Axe falls on WRKO news Dept.

[SteveOrdinetz]

  Donna Halper wrote:
>  But again, it's individual hosts who do well-- the jury is still 
> out on the format as a whole.   And I do agree that liberals and 
> conservatives sometimes argue differently, but here again, not all 
> conservative hosts are getting the big numbers and not all liberal 
> hosts are being rejected.  It took Limbaugh more than 5 years to 
> turn a profit and get big numbers.  Fox News lost money for 4 years 
> and Murdoch had to keep  bailing it out.  I'm interested in the 
> development of TALENT on progressive talk stations.  Hiring a 
> celebrity like Al Franken doesn't mean he'll be a good talk 
> host.  It's an art, and I think we all agree that Limbaugh, whether 
> we like his politics or not, does entertaining radio more often 
> than not.  Liberals came very late to using radio and as a result, 
> they haven't developed as many entertaining hosts yet.

I'm wondering if your last point might not be a key reason why 
liberal talk has generally not done well....by the time liberal talk 
got started, the whole talk radio phenomenon had peaked....listeners 
were getting weary of one-sided rants, and politics in general.  Even 
Rush isn't getting the numbers he once did.  And when AAR debuted 
with more of the same only with a different ideology it was the wrong 
product at the wrong time.