Yahoo! front page: • Republicans may be losing talk radio edge

[oddtext]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20051006/ts_krwashbureau/_talkshows_1

There are signs that the Republicans could be losing some of their overwhelming edge, however. Ratings for Limbaugh and Hannity slipped this spring in some markets. Liberals such as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Al Franken are carving out their own radio niche. And Democrats argue that they have an edge on the Internet, where explosive growth could dwarf the political impact of radio.

[Fountain79]

1. Before we begin celebrating...

The article also states that despite their slippage they still hold the lion's share of the market. Even Franken admits that in the article.

[FreedomAngel82]

4. The thing to remember

is AAR is still a year or so old. It hasn't been around like Limbaugh and the others. I haven't seen much marketing for AAR either. No tv ads or anything like that. :shrug: Might be just me but so far they're doing pretty well. If you want to find out real competition find another conservative host who has started the same time as AAR and compare them. Comparing the others to AAR is useless since they already have a base and been around a long time. The point I see with this article is AAR isn't failing as many would like to believe.

[DBoon]

8. Also conservative radio has built in networks

whole media corporation with right wing ownership give even the lamest right wing talk show instant access to hundreds of station (see Sinclair).

AAR by contrast has to build itself one station at a time

[FreedomAngel82]

2. Good!

Thanks for this. My town just added AAR and on a local board a lot were saying that the station was failing etc. repeating the talking points so this is a very nice article for me to show. Thanks!

[Fountain79]

3. Another interesting fact...

It said Limbaugh lost 7 percent in Kansas City...Kansas City has no liberal talk show to my knowledge the person has satellite radio.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Interesting

And good.

[Fountain79]

12. Missed the point....

Don't know if you can attribute the slump in ratings to competition...

[B Calm]

6. DirecTV is picking up XM Radio stations in November..

I hope it carries Air America..

[B Calm]

10. I been searching for a DIRECTV / XM Radio Stations line up..

so far no luck..

[Nickster]

13. Here ya go

http://www.dbsinfo.us/DirecTV_XM.xml

[haele]

7. A major change will be that Ed Schultz will soon be carried by

AFR - Armed Forces Radio.
I am under the impression that it was due to both service member pressure and congressional pressure for equal access.
It will be interesting to "see" what that will do to liberal talk ratings - many of his callers reference other Air America shows, as well he uses many of the more indi or hometown liberal talk hosts (like Stacy Taylor and a couple from Portland and Denver)also carried on Air America on as substitutes when he "goes fishin' or huntin'".
Since he has access to a lot of Democratic political figures talking about military, economic, and security issues(even if they tend DLC) and he tends centrist, it might start turning a lot of the "Dems hate military/'Pubs love military" crowd.

Haele

[hippiegranny]

9. Notice they still have to put some rightward spin

in this article in order to assure themselves and the kool-aid drinkers who may be reading that all is not lost. I really believe that *we* ARE the true majority, yet the press still desperately clings to fallacy of repuke dominance. Give AAR a few more years and the chance to have a presence in every market limpballs and shamnity are and then let's revisit those numbers. Breaking stronghold monopolies takes time!

[FreedomAngel82]

17. All you have to do is

look at the poll raitings. I don't think Bush's numbers would be so low if we weren't in the majority.

[KittyWampus]

11. IIRC, AARadio Sells An Entire Block Of Programming At This Time While

Rush sells his show as a single unit.

And part of the reason AARadio was asking for donations was to help fund
it's newest venture which is producing shows that will be sold individually just like Rush.

[Carla in Ca]

14. Well, whatever the reason and considering

conservatives own so many of the stations, this is good news indeed. Ed Schultz is close to 100 stations. He think he just got O'Reilly's spot on a Denver station last week.
Just like everything else we want to happen, it happens slowly. But it does happen.

[Lex]

15. This is great news. Things might start slowly, but I hope they really

gain momentum. And I think they will.

I think liberal radio has come a long ways in a short time alreay.

Nominated.

[SoCalDem]

16. When there is an alternative, they are bound to lose some listeners

Think about it.. Before AAR and the few others, repubes had a MONOPOLY on talk radio,, Liberals WILL listen to rightwingers (even at the peril of their circulatory systems)..They HATE to do it, but they will, if only to know what's being said.. They did not "get their news" from the rightwingers, but they did listen..

Once they had something with truth and facts to listen to, they peeled away from the rightwinger programs..Those who stopped listening to rightwing radio will NOT be back.. The righties would NEVER listen to liberal shows, because they don;t need to.. They have more than enough of their own to listen to.. Lefties have precious few, and are loyal to them now that we finally have them..

and I would suspect that "some" of the righties are a little bit dismayed at how suddenly their world seems to be imploding, so they may have soured on politics altogether in favor of sports, music or their ipods.:)

The righties' shows are all so much alike, that there's bound to be some slippage if they are all competing for a shrinking number of listeners