Again, Fox News is not analogous to Air America. It should be compared to CNN.
Rush Limbaugh, as far as I recall, does not have a lot of huge corporate sponsors. Snapple, sure, but beyond that I don’t recall any big companies advertising on him. Of course, I haven’t listened to him in 10 years. It could be different now.
Come on now, Bricker. A noble undertaking to be a beacon of truth should not be held to such mundane standards.
The example of Coors has already been mentioned. Keep in mind the people who actually saw those Coors ads in gay magazines were mostly gay and unoffended. But other people, who never read gay magazines and never saw the ads, were told about them and they were offended.
The same could happen with other advertisers. If McDonald’s advertises on the Al Franken Show, nobody who’s listening to the show would be bothered by the association. But other people might be told that McDonald’s is supporting the liberal media agenda and might decide to stop supporting McDonald’s because of it.
:rolleyes: Fox news is not analogous to CNN!
Yes, and advertisers are well within their rights to do so. First Amendment and all that.
It’s not uncommon for an advertiser to dictate which shows their ads will air in. Some advertisers just don’t want their name associated with “controversial” programming, and they decide what’s controversial. Others don’t mind so much, or else there are other factors that are more desirable to the advertiser. This article is a little old, but it explains how radio advertising works.
And Renob is right. Fox may slant heavily to the right, but it is not analogous to Air America for the purposes of this discussion.
Robin
You all might not be using the same liberal/conservative axis.
ISTM that rich people tend to be more fiscally conservative, i.e. they-got-theirs, screw welfare. OTOH poor people tend to be more socially conservative, i.e. good ol downhome family values, to heck with hollyweird.
I disagree with this, considering that most (all?) of those stations air much more than just AA content. I consider AA programming to be analogous to Fox commentary programming, so a radio station that has some news, as well as some AA programming would indeed be a valid comparison to Fox news (other than that whole radio vs. TV thing).
This is true. I think there is a false dichotomy going on…that a “commercial” decision and a “political” decision are completely different things or mutually exclusive, but they aren’t. Although I do believe that the low ratings of AA is at the heart of this decision, that doesn’t mean that other considerations don’t come into it. Ads are targeted at certain audiences all the time, to where the advertiser thinks their dollars will be most effective. Likewise, they steer away from certain audiences or certain controversial topics, if they are afraid of how that topic will reflect on them with their target audience. I really don’t see anything nefarious going on…it’s just business.
I have to agree here, too. I won’t get into the “how biased is Fox vs. CNN” discussion, but there is a huge difference between a TV cable news station and a Radio talk/opinion format station. Just the differences in TV vs. radio are too large to even begin to compare the two in terms of advertising.
Radio vs. TV is a huge difference in terms of ad dollars spent. I’m sure Fox & CNN both get far more people watching at any given time than any of these lower-rated talk radio hosts ever get in terms of listeners. You simply can’t compare radio & TV…whether or not the content is similar is beside the point.
Which has nothing to do with the point that I was making, and is why I included that observation only parenthetically. I’m pretty sure Robin was doing the comparisons based on level of bias, not on their distribution medium, since that’s the main thrust of this thread. If not, then my post is irrelevant to this discussion.
I’ll be the first to say that comparing 24 hours of Fox programming (which includes news, sports, etc., as well as commentary) is not as biased as AA programming, which is all commentary. I’ll be the last to say that Fox commentary programming is not as biased as AA programming, which again, is also all commentary.
When stating that an advertiser doesn’t want to air on AA because of political divisivness, one needs to ask why that same advertiser would air on Limbaugh, O’Reilly, etc., which is what BrainGlutton brought up earlier. TV advertisers are very aware of what programming is on during their timeslots, so anyone who advertises on one of those commentary shows is going to be laughed at if they use Renob’s excuse for not airing on AA.
There’s profitable political divisiveness. Then there’s the not-profitable kind. Follow the earballs.
Except that, as of yet, no one has shown that these advertisers are airing on Limbaugh, O’Reilly, etc. In fact, we’ve had several posters state that they’ve never heard any of the aforementioned companies advertise on Rush Limbaugh’s show.
Cingular, for one, advertises on the O’Reilly Factor.
ABC Radio Group reaches 147 million people weekly. As an advertiser, I’d want a piece of that.
Once again, either they did it for political reasons, or they didn’t. Arguing that they want to avoid politics, then when it’s pointed out that they advertise on politically charged outlets, turning around and saying that they’re really avoiding low ratings potential is just moving the goalposts.
Yeah, why would anyone want to advertise on the most popular Cable News show? Doesn’t make any sense, does it?
I took MsRobyn’s point to be that the two media are not comparable from a business standpoint, not, in fact, that the level of bias are the same or not the same. She specifically said that they are not analagous for the purposes of this discussion, regardless of the fact that Fox News slants to the right. She was pointing out, I think, that editorially they may be similar, but from an advertising dollars standpoint, they are not. And the reason they are not, at least as far as I can see, is that there are inherent differences between the two media in terms of # of viewers/listeners.
The main thrust of this thread as I see it is what the reason is that certain companies do not want to place ads on Air America. Some see it as only political, some see it as business, some see it as both. I was trying to point out the differences in the distribution media as a means of demonstrating why someone may want to air ads on one, but not the other. So I don’t think what you said was irrelevant, but what I said was not off the track of the thread, either. The point I was trying to make was that, in discussing this kind of a topic, the differences in the media should be more than just a paranthetical aside.
Let me know if I am totally off-base, here, MsRobyn!
I’m just not buying this “fear of backlash” argument. How many people do you know who would boycott McDonald’s, or boycott General Electric or Microsoft products, because they heard the company had run an ad on AA? It seems an utterly ridiculous thing for the execs to fear.
I’m not sure about it either…but even if there is some fear of association with certain controversial topics or opinions, I don’t think it’s about fear of an actual boycott or people running away in droves. Consumer reaction is often subconscious and subtle, and isn’t necessarily noticed until the quarterly numbers come out.
There’s also the issue that Fox News advertises itself as news, not as commentary. (FTR, CNN also has a radio news division.) Air America, on the other hand, markets itself as liberal political commentary. In this case, it’s not slant that matters, it’s how they market themselves.
I should point out that commentary shows like O’Reilly’s Radio Factor are not distributed by Fox. His show is distributed by Westwood One, which is owned by CBS. Westwood One also distributes Larry King’s radio show.
Robin
Insert Ted Haggard joke here…