Air America Radio up 140% in LA, eating up Rush Limbaugh’s audience

The conservative echo chamber believes Air America Radio is going down like Jeff Gannon on an overnight press-pass to the White House. Left-wing talk radio they said, was over before it began. But like all so-called wisdom coming from the GOP noise machine, you better check the facts before you believe it. It turns out that contrary to conservative spin and wishful thinking, Air America, barely a year old, is building an audience and starting to eat in to the market share of conservative talkers who have been around for decades.

Byron York wrote on NationalReview.com, “The latest radio ratings are in and they show continued bad news for Air America.” But York cited only New York ratings where Air America’s share held firm at a 1.2 rating, at a time that nearly all political talk in New York (and indeed the whole country) showed a decline in the first quarter of 2005. (Rush Limbaugh’s ratings tanked by 25% in New York).

In the fourth quarter of 2004 Al Franken's ratings in New York were 44% of Rush Limbaugh's. In just 3 months that ratio rose to 60%; that is bad news, but not for Air America. In the same New York Winter 2005 ratings, Air America's Randi Rhodes on in the crucial afternoon drive-time, went up 33%, while the conservative talk shows in same time slot on WABC and WOR each went down 33%. Air America's evening show, “The Majority Report” starring Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder went up 100%; while the WOR show in that time slot was flat and the WABC show went down 33%. In total audience, “The Majority Report” was the number one talk show in New York City in its time slot.

While knocking Air America in an op-ed piece for the LA Times another right-wing nutcase tried to make the silly comparison between Air America Radio and conservative Bill Bennett's morning talk show, which was launched at the same time as Air America. Bennett, the right wing ethic czar turned gambling addict “reaches nearly 124 markets,” he said. However, there are several hundred conservative talk stations across the United States and for Bennett to land on 124 of them, is not that big a deal.

In order for Air America programming to be heard on any radio station, that station must first take the significant step of changing its format. Getting more than 67 and counting radio stations to change everything they broadcast, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the opportunity to carry Air America's programming is far more substantial an accomplishment than getting 124 right-wing radio stations to switch out one three-hour conservative talk show for another.

In Los Angeles, KFI, the station carrying Rush Limbaugh lost nearly 15% of its market share, dropping from a 4.6 to a 3.9. KABC, another conservative talk station continuing the pattern for right-wing radio, fell from a 2.3 to a 2.1. Air America’s brand-new affiliate KTLK, 1150 AM, gained in the first quarter of its existence, going from a 0.3 to a 0.8, an increase of more than 140%. Most in the radio business say that it takes 18 months for a new station to establish a consistent ratings pattern, but if early indications mean anything, AAR is in for tremendous success in the nations #2 radio market.

The liberal talk format has shown great success in other cities as well. Seattle's newly talk-formatted KPTK, doubled in the Winter book, Portland's KPOJ AM grew 1000% in audience share. In conservative San Diego, KLSD AM went up 73%. Denver's KKZN AM was up 300%. Other markets with similar success include: Boston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Sacramento and Columbus. Thus, right-wing talk is showing a declining while left-wing talk is catching on almost instantly.

The reasons for the shift are not clear, but one of them may be the different approaches of right-wing and left-wing radio. Right-wing radio focuses on attacking Americans (i.e., liberals, democrats, gays, muslims, and hippies). Left-wing radio focuses on attacking policies (i.e., the war in Iraq, the budget deficit, the environment). The ad hominem attacks by right-wing talkers on other Americans have become tiresome, non-entertaining, and frankly un-patriotic. This may be one of the reasons many people are starting to tune them out.

Balletshooz
Rights and Freedoms Coalition

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Posted by Balletshooz on July 27, 2005 01:32 PM (See all posts by Balletshooz)
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