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April 19, 2005
Moonbat Radio Flops
In a refreshing break from the monotonously politically correct skew of their editorial page, the Los Angeles Times has published an insightful piece by Brian Anderson on why Air America, the Left's attempt to counter Rush Limbaugh et al., has been a dismal failure.
There have been boasts that Air Hate America has expanded now to 50 markets. But Anderson compares that with the 124 markets reached by William Bennett's radio show, which launched around the same time, and points out that within those 50 markets, Air America simply isn't listened to, even in moonbat bastions like San Francisco, Boston, and New York, where it is currently 24th in the ratings.
Anderson finds three major reasons why Air America has been such an abortion, even among people who are normally very enthused about abortions, despite the buckets of money poured into it by limousine leftists and the massive free publicity it has received from the fawning liberal elite press:
- Conservatives apply a sense of humor to their programming, which makes it more engaging.
- Only white liberals — a relatively small demographic — would be interested, and they're already listening to NPR. (Blacks and Hispanics have other venues.)
- Liberals already have television, newspapers, and the weekly news magazines spewing out exactly what they want to hear, so they are less inclined to listen to the radio.
Another reason for the failure of liberal radio is made clear by its own defenders. Who would want to listen to such insufferable snobs? Explaining why his own radio show bombed, Mario Cuomo sniffed that conservatives "write their messages with crayons," whereas liberals "use fine-point quills."
In other words, America can't grasp their sophisticated nuances, because it just isn't good enough for them. Yet they still don't move to Canada or France, despite all the promises.
In response, listeners are saying, "Okay, so you have a right to take our money and control our lives and treat us like second-class citizens and sneer at our values because you're better than us. We've got the message. Now you can shut up."
Then they reach for the dial and switch over to Rush or Sean Hannity.
There is a dark side to the story though. As their attempts to block judicial nominations proves, the Left will not hesitate to cheat when it can't win by playing fair. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY) wants to revive a constitutionally obscene concept called the Fairness Doctrine, by which the Government would force radio stations to broadcast left-wing propaganda, whether people want to hear it or not.
I doubt if anyone will be surprised to hear that John Kerry supports the idea.
Hat tip: Bergbikr.
Cross-posted to The Wide Awakes.
Posted by Van Helsing at April 19, 2005 12:16 PM
Comments
Great post. Air America seems the only reasonable justification for keeping abortion safe and legal in this country, just so they can be eventually put out of their misery. You nailed their pathos beautifully. They can't seriously be happy over there, either, knowing that they are not only unsuccessful, but utterly irrelevant to boot. It's a quality of life thing.
Posted by: The MaryHunter at April 19, 2005 10:48 PM
Good post and kind of scares me a bit. The liberals will destroy this country as we know it, if we don't fight 'em back.
Posted by: Raven at April 20, 2005 03:02 PM
I tuned in to Al Franken when the station first started. We can add one more reason it is flopping.
4). It is boring as hell.
Franken was monotone and very unorganized with his topics. There was no flow at all to the show. I only lasted 10 minutes, so I can't really can't make a valid review. I just stopped by to boot franken in the nuts.
Posted by: tomslick at April 20, 2005 04:40 PM