An insightful article in this month’s Milwaukee Magazine about what makes right-wing radio tick caught my attention, not so much because it’s confirming what most people know, but doing it in a well known media publication like Milwaukee Magazine.
A couple key excerpts from the article by a former WTMJ talk radio program director Dan Shelly:
In the talk radio business, this concept, which must be mastered to be successful, is called “differentiating” yourself from the rest of the media. It is a brilliant marketing tactic that has also helped Fox News Channel thrive. “We report, you decide” and “Fair and Balanced” are more than just savvy slogans. They are code words signaling that only Fox will report the news in a way conservatives see as objective and truthful.
Forget any notion, however, that radio talk shows are supposed to be fair, evenhanded discussions featuring a diversity of opinions. The Fairness Doctrine, which required this, was repealed 20 years ago. So talk shows can be, and are, all about the host’s opinions, analyses and general worldview. Programmers learned long ago that benign conversations led by hosts who present all sides of an issue don’t attract large audiences.
There is no way to win a disagreement with Charlie Sykes. Calls from listeners who disagree with him don’t get on the air if the show’s producer, who generally does the screening, fears they might make Charlie look bad. I witnessed several occasions when Sen. Russ Feingold, former Mayor John Norquist, Mayor Tom Barrett or others would call in, but wouldn’t be allowed on the air.
This is something I and others have been pointing out for years now so it’s somewhat vindicating to have our worst assumptions confirmed by someone on the inside.
The real losers in all of this aren’t the phony talk show hosts in the article, but the people of Milwaukee who want to move this community forward but constantly run up against the considerable, if not questionable, power that those screaming into the microphones hold.
While they’ve claimed to be standing up for the “regular guy” in their constant attempts to block progress on everything from transit to affordable health care for years now, the amount of influence they hold in this community continue to diminish as the real motives for their actions – increasing ratings – become clearer.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and son Carter.
So what?
Here’s the problem that the left fails to grasp (and one that has been proven, especially in this presidential election); up until the repeal of the “Fairness Doctrine” the only “voice” of information was the mainstream media, which in poll after poll has been proven to be left leaning (Yes Dan, it’s true even if you don’t believe it). That skewing of media reports and the lifting of the fairness doctrine created a market for talk show hosts to get on the air and expound on their opinion(s). It created a market to entertain. Liberal leaning people have every opportunity to get into that market, but every time they do (Air America ring a bell?) they fail. Why that is, can be discussed at a later time, but they do have the same opportunities.
I know you don’t like the message, and I’m pretty sure you don’t like the “influence they hold”, but they wouldn’t be on the air if it weren’t for advertisers and you only get advertisers if there are listeners. All the support regarding transit issues and your “version” of moving this community forward sit in the laps of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, the Shepard Express, 100’s of liberal and left leaning politicians walking the halls of government, etc. If there’s a handful (Belling, Sykes, Wagner, and Harris) of conservative opinionated people on the air, what do you care?
On a side note regarding Dan Shelly’s quote(s): “Forget any notion, however, that radio talk shows are supposed to be fair, evenhanded discussions featuring a diversity of opinions.” – They’re not meant to be, so why even bring it up? You can listen to Sykes for 15 mins and realize he isn’t “fair and balanced”; it’s a radio show discussing issues (nationally and locally) in a conservative’s point of view. If that gets people to act and call their elected officials, so be it. There are many, many issues that the ever so vigilant MJS misses (why can be debated) that need to be brought to the forefront. I would argue that if it were not for conservative talk radio, the wonderful County pension scandal would not have been brought up for a lot longer than it did….but what do I know?!?!?
O.K. everyone is wise to the bias of Sykes, Wagner, et al., and their influence continues to decline. Yet you continue to obsess about them and their ability to “block progress”. “Progress”, in this instance, being defined as the political agenda of Dan Cody.
Dan babbling about how he hates talk radio……and the sun will rise in the east tomorrow too.
Yawn
Wow, when the personal attacks start coming out in a matter of hours, you know you’ve touched a nerve!
Nope, just good timing….
Characters like Sykes, the local talk radio pundits offer nothing.
The rants of the right wing soapbox, are like TV endorsements from old people who claim that the 911 dialing LifeAlert, hanging around their neck saved their lives, when they fell down.
The callers to talk radio, are those lying on the floor in a state of denial, that they fell. Talk radio hosts try and convince them, that the floor is really a wall and that they are actually standing upright!
