Why Talk Radio is largely conservative - (Was: Howie Carr, etc.etc. etc)

[iraapple]

An excellent example of the balance was at KDKA with Roy Fox and John Cigna
at night.

WJAS, also in Pittsburgh had talk hosts with a variety of views from Ultra
Right and Left to some generally in the Middle.



-----Original Message-----
From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Donna Halper
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 11:53 AM
To: Sid Schweiger; boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org
Subject: RE: Why Talk Radio is largely conservative - (Was: Howie
Carr,etc.etc. etc)


>Sid wrote--
>
>For me, the problem with most talk radio as it's practiced now is 
>that talk hosts don't get ratings unless they're talking past the other
side.

Sid names G. Gordon Liddy as polite to callers; from the progressive 
side, I'd say the same about Thom Hartmann, who is both literate and 
courteous.  But this brings up a historical point-- in the first 
heyday of talk radio, the late 1960s, stations had both righties and 
lefties on the air, and the public loved it.  The folks who hated the 
rightie listened just to disagree with him, and the folks who hated 
the leftie did the same, but people listened to ALL the shows, 
according to Arbitron "time spent listening" numbers. These days, 
most stations are all right-wing talkers all the time (or a few are 
all left-wing talkers all the time), but the idea of letting both 
sides be heard rarely occurs.