan said...

No question that conservative talk is far more successful than liberal/progressive talk. It's more successful than even the numbers suggest it should be. The most recent Gallup poll has the country as 20% liberal, 35% moderate, 42% conservative.

Just speaking for myself as a relative johnny-come-lately liberal, I don't crave a left-wing equivalent of overheated and under-facted right-wing talk. I do sometimes enjoy tuning into part of the MSNBC evening block of progressive talkers. But I suspect that the psychology of us liberals is such that we aren't likely to become the kind of mass audience that right-wingers can.

The MSNBC evening programming hardly balances the 24/7 torrent from Fox News and AM radio, but it didn't even appear possible a scant few years ago. In its scant three years of existence, Air America had a lot to do with it becoming a reality.

As to Beck and Hannity being dropped in New York City and Philadelphia, those are some danged big cities to lose. It surprises me. An event like that would not have seemed possible a few years ago. AltTulsa merely called the cancellations bumps in the road for right-wing windbags, which hardly seems the stuff of amazement.

I must say that I like the trends, if not the raw numbers. How much Rush, Beck and Hannity can a sane person take?

Tulsan said...

From Here's Why the Right Wing Dominates Talk Radio Today:

"Vertical integration: Precisely what the federal government has moved to ban in the television and movie industries with anti-trust actions. But the radio business has gotten a free pass.

"Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates righties Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Dr. Laura, among others, is owned by the nation's largest radio-station conglomerate, Clear Channel. Clear Channel, thanks to FCC deregulation, was allowed to gobble up over 1000 radio stations -- including 16 of the most powerful, clear-channel AM stations in major markets."

Similar story for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. which owns Fox News and Fox News Radio.

Murdoch and Lowry Mays, the Clear Channel owner, are both extremely conservative.