Right-Wing Talk Radio Host: We're Killing The GOP

Right-wing talk radio host Michael Medved says right-wing talk radio is killing the Republican party:

The multibillion-dollar talk radio industry faces existential challenges and dramatic opportunities in the upcoming Age of Obama. Depending on responses from leading conservative talkers, this rude, raucous indispensable medium will either rise to new heights of mainstream influence, profit and credibility, or else collapse as a declining vehicle for an increasingly angry and alienated fringe.

For more than a decade, I've hosted a nationally syndicated political talk show. Like all radio veterans, I cherish the notion that the last time a young Democrat took over the White House with gauzy visions of change, it produced a "Golden Age" for right-wing talk.

...

Today's titans of talk naturally dream of repeating this revival, but even if Obamatrons offer targets for ridicule every bit as juicy as Clintonistas, it won't be easy to recapture the potent magic of the 1990s. Most obviously, the rapid development of cable TV and the Internet has given the public innumerable new options for debate and information. During Clinton's era, conservative talk radio offered the inevitable destination for political junkies who cared deeply about the fate of the new administration. Today, many leading TV comics and commentators lean unabashedly to the left, while progressive websites rival popular right-wing sources online.

This fragmentation of the mass audience has led many talk shows to cultivate a niche audience rather than the Republican mainstream. In the aftermath of stinging GOP defeat in November, radio crackles with blame-game arguments intended to divide "real conservatives" from unworthy moderate imposters -- as if the GOP could become the first party in history to expand an already shrunken base by purging its membership.

...

Increasingly, interests of commercial talk radio in a fractured market diverge from the needs of a viable national movement. A radio show (locally or nationally) that draws just 5% of the available audience can achieve notable success in ratings and revenue, but a conservatism that connects with only a disgruntled, paranoid 5% of the public will wither and die.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[TurkerB]

Let the slaughter of the GOP continue -- since conservative talk radio was so instrumental in deceiving the american public and spinning the Bush Administration for years, let them continue their efforts to sink the Republican Party to insignificance.......

[iswideopen]

The disgruntled, paranoid, right wing christian fanatics and bigots; AKA: The base of the GOP that it uses for votes and division of the country. The sad part of it all is that the "so called christians", don't even know it. To this day, they vote against their own economic interest for a sick "idealogy". How pathetically sad.

[yorkie]

IGNORANCE is bliss to many of rt wing nut radio listeners ! No surprise here.....I think MEDVED is scared and realizes the rt wing losses and dual need for commercial ratings success to continue and keep $ coming in. and the dilemma it poses Old Party ! The GOP deserves many years in political wilderness aft bleak yrs of lies and corruption under W and GOP CONGRESS . I hope RUSH 's ratings will begin to tank and SHAM HANNITY'S as well ! RESTORE THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE ASAP !

[aofh]

What Medved is saying is that right-wing radio is and always has been about entertainment. They are shock jocks like Stern and that ilk. I think his fear is that with the election of Obama, the country may be wanting to listen to somethng else. I hope he's right. I'm tired of juvenilia masquerading as intelligence.

[starlady7]

The problem is that "Faux News" is considered by the right not as entertainment, but they really think it is news. The danger of these "Talk Radio and TV hosts" is that they twist the facts and mold the thinking of these people! They stir up Hate, which can lead to violence!

[QueenOfViolets]

As far as I understand the Fairness Doctrine, it doesn't mean that you can't express strong opinions. It just means you have to give people with the opposite but equally strong opinions a chance to talk too.

It doesn't impress me that conservatives are constantly whining about this issue. There was no Fairness Doctrine in the Soviet Union. Sheesh.

[calipublican]

lol its good to see your all still miserable, the screeching is so loud i can hear it from here

[Adjuster]

Why would anyone be miserable about the collapse of right-wing talk radio. We here are elated at the mere prospect. The misery you feel is projected from within Cali. Deal with it..

I

[Matt7]

"The misery you feel is projected from within."

It usually is. They seem to have a lot of it. (And it's not JESUS who put it there.)

[soupson52]

Hi to a fellow Californian. I live close. Do you need more tinfoil?

[jadeba]

I can't wait for the death of the GOP. Now that would be cause of major celebration.

[freshnotbitter]

My advice to right wing radio is so simple it amazes me. Stop lying.

Obama is a muslim. Obama is a communist. If somebody has a piece of paper in their desk that says Adam married Steve it means that all marriages in USA are anulled.

It goes on and on. Most of what they attribute to Ronald Reagan is a lie as well. They say Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union through defence spending but RR himself said that the Soviet Union would fall of its own weight and that is why he just stayed out of their way and let them fall. That was a smart thing to do but don't expect right wind radio to say the truth.

Ronald Reagan was actually in favor of taxing all income the same meaning that capital gains and income tax would be the same. And, in fact, the Reagan tax cuts did exactly that. But right wing radio wants you to believe that Reagan would have cut the capital gains tax like bush did, below the tax on wages. Uh, uh. More lies.

And the lie that we have the best medical care system in the world isn't wearing anymore either.


All the republicans have to do is tell the truth and they will be as popular as they once were.

For some reason this post is cutting me off before 250 words......

[Matt7]

Stop lying? Might be easier if you'd said, "stop breathing" or somethin'.

[glaze]

Then for God's sake, DO THE RIGHT THING, MIKE!
Q U I T ! ! !

[unite4change]

I wish we could get rid of all of the pundits in the media. They are one of the main reason we have so many low information Americans. Most of the people listening to them take what they say as the truth and nothing but the truth.

[Badfickle]

Medved is just as to blame as any of the rest. I've heard him pushing the lines about Rev Wright and William Ayers just like the rest. He's just as guilty of pumping up the paranoia.

[DarkWitch]

Please keep talking.

[LiberalForever]

Why doesnt he just help with the Bush rewrite of the history of the Bush/Cheney years?
It's already underway, and I am sure Medved and Limburger and Hannity and Shrill Oreally can help with the avalanche of lies that will start "trickling down" for that gigantic task.

Seriously, these guys are backed into a corner, having spewed hatred and outright lies over the public airwaves pretty much unencumbered for all these years, and now having to face a dwindling audience of bizarro braindead followers...it must be just downright anal for them.

Here in Dallas, I think I will just crank the dial over to the Vietnamese music am station. It usually makes a lot more sense anyway.

Rock on...u 22%ers

[unite4change]

Hell most of American history is his story.

[StillAmused]

"a conservatism that connects with only a disgruntled, paranoid 5% of the public will wither and die."

So, uh, this is your farewell message?

Obsequious, knuckle-dragging hump.

[TomR]

----
Most obviously, the rapid development of cable TV and the Internet has given the public innumerable new options for debate and information. During Clinton's era, conservative talk radio offered the inevitable destination for political junkies who cared deeply about the fate of the new administration. Today, many leading TV comics and commentators lean unabashedly to the left, while progressive websites rival popular right-wing sources online.
----

Shorter Medved: we miss our monopoly on the public airwaves that made it so easy to brainwash Americans with our false frames and propaganda.

Time to break out the world's smallest violin? Nah. Go stew in it Medved.

- Tom