Talk Show Radio Watch: Weaker?
Tim Rutten, of the Los Angeles Times has Talk radio shows’ reception seems to be getting weaker
Talk is cheap — unless it’s political talk on the radio, and then it’s influential.
At least it has been.
Now some people think the talk bubble has, if not burst, begun to lose its wind.
Since these days the medium is overwhelmingly and partisanly Republican, those on the blue side of the aisle fervently want this to be true. Those in the red pews argue that talk is, in some ways, a victim of its own success and of an audience whose attention waxes and wanes with the election cycle.
As more than one person interviewed for this column pointed out, Rush Limbaugh can’t really be expected to go on adding stations, because he’s already everywhere.
Still, however you measure these things, broadcasting professionals agree that audiences for political talk shows have declined significantly throughout this year. That’s certainly been true in Los Angeles. This week, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul reported that Limbaugh has lost 43% of his audience there, while Sean Hannity’s has declined by 63%. An executive at the station that airs both programs in the Twin Cities told the paper, “We have really become concerned with what I could call their tight play list of topics revolving around politics.” A Clear Channel programming executive in Northern California, where declines also have occurred, admitted, “We’re not sure yet what’s really going on.”
Regular folks don’t want to hear the rants and raves of politicos and pundits (like Flap) all of the time.
And, frankly, the radio waves are saturated with left and right wing hosts.
Rutten fails to mention the decline in the Los Angeles Times circulation and the decline in newspaper subscriptions nationwide. But, this is a story on a competing media whose decline would bring back advertising dollars to the Times so……..
Read Hugh Hewitt’s take on this story here.
Patterico is looking forward to the Monday radio interview of Hewitt and what Rutten left out.
So, is talk radio weaker?
Perhaps.
But, the internet (radio and print) and the blogopshere are much stronger.
In any case, more widespread dissemination of information and opinion (regardless of the medium) is not a bad thing in a democracy.
Technorati Tags: Los Angeles Times, Tim Rutten, talk radio, Hugh Hewitt, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity