Every talk show I’ve heard on the AM dial in recent memory has had a conservative bent – Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Savage Nation, and so on.
Excluding NPR, Radio Pacifica (i.e. “Radio Everything America Does Is Wrong”), community radio heard only in a few very progressive college towns (Boulder, Berleley, etc.), or shock jocks (Howard Stern), are there any nationally syndicated talk shows that lean towards the left? How popular are they? Why is AM talk dominated by conservatives, anyhow?
I don’t know that I would consider Howard stern a liberal, but that’s for another time. It isn’t a recent phenomenon to have the radio talk format dominated by conservatives, it’s pretty much been that way for around 3o years or so. I think it’s because, WARNING, hasty generalization with absolutely no proof behind it it coming up it is easier for conservatives to find things to “attack” and yet come across as mainsteream then it is for liberals. If you notice, almost none of the callers into the conservative talk shows disagree with the host or the hosts views, they just blindly “ditto” them, which makes listening to htme about as exciting as giving myself paper cuts. Liberals seem more inclined to actually debate, which doesn’t make for good ratings in the soundbite universe in which we live.
Now, feel free to rip my entire post to shreds.
But please be gentle with me.
The liberals get their’s for free, so why pay for it? 
There are any number of talk shows on NPR, each more liberal than the next. Which I guess is kniz’s point.
there are no liberal talk shows because liberals are out working for a living and don’t have time to sit on their dead conservative ass and listen to hate radio.
ditto-heads for the most part are retired military, retired wealthy (usually inherited), and young republican salesmen driving around all day in their sport cars. then there are the ultra conservative house wives who are married to someone making enough money that they do not have to work.
also conservative ideology is all black and white, liberals tend to see the gray areas of issues and this requires thought. the last thing you need to do when listening to limbag is use your brain.
I hear it now … off to Great Debates, I guess.
Because they own the stations, silly!
(You don’t believe any of that “liberal-owned media” nonsense, do you?)
Nobody has ever heard of the Tom Lykis (sp?) show? He’s liberal.
Well, dammit, if you can’t count NPR, then I suppose you have to mention that Libertarian radio network. I heard it in the low 80’s on FM somewhere between Harrsonburg and Bedford, VA. They claimed to be an independent network in multiple locations around the country.
Among other things, they played recordings of speeches from the dudes who orchestrated the Seattle, DC, and Toronto–I think–demonstrations.
Of course, we have to qualify exactly what a “liberal” is, for the purposes of this question. I don’t exactly want to count those guys on my side.
Ok, so we can deduce from the replies that:
A. Liberals work more than conservatives
B. Liberals listen to less radio than conservatives
C. Only liberals debate
D. The “mainstream” agree more with conservatives than they do with liberals
E. Liberals are less likely to call a conservative radio show and debate
F. Most people that retired wealthy inherited their money
Now lets look at these more closely.
A. B. and F. Site? I’m guessing these are going to be hard to prove one way or the other
C. Dont you need someone to debate against?
D. By definition doesn’t “mainstream” mean middle of the road and not on either side?
E. This is probably true because I often notice that conservative radio hosts ussualy dont give liberal callers a chance
As for the OP, I’m going to guess that conservative talk radio is what gets the ratings. Conservatives like it because its not from the “liberal media” and its a different point of view. You get more detailed info than you do from the talking heads on network and cable news. Liberals like it because it pisses them off and gives them ammo for the Pit.
dead0man
…I’m drawing a bead on you, dead0man.
Name that pun in five letters.
I’m drawing blanks.
:smack:
dead0man
NPR.
To expand a bit…you listed ‘NPR, Radio Pacifica (i.e. “Radio Everything America Does Is Wrong”), community radio heard only in a few very progressive college towns (Boulder, Berleley, etc.), or shock jocks (Howard Stern)’. That is quite a big chunk,
Alan Combes (Of Hannity and Combes fame) has a syndicated talkshow from my understanding.
And NPR’s liberal taint is tax-funded. Something is most definitely wrong there!
there are liberal talk shows on the internet, check this out.
also check out bartcop.com for liberal information.
I’ve listened to many conservative talk shows in my day (not out of choice, I hasten to add, but because my mother listens to them, and before I could drive I had little choice) and I don’t really find this to be true. The hosts love it when someone calls in to disagree with them. The purpose of this, however, is not reasoned debate. The purpose is to systematically tear down an opposing argument. Because the host can hang up at any time, he can always get the last word in. Therefore, a disagreeing caller is a great oppurtunity to make the other side sound wrong and silly.
I have no cites, but I believe I’ve heard at least as many callers disagreeing with Limbaugh as agreeing with him. They just end up sounding silly because of the orating skills of the host and his ability to hang up.
Cite? I think both sides have an agenda to push for. Actual debate would get in the way.
-Loopus
To hear the conservative talk shows tell it, all media is left-wing. This being the same media that benefits from deregulation in order to own and control most of the media outlets that are the “public airwaves.” Hence you hear the same crap (music formats, syndicated talk shows, etc.) repeated in every market. Comparing the millions of listeners to Rush, et al to the perhaps hundreds of listeners of an Internet talk show hardly seems like a balance.
I can’t think of any current liberal radio talk shows.
It makes me wax nostalgiac for Mae Brussell the late “Queen of Conspiracy Theorists” shows back in the 70’s & 80’s on KLRB in Carmel and later KAZU in Pacific Grove, CA.
I don’t know as she could be labeled a liberal, there’s really been nothing like her. The amount of research she did boggles the mind. If only she’d lived long enough to utilize the Internet.
But maybe since it was the military who initially developed the web, they foresaw what Mae could bring down on them and had her eliminated before she could utilize the web to expose them.
Oh, Mae, where are you now that we need you even more?
loopus…
listen to limbag very carefully. you will discover that the caller is cut off waaaaaaaaaay before limbag stops talking to them. he rattles on and on making his right wing point and the caller has no chance to reply, because they have been silenced many minutes before.
this is what limbag is really good at, mass deception.
Jim Hightower had a show for a while, but it was truly bad. I remember listening to him when he first came on and quickly got sick and tired of him. It was around Xmas time I believe and all he did was critisize the “rich”. They were all evil, horrible Mongomery Burns types who want more and more and damn everyone else. While he makes valid points, he was more of a one note host than Limbaugh (who I am not a big fan of either).
Last I heard, Hightower had a minute or two commentary on some stations in the afternoon or weekend, but I am not sure if it is even still on the air.
Perhaps I didn’t make it clear in my post, but that was part of my point. That’s what I meant when I said, “Because the host can hang up at any time, he can always get the last word in.”
I agree with you.
-Loopus