Liberals may want to insist on the "Fairness Doctrine" as a business
strategy, since liberal talk is barely moving the ratings needle. The
Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported Monday that "President Obama
may be riding high in Washington, but OBAMA 1260 is not. The area's
only progressive talk station is changing formats, dropping such
syndicated liberal hosts as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Bill
Press in favor of financial news, starting next week."
Technically, Kurtz is wrong, excluding NPR affiliate WAMU (which airs
a number of liberal talk shows and zero conservative ones) and radical
Pacifica station WPFW. It would have been more accurate to say the
area’s only commercial "progressive" talk station, the only one that
doesn’t take our tax dollars. Kurtz continued:
Program Director Greg Tantum says he thought the station could
work because of enthusiasm over Obama, but that ratings collapsed to a
level that could not be measured after the election. But ratings
nearly doubled, he says, at...conservative station, WTNT, which
features Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett. Tantum said he will move
Schultz to WTNT to give him another shot.
This is why a "Fairness Doctrine" sounds like the Radio Recession Act
in the middle of a tough economy. If conservative shows are hot (in
part because liberals control Washington), why would you impose
liberal talk shows that can’t be meaured by ratings meters? How are
station owners supposed to keep people in their jobs with an add-
losing-shows formula?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/02/02/d-c-station-dumps-its-failing-liberal-obama-1260-talk-format
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
