Tab article on Air America Radio

[Donna Halper]

>Dan B wrote--
>O'Reilly is right of center, but not an ideological conservative.  He has 
>liberal views on many issues.

HUH?????  I've listened and watched him off an on, and while he claims to 
have liberal views, I have never heard him do anything other than inflame 
his audience over right-wing conservative culture war issues, and he 
follows the Bush/Republican party line faithfully.  Btw, let's not let this 
conversation deteriorate into whether somebody is good or bad based on 
their ideology.  Ratings for Fox and for Limbaugh show that for whatever 
reason, people will listen to and accept a steady diet of one-sided 
rhetoric.  It will be interesting to see whether the liberal talk hosts 
like Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes and Al Franken-- and even 
Jerry Springer, whose new talk show is getting a push for (of all people) 
Clear Channel) establish themselves and make any impact.  In some markets, 
they do seem to be getting good numbers already, although it's still early 
and it took right wing talk hosts several years to get big numbers.  Also, 
many AA afiliates are on stations with awful signals-- I've mentioned that 
at night you can't get WXKS or WKOX anywhere south of Boston, for example, 
and out in Western Mass the supposed AA affiliate (WHMP) only carries 2 AA 
shows, and carries them on delay.  When that changes, we'll see what people 
think of their programs.

But Dan B is right-- the key is for them to be entertaining.  Keep in mind 
though, all you friendly right-wingers on this list, that just as the right 
loves to beat up on its favourite whipping boys and girls (like Hillary and 
Bill Clinton), so the left too has a large number of frustrated and 
disillusioned people who want the chance to beat up on Bush or DeLay or 
whoever.  People whose ideology is different from that of the host may not 
find Bush-bashing entertaining, but I can assure you, for many many people 
who felt excluded from talk radio for a long time (9 out of 10 talk shows 
were right-wing conservative till last year), they are enjoying hearing 
somebody speak to the left wing and liberal issues.  I think there's a 
niche for it, but yes I do agree that anger alone won't sustain these 
stations.  Let's see how much of an activist voice they can be and how much 
they can contribute to the other side of the issues being presented on talk 
radio, rather than the continued dominance of only right wing opinions.  I 
think there's a need for both sides, and that's why as a listener who 
identifies as a moderate, I am willing to give AA and Democracy Radio a 
chance to work out their growing pains and see what they can achieve.  I 
don't like extreme rhetoric, no matter who is doing it.  But I understand 
how much pent up frustration people on the left have had for years about 
how talk radio was dominated by the Limbaughs and Savages and O'Reillys and 
when the right said something that was not entirely true, there was no way 
to respond.  Now, there is.  I'll be watching the ratings to see if that 
translates into any numbers.