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

[disintaGreatNation]

If the GOP can't unite over the urgent need to expose autism as a racket and a hoax, it doesn't deserve to win elections.

OTHER PRIORITIES: silencing the Dixie Chicks, rescuing American troops living in Vietnam POW camps, and an up or down vote on Harriet Miers.

[PatsyT]

Hurts, Donut?

[formerprosecutor]

Do you wanna a Hertz donnit?

[alf514]

Will somebody please out this guy?

[NWPoster]

It's rightwing political and fundamenta­l/evangeli­cal (they're the same to me) christian radio alley driving down I-5, through Oregon and parts of CA, from Seattle to SF. They spew poisonous nonsense nonsense whenever my dial locked on. Both thrive on FEAR and IGNORANCE. Question: Why does it all have a southern country twang?!

It's time for BOTH to die off; enough brainwashing the feeble-minded already.

[FloridaDem318]

Now if we can get rush and the other brainless, hate mongerers to accept the same idea.

[FloridaDem318]

Yes! Let them wither away. The grand old party shouldl just be called the old party.

[kasinca]

Thanks for all that you do! We appreciate watching you all eat your own.

[formerprosecutor]

They always have(eaten their own); the minute a Republican starts even talking about social justice or removing religion from the GOP they are thrown under the bus

[Repub4Obama]

Just wait - soon they will be coming to Obama and the Democratic Congress asking for a bailout.

[ron1000]

It's about time people caught on to you losers.

[noamjunior]

Medved is like a drunk driver who crashes his car and blames the liquor industry.
Look at medveds comments during the Bush administration, some of the most blatantly dishonest, hateful, and pandering rhetoric on th epublic airwaves

[Felicty]

Let it die.

[newshawk14]

If what you say is true, all I can add, is keep up the good work.

[deeppeace]

And we appreciate it, MM. By the way, aren't you a movie reviewer? Where'd you get your political chops?

[JBVT]

The question is of right and wrong.

Right is wrong.

Hatred is wrong.

Thank you for your time.

JBVT

[TexGator]

I was worried that Medved's comments might mark the beginning of an era of common sense in the conservative movement but then I listened to Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, and Beck and realized that Medved's about to join Kathleen Parker, Chris Buckley, and Peggy Noonan as persona non grata among the Republican base.

Can't wait till they nominate Palin in 2012!

[Tahut]

I have to agree with you. Those in the GOP with their brains still functioning are moving towards the center to stay alive whilst the brain-dead are pushing it further into the abyss. I suspect before the mid-term elections there will be a formal and nasty divide between the two. It'll be fun to see what emerges from the ashes.