I have the habit of watching the left wing web sites, looking for trends on the various topics of the day. It helps me stay on top of events and generate commentary. I am embarrassed to say that I have an amazing number of half-finished pieces that go back years, on file. Occasionally, I can build them into something that works as time and events move forward.
Because of that habit, I have seen in recent months calls for a new leftist talk radio show, or perhaps a network containing a number of them. A leftist Rush Limbaugh, if you will. Since I have a broadcast background, it’s a subject near and dear to me. My immediate reaction is to chuckle a bit.
The usual argument is that the left is failing at the polls because its message isn't getting out there as it once did when they had the monopoly on news outlets, and so on. Apparently, nobody remembers the attempts that have been made to that end, which not only failed but failed in spectacular fashion.
I suggest that no leftist radio network will ever work. There are some things that simply will not sell. The word “sell” here is not an idle choice. Consider the conflict of purposes, of a network of radio stations that is, in the end, anti-capitalist, that needs a healthy dose of capitalist-driven commerce, or if you like, greed, for its very survival.
History, even recent history, tells us that if leftism could be sold in the broadcast media, CNN would be going like hotcakes instead of being the ratings comedy they are, MSNBC wouldn’t have needed rebranding, and Air America would not only still be in business, but it would also be something it never was: dominant. The fact is, none of those are true because liberalism simply cannot be sold to the American people. When given a choice, they turn it off.
Air America is a great example. (I prefer to call it Err America. It fits better.)
From its start in 2004, it was turning in abysmal numbers. Typically, Air America was carried on what are known in the trade as rimshot stations. These were stations that were essentially basket cases, located in small towns outside of larger cities, with limited coverage into those cities. A good example of one of Air America’s stations was KOKE in Pflugerville, Texas, which is a bit northeast of Austin. Its transmitter site is still in Manor, Texas, which is a little southeast of Austin.
That’s not unusual; stations often have different locations from their City of License. A good example of this would be 77/WABC, with a city of license in New York City, but its actual transmitter site is in Lodi, N.J., about 17 miles away.)
Ratings, apparently, were the biggest factor in KOKE pulling the plug on the network. It got an initial listener boost, but that faded quickly. In the last ratings book, it couldn’t even pull 1% in a town known as liberal, despite having 5,000 watts during the day (700 watts at night). That’s actually a good signal, one of the better ones on the net at the time. The coverage map for both daytime and nighttime suggests decent coverage in the downtown Austin area, which is where, for example, the University of Texas is located. Someone must have figured it would be a good draw for the station, but it didn’t happen. That lack of listeners translated into an unsustainable situation for the station.
Interestingly, KOKE spun from Err America to a Mexican music format. Its frequency, 1600, is kind of a graveyard channel, which means that there are a number of competing signals on that frequency, for example, KRVA in Dallas, KOGT in Orange, Texas, near the Louisiana border, which has since gone dark. KOKE needs to protect those operators from interference at night.
The point is, KOKE was a bottom-feeder, with its Err America programming, like most of the stations carrying the network. The station couldn’t pull 1% listenership in Austin, a town that makes Boston look like a bastion of conservatism by comparison.
Some other stations that carried Air America fared no better. The Radio Equalizer offered this assessment of that, a mere six months or so after it launched in 2005:
Since our last report, network execs and local managers have become increasingly defiant about its future prospects, even as its failure becomes more clear.
Many management egos are on the line with this latest stab at providing an alternative to conservative talk radio. It doesn't look like they will give up easily.
But what is the thought process in a place like Providence, where once-strong conservative WHJJ-AM was destroyed after its switch to Air America programming? How does a situation like that play out? Does the format change, are managers fired, or do they hold out until the inevitable, sad end?
To the Radio Equalizer, most telling is the recent report that Al Franken has purchased a home in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, gearing up for a potential 2008 US Senate run. Franken's clearly making backup plans.
The article goes on to report that there were a number of wage disputes with their higher-paid hosts. There's that capitalism thing again. More from that article:
WLIB, (New York) Air America's flagship station, continues to show no growth, coming in at 24th place with no change in audience share. The station's inability to grow by even a measly tenth of a share must be frustrating to the corporate suits.
KLSD-AM (San Diego) weighs in at a flat 1.6 share, no change since last month, but off the earlier high of 2.3. This is the station touted as lib talk's great hope, but it's in no danger of taking off, ever.
And so it went across the country. By the end, there wasn't a single station on the network that was seeing ratings increases. Finally, they all had to cut the cord.
After many infusions of cash by its ardent millionaire supporters, including George Soros, Air America was mercifully allowed to go belly-up in 2017, this very week, as it happens. At its peak, it had 66 affiliates. Mechanically, their format was not unlike the old ABC Talk Radio format, satellite-delivered, with remote-fired recordings intended to make the thing sound like it was being run from the local station.
Another example of glorious failure was Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who had his own radio show for a while. It was actually syndicated, though I cannot confirm how many stations actually carried the show. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn you’ve never heard of it; most other folks didn’t either at the time, and certainly since. If I recall correctly, the show was syndicated out of WABC in New York City. (As was ABC Talk Radio before it.)
As with Err America, the idea was to be the leftist answer to the ever-popular Rush Limbaugh. Cuomo ended up shutting the show down less than a year later. The usual suspects mourned its passing by saying that he was too intellectual for the audience he was trying to draw. It was a laughable claim, but it allowed Cuomo to save face. Meanwhile, nobody else noticed. In short, Cuomo ended up talking to himself.
Know where he did well? He went from that show to one on the NPR outlet, WAMC, that covers Albany, and up and down I-88 toward Binghamton, New York, via a number of smaller power FM repeaters. Even there, however, he wasn’t drawing any serious listener numbers despite the large numbers of New York State government workers in the capital region and the PBS listeners being overwhelmingly liberal.
So I say again. Another liberal network? No. It's never worked.
Limbaugh used to say that it was the content that sold his show to the listener. AM or FM, it didn't matter. It was the content that drew the huge ratings he always had. He even suggested at one point that Air America failed because of its content, and he was spot on there, too.
