Since the rise of Rush Limbaugh and the shift of hundreds of
radio stations to wall-to-wall conservative talk in the 1990s, progressives
have faced a decidedly uphill battle. In my experience, most station owners and
managers have a strong bias to the right, and with a few exceptions, the rest
just look for the easiest way to make maximum profit.
It's no accident that Limbaugh was recruited for the heavily
market-researched model that was labelled "non-guested confrontation talk
radio" after Reagan's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted the
Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Clinton's 1996
Telecommunications Act removed
ownership limits that led to rapid consolidation and the troublesome
concentration of control by national operators we see today. Three companies
control almost all of the talk radio stations with competitive signals in the
major markets: Clear Channel, CBS and Cumulus.
In my view, we have reached a major crisis due to right-wing
bias in talk radio. This right-wing tilt has an obvious impact on our politics
and culture. But President Obama, his FCC appointees and most members of Congress
- including all but a handful of Democrats - are indifferent. Sadly, it seems
that most listeners are indifferent, too.
Having walked some miles in similar shoes, I know the
difficult decisions facing my radio friends and colleagues and their business operations.
With affiliates, audiences and revenues all declining and the muscular
expansion of sports-talk by CBS, FOX, NBC SportsRadio and ESPN, the future
looks pretty bleak for lib-talk. You might ask, as David Byrne once sang,
"How did we get here?"
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