Talk Radio - Talk Radio in The United States - Politically Oriented Talk Radio

Politically Oriented Talk Radio

The United States saw dramatic growth in the popularity of talk radio during the 1990s due to the repeal of the Federal Communications Commission's post-war Fairness Doctrine of 1949, in 1987. The mandate of the Fairness Doctrine was to require that audiences were exposed to a diversity of viewpoints. It had required the holders of broadcast licenses to "present controversial issues of public importance" and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, "honest, equitable and balanced". Its repeal provided an opportunity for a kind of partisan political programming with commercial appeal that had not previously existed.

Pew researchers found in 2004 that 17% of the public regularly listens to talk radio. This audience is mostly male, middle-aged and conservative. Among those who regularly listen to talk radio, 41% are Republican and 28% are Democrats. Furthermore, 45% describe themselves as conservatives, compared with 18% who say they are liberals.

The most successful pioneer in the 1990s' talk radio movement in the US was the politically conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's success demonstrated that there was a nationwide market for passionately delivered conservative commentary on contemporary news, events, and social trends, and changed the face of how the talk radio business was conducted.

Limbaugh's unprecedented success is illustrated by Fresno, California's then number-one radio station, KMJ "news-talk radio," a typical example of how the talk radio format was changed nation wide. Before Limbaugh, their day time talk show hosts were local and not particularly partisan, each quite a bit different from the other, and had diverse conversations on a wide variety of topics from both local and national politics, to food, to interviews with interesting people, book authors, and so forth. There was a local morning host plus a local afternoon host. The evenings (with less advertising revenue) typically included nationally syndicated hosts such as family finance pundit Bruce Williams. KMJ, seeking to cut corners, brought in Limbaugh at 09:00 from New York and within three months had become wildly popular among Fresno's conservatives. The station presented news from 6 to 9, Limbaugh from 9 to noon, then news, then the local Ray Appleton, a moderate Democrat from 1 to 4. Stations across the nation soon discovered that less diverse programming sold even better, and Appleton became a Republican and KMJ along with most talk radio across the nation became all-conservative. As of 2011, KMJ has filled the afternoon slot with various other nationally syndicated conservative political shows, and Appleton does his conservative show during the lunch hour.

Other radio talk show hosts (who describe themselves as either conservative or libertarian) have also had success as nationally syndicated hosts, including Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, Jon Arthur, Glenn Beck, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, Neal Boortz, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and Mark Levin.

The Salem Radio Network syndicates a group of religiously oriented Republican activists, including evangelical Christian Hugh Hewitt and Jewish conservatives Dennis Prager and Michael Medved; these are mostly distributed in a 24-hour network format among Salem's own stations, and they generally earn ratings much less than their syndicated counterparts.

In the summer of 2007, conservative talk show hosts mobilized public opposition to the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill, which eventually failed. Conservative hosts Limbaugh, Ingraham, Bennett, Prager, Hannity, Beck, Levin and Hewitt coalesced around endorsing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for president at the end of January 2008 (after Fred Thompson, the described favorite of some of the hosts, dropped out), in an effort to oppose the nomination of Sen. John McCain; however, Romney suspended his campaign in February of the same year, and endorsed McCain. During the primaries, Limbaugh in particular had endorsed a plan to do whatever it took to prolong the Democrats' nomination by encouraging political conservatives to cross over to the Democrats and voting for the trailing candidate, a plan he calls "Operation Chaos". Conservative talk show hosts also lent their unified support for Congressional candidate Doug Hoffman, a conservative third-party candidate who was running in New York's 23rd congressional district special election, 2009 against a liberal Republican (Dierdre Scozzafava) and a mainstream Democrat (Bill Owens). The unified support from the conservative base helped propel Hoffman to frontrunner status and effectively killed Scozzafava's campaign, forcing her to drop out of the race several days before the election. This effort backfired on the conservative hosts, as the Democratic candidate Owens won in part thanks to Scozzafava's endorsement of Owens. Local hosts, such as Los Angeles's John and Ken, have also proven effective in influencing the political landscape.

Libertarians such as Dennis Miller (based in Los Angeles), Jon Arthur, Host Of Jon Arthur Live! (based in Florida), Patti Brooks KGMI (based in the Pacific Northwest), Free Talk Live (based in New Hampshire), Penn Jillette (based in Las Vegas), Jay Severin (based in Boston, Massachusetts), and Mark Davis (based in Ft. Worth and Dallas, Texas) have also achieved some success. Many of these hosts also publish books, write newspaper columns, appear on television, and give public lectures (Limbaugh, again, was a pioneer of this model of multi-media punditry).

There had been some precursors for talk radio show stars, such as the Los Angeles-area controversialist Joe Pyne, who would attack callers on his program in the early 1960s – one of his famous insults was "gargle with razor blades!"; the similar Bob Grant in New York City; and Wally George in Southern California. Grant remains on the air to this day.

Politically liberal talk radio aimed at a national audience has also emerged. Air America, a network featuring The Al Franken Show, was founded in 2004. It billed itself as a "progressive alternative" to the conservative talk radio shows.

Some prominent examples of liberal talk radio shows currently in national syndication include: Dial Global talk show hosts Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, and Bill Press; The Young Turks; Fox News host Alan Colmes, First Amendment Radio Network Libertarian host Jon Arthur, self-distributed Norman Goldman and Mike Malloy, and Premiere's Randi Rhodes. In some markets, local liberal hosts have existed for years, such as the British talk host Michael Jackson (who was on the air at KABC in Los Angeles beginning in 1968 and is currently at KGIL); Bernie Ward in San Francisco; Jack Ellery in New Jersey and Tampa; Dave Ross in Seattle, and Marc Germain in Los Angeles. A few earlier syndicated programs were hosted by prominent Democrats who were not experienced broadcasters, such as Jim Hightower, Jerry Brown, Mario Cuomo and Alan Dershowitz; these met with limited success, and Air America has been faced with various legal and financial problems.

Air America was sold to a new owner in March 2007, hired well-known programmer David Bernstein, and began its "re-birth." Bernstein subsequently left in early 2008, but the struggling network remained on the air with a revamped line-up.

On January 21, 2010, Air America Radio ceased live programming citing a difficulty with the current economic environment, and announced that it would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy production and liquidate itself. The network ended operations on January 25, 2010.

Liberal opinion radio has long existed on the Pacifica network, though only available in a small number of major cities, and in formats that more often act as a volunteer-run community forum than as a platform for charismatic hosts who would be likely to attract a large audience. The one major host to become popular on the network is Amy Goodman, whose Democracy Now! interview and journalism program is broadcast nationwide. Conservative critics have long complained that the long-format news programming on National Public Radio (NPR) shows a liberal bias, although this is disputed by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a progressive media criticism organization, which found that, for example, "representatives of think tanks to the right of center outnumbered those to the left of center by more than four to one: 62 appearances to 15." NPR itself denies any partisan agenda. Politically oriented talk programs on the network are in the mold of Talk of the Nation, which is designed to be a soundboard for the varied opinions of listeners.

Clear Channel, with nearly 1,300 radio stations under its ownership – along with other owners – has in recent years added more liberal talk stations to their portfolio. These have primarily come from the conversion of AM facilities, most of which formerly had adult standards formats. Many complaints (all radio stations are required by the FCC to maintain, in their public files, copies of all correspondence from the public relating to station operations – for a period of three years from receipt) have been received from fans of this musical genre (Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, big band music," etc.) – but the left-leaning talk programming leans toward a much younger demographic, a group that advertisers covet. More recently, however, Clear Channel has been dropping liberal formats in favor of their own Fox Sports Radio network.