Sunday, November 9, 2008

Boston Radio Progressive Talk needs to lead the way

A Joe Vig Editorial on the State of Progressive Talk Radio in Boston


It is 2008! We need to take back radio.
It is time for radio to reflect the wants and needs of the new young urban professionals. The country is now center-left and talk radio is still issuing hard right conservative talk. So people turn to their iPods, their CD players, their internet. Look, music radio is just as murky, part of the problem of too few companies owning too many stations, but where you might find a tune you like in the repetitive mess, there is nothing of substance for a center-left country in a hard-right hard-cider talk radio world.

As the news media like the Las Vegas Sun and others note - it's a

Democratic tidal wave

Democrats make sweeping gains, a thorough rejection of slash-and-burn GOP politics

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/nov/05/democratic-tidal-wave/

When will the "tidal wave" be reflected on the airwaves? Are program directors and those in station management that Delusional that Ronald Raygun, like Joan Crawford, is going to rise from the grave? Reagan is gone. The seance is not going to happen, nor will it bring him back, but it would be pretty entertaining on talk radio.
Rush Limbaugh should take some Oxycontin and have a Reagan Seance! Because that is what his ideology is doing when he flogs the airwaves with antiquated ideas that are not accepted by the mainstream - a mainstream that is incresasingly more left.

Limbaugh is still immersed in the "slash-and-burn" GOP politics which divide this country, the us vs. them mentality instead of viewing us as ALL Americans - is exactly the problem with the conservative movement, a frightening cocktail that seems like a prescription for a new civil war.

Progressive Radio is more fair-minded and can be the antidote. When Entercomm and CBS realize that the public should dictate what is broadcast instead of the propaganda they push their financial picture will brighten and profitability will be possible.

We in the Progressive Talk movement - have to get those business plans out there now. RKO simply has no defense for indefensible hirings. With Reese on the Radio an abject failure, a locally based host who assaulted democrats, only to be turned into a defendant a la Ted Stevens, Jack Abramoff, Senator Larry Craig...well, do the math.

The revenues for WRKO, WTKK and other stations can't be solid with their stocks plummeting and their fortunes faded. Now is the time for Progressive Talk to sweep out the propaganda and bring in flocks of listeners for the advertisers to covet.

Saturday night, November 8, 2008, at 9:38 PM, RKO had some blabbermouth (most likely Glenn Beck, he is what is listed on their roster for that time spot) yapping about how great Sarah Palin is and how "the media" was against her. The media only reflected her actions. Compare the Obama family to the Palin family. Do you think Michelle Obama will force some boyfriend of Malia and Sasha to marry her daughter because he has to? Do you think Malia and Sasha will even put their parents in that position? Looking at Michelle and Barack, do you think their daughters will use a fake i.d. to attempt to purchase alcohol if they aren't of age (which they won't be) in seven years?


The Glenn Beck-types would rather focus on Sarah Palin than Michelle Obama.
The country votes one way, talk radio gives the center-left something the public doesn't want: hard right.

The Conservative point of view on AM and FM radio is about as valid as Moe Lauzier. Most of you will probably say "Moe who?" Lauzier was that cranky old curmudgeon who couldn't get a full time gig on WRKO; hewasn't very popular in his day and is totally out of sync in 2008.

WRKO has had Jack Abramoff/Tom Delay/Larry Craig syndrome for years now. Look at the junk they force-feed on 680 AM - Tom Finneran, a failed product with no traction, Howie "please get me out of here" Carr, perhaps their biggest draw as well as their biggest detractor, dirty filthy basher Michael Savage, hardcore Republican Laura Ingraham replacing an accused rapist, Reese on the Radio, 0h and Mr. Oxycontin himself, Rush Limbaugh.

Just as WRKO's house of horrors hosts are the microcosm of the Senator Ted Stevens/Karl Rove/George W. Bush antics of the conservative movement nationally (Vincent Bugliosi won't be writing "The Prosecution of Nancy Pelosi For Murder" anytime soon, though he has just such a book out on W Bush), as the tide of Blue States is called a "tsunami", it begs repeating: it is time for radio to reflect the wants and needs of the new young urban professionals.

If you build it they will come, and we have to rebuild radio to reflect this country: with a progressive slant.





http://www.miamiherald.com/news/legislature/story/763266.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted#Comments_Container

insanious wrote on 11/09/2008 09:27:19 AM:

This isn't an attack on the GOP, it is an observation. Where the country needs healing Sarah Palin was out there as a bulldog. She didn't answer questions, she just lashed out at the other side. Conservative Talk radio is now trying to re-build her image, but they'd have better luck with Dan Quayle. Sarah is stained with the Joe The Plumber image and both have quickly gone down the drain. Radio is going to have to follow the country - center left. The propaganda that the country is "center right" exists only in Karl Rove's dreams, and he's become as irrelevant as Jack Abramoff.