The Right-Wing Talk-Radio Flame Out

John Avlon – Thu May 12, 11:38 pm ET

NEW YORK – The Right-Wing Talk-Radio Flame OutRatings for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other hyper-partisans are declining as listeners seek honest talk from hosts like Michael Smerconish over angry rants. A more civil conversation will add value to our political debate, writes John Avlon.

There’s new evidence to suggest a demand for something different than hyper-partisanship in the world of talk radio and political media.

It’s not just the sunset of the Glenn Beck Show on Fox or the dispatch of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC to CurrentTV. It’s the shuttering of a pioneering conservative radio station and data showing the demographic decline of Rush Limbaugh.

In contrast, growing numbers of listeners are tuning in to independent voices who can be honest brokers in debates and don’t just angrily parrot talking points.

In February, I wrote a column asking whether right wing talk radio was dying and ruffled some feathers in that flock. A more accurate means of measuring listeners showed that conservative talkers’ ratings had either declined or flatlined in the heat of the 2010 election, while the world-journalism focus of the John Batchelor Show had seen a decided ratings climb. Now, a look at radical centrist Michael Smerconish’s national ratings growth since the start of the year provides more evidence of this emerging market.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/14060_rushlimbaughandrightwingtalkradioflameoutaslistenerstunetoindependents;_ylt=Ara1XwCFQLBKBYPtMIRIHjFH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTRudGtxam9jBGFzc2V0A2RhaWx5YmVhc3QvMjAxMTA1MTMvMTQwNjBfcnVzaGxpbWJhdWdoYW5kcmlnaHR3aW5ndGFsa3JhZGlv

people get sick of the ranting idiot style of talk for a little while but after a short time actually listening to opinions that don't reinforce the personal world view it's a lot easier to just tune in the ranting wacko that pretends to agree with everything already preconceived as the truth.

The belief that some mathematical mean of people's political opinions is necessarily the correct path to follow can be held with the same unbending ferocity as any of the other viewpoints.

Is there a center on abortion for instance? Or gay marriage? Or assassination?

reactionary Trotskyite wreckers. Fear the Revolution!!

sometimes. He's interesting to listen to; conservative but not insane. Haven't heard him on the radio though. Maybe he's different on his own show.

his show. I don't agree with everything he says but I respect him because he gives the other side equal time and he doesn't degrade them. I stopped listening to talk radio a long time ago. I started listening to NPR Radio and it is really good. You don't get crazies.

Take the Birth Certificate as an example.....please.

Who knew?

Rush has'nt had a good line in a couple years, Beck has been in full meltdown and painful to watch for a while, O'Rielly has been turning off his fans as well.

despite what you and the Limbeciles claim.

Dismissing the abilities of your opposition is never a good plan (ask General Custer). But think about it - If those three are the top of the RW manure pile talent-wise, how dreadful must the rest of them be?

Stating that Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are both "hyper-partisans" implies some kind of equivalency, as if they have something in common. This is like saying that if the Jews disagreed that six million of them should be killed in WWII, why then they just had a disagreement with Hitler. It simply is not a matter of two equal sides disagreeing, the model just doesn't work, because there is no consideration of ethics, right and wrong. Comparing Olbermann to Bekkk in any way is ludicrous.

The point is that if you turn on the radio, your only choice is right-wing hate. And the billionaires and fascists who fund those stations don't give a shit about the ratings, as long as their propaganda is the only thing being broadcast. There are roughly 1200 AM radio stations, and more than 1100 are republican propaganda, and will remain that way. Throw in the "Beck = Olbermann" canard and this article is suspect.

How FUCKING dare you mention Keith and *eck in the same sentence.:mad:

When compared to Rush and the likes he's a flaming liberal.

Except when it comes to torture.

He comes from a part of Philly that used to be predominantly white and where most of the police live.
This area considers themselves Republican because they see the city of Phila being dominated by Blacks who they feel as though they are better than.

I'm black. Grew up in Philly. One of my best friends who is white grew up in this area. He told me his family always voted Republican but in 2008 they were all voting for Obama. I actually got him a job at Bristol Myers Squibb in 2006. Our entire IT dept jobs were shipped to Brazil. 10,000 jobs gone in 2008.

His father the year before had his job shipped out the country by Verizon.

Long before the 2008 election we had a conversation about the 2006 elections. That is where he told me his family always voted Republican. I explained to him the mindset that made them vote Republican and he agreed with me. I told him that being a republican in this area was not the same as being a national republican. We went through most of the things the GOP represented and I got through to him. In 2006 he voted Dem. I explained to him they want you to think your better than others while hoping you never realize your in the same boat as those who your family thinks they are better than. He convinced his mother who convinced his father and they all voted for Obama in 2008.

He told me his mother told his father, "I don't want to hear another word about any damn Republican."

It was funny because that was the first curse word he ever heard his mother say.

If we could get this message through to more white middle class Americans the GOP would be through.

Once those white middle class people realize they are in the same boat as the "Black's, Latino's and all minorities" we can rid our country of these corporate fascists.

There 2 boats. One where every room is the penthouse. That's where the top 1% float.

And one with the rest of us. Until white middle class people stop thinking they are in the same boat as the top 1% the GOP will continue to survive.

Anyway. Smerconish is no longer a Republican. He's an independent.






"From the HuffPost comes word of Philly-based talk-radio host Michael Smerconish's defection from the Party of Lincoln to the ranks of NOTA:

The national GOP is a party of exclusion and litmus tests, dominated on social issues by the religious right, with zero discernible outreach by the national party to anyone who doesn't fit neatly within its parameters. Instead, the GOP has extended itself to its fringe while throwing under the bus long-standing members like New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a McCain-Palin supporter in 2008 who told me she voted with her Republican leadership 90 percent of the time before running for Congress last fall.

Which is not to say I feel comfortable in the Democratic Party, either. Weeks before Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh's announcement that he will not seek reelection, I noted the centrist former governor's words to the Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib. Too many Democrats, Bayh said in that interview, are "tone-deaf" to Americans' belief that the party had "overreached rather than looking for consensus with moderates and independents."...

I think that in 2008, the GOP was wrong to adopt a party platform that maintained a strict opposition to abortion without at least carving out exceptions in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life. I was appalled that legislators tried to decide Terri Schiavo's end-of-life plan. I don't care if two guys hook up any more than they should care about my heterosexual lifestyle. And I still don't know what to think about climate change....
"

http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/24/radio-host-michael-smerconish

Grew up north of Philly (Ambler area), which is pretty white.

I don't need either to tell me how to think,I'll make up my mind without the likes of Limbaugh and other talking heads.