The radio host could avoid such delusional thinking and the repeating of myths, if one thing occurred.
They had some identity of their own to keep the content, in rational perspective.
fatal flaw of talk radio, lies in the character of the host. There is no person, just a scripted personality. Sykes regular life is probably filled with real-life explanations…” Its what I have to do on the show….It’s what the show does…It’s the story that the blogs started. I don’t write those things!”
Does Sykes distance himself from his words, and the words repeated on his show by others, in the real world of a grocery store line? I doubt it. He probably avoids such confrontations, and has to spend lots of time, explaining the reality vs. radio concept to some wingnut in the canned fruit aisle.
The price of celebrity, I suppose.
Regardless of the fact they have a ‘program theme’ ; in the same fashion as episodic TV does, these hosts are not fictional characters.
They are real people, who sold their own personal identity for the ‘theme’.
This is dual personality issue, or admission of being a paid liar.
They can’t have it both ways.
They support the myths they tell, or they don’t.
They don’t get to jump from a real person to a fictional character, in a radio teleplay.
This is where talk radio is, after the election. Caught with their pants down, and having some explaining to do.
It reminds me of the perfect example, of such a delusional public/private personna.
In the movie Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson’s character is the prefect model of a current talk radio host.
“…A washed up ‘theme’ character, from an long dead ideology (silent movies) who has deluded herself into believing the scripts she read, decades ago, written by others, (ie: everything Reagan/Goldwater/Hannity) that defined her own individuality to the general public.
She became her own myth-generated character.
Now I admit, that Sykes and most talk radio hosts will not kill their producers who question that bizarre identity distortion, as Swanson’s character didin the movie …but there is no doubt that Sykes, and the rest of the talk radio heads, actively persue the same thing that the pathetic Swanson character obsessed over.
Sykes and the talk hosts are seeking that one scene to come into reality, so they too can repeat that one famous mythical line, that justifies their delusional identities;
… “I’m ready for my closeup. Mr DeMille”.
It’s a pretty pathetic identity, when you think about it.
So how’s left wing radio doing?
Sean, right. I’m not questioning whether or not there are listeners to the station though, it’s fairly clear that they have a dedicated listening audience.
You bring up the point about how the stations aren’t supposed to be “fair or balanced” because they’re pushing an opinion, which is true. It’s funny to be reading that last night while listening to WISN and hearing their tagline promo for the station, paraphrasing “factual news, accurate reporting”. Or the billboard for WISN1130 with a huge GOP elephant on it.
The pension scandal was actually broken by the Milwaukee JS, not talk radio.
As for “left wing” radio, that’s a fair point. I’d argue that there will never be a successful equivalent to right wing radio stations. I got a peak into this world a bit there was talk about bringing an Air America station to Milwaukee a few years back. Just like any kind of publishing or broadcasting, it’s an incredibly expensive and difficult market for ANY newcomers to enter, left or right.
I do think however that there would be good ratings for a show to counterbalance all the conservatives if it were placed on one of the two larger stations. Before Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, there were no “liberal” cable shows. Just like the AM radio dial the medium was dominated, and with the exception of a two hour block on MSNBC every night still is, by conservatives.
It turns out there is an audience for hearing the other side, as the huge ratings on Olbermann & Maddow’s shows have shown.
I firmly believe that the same would hold true on talk radio if it were given a chance, especially in Milwaukee.
But I know that will never happen because the people in control of the towers would never allow their stations to be used to broadcast a competing message to their own conservative one… despite the ratings it could get and the money it could bring in.
And everyone knows that; hence their screaming to holy heaven about even the remote possibility that conservatives completely control the airwaves.
…the people in control of the towers would never allow their stations to be used to broadcast a competeing message to their own conservative one…And everyone knows that…”
…not unless the government mandates the broadcast of “a competing message”. You appear to be firing one of the opening shots in the war against “right wing talk radio”.
Dan:
You keep missing one point: Sykes and the rest work for companies dedicated to making a profit. Left wing radio would be in Milwaukee right now–mostlikely as another format type produced by JS broadcasting or Clear-channel if there was a profit to be made in it. These are companies run by those greedy people who take risks, invest money, hire people, and expect to make a profit. They are not married to a conservative ideal; they are married to profit.
I agree with Patrick…what’s your point here?