by skyzot63
Conservative talk radio on the wane in California?????
1:15 pm in Demoncrats, Media, National, Opinion, Politics by skyzot63
I almost never go to Drudge any more. But I found this there this morning. It freaked me a bit at first. I then noticed the author Michael Finnegan, and the source the struggling Los Angeles Times. I now remember why I don’t go to Drudge.
Conservative talk radio on the wane in California
Technorati Tags: Talk Radio,ConservativeLawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times
John Kobylt, left, and Ken Chiampou at KFI in April 2008.
The economy’s downturn has depressed ad revenue at stations across the state, thinning the ranks of conservative broadcasters.
By Michael Finnegan
March 15, 2009Tune in to conservative talk radio in California, and the insults quickly fly. Capturing the angry mood of listeners the other day, a popular host in Los Angeles called Republican lawmakers who voted to raise state taxes "a bunch of weak slobs."
With their trademark ferocity, radio stars who helped engineer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise in the 2003 recall have turned on him over the new tax increases. On stations up and down the state, they are chattering away in hopes of igniting a taxpayers’ revolt to kill his budget measures on the May 19 ballot.
We will be out in force Dipwad. You should actually listen to conservative talk radio before you declare it dead in California. Take a look at the photo right below, he is more popular than ever after the kefluffle with idiots in and around the White House.
But for all the anti-tax swagger and the occasional stunts by personalities like KFI’s John and Ken, the reality is that conservative talk radio in California is on the wane. The economy’s downturn has depressed ad revenue at stations across the state, thinning the ranks of conservative broadcasters.
For that and other reasons, stations have dropped the shows of at least half a dozen radio personalities and scaled back others, in some cases replacing them with cheaper nationally syndicated programs.
Casualties include Mark Larson in San Diego, Larry Elder and John Ziegler in Los Angeles, Melanie Morgan in San Francisco, and Phil Cowen and Mark Williams in Sacramento.
The loss of Melanie Morgan was sad and I think a mistake of Clear Channel, but if anyone thinks she is gone and out of the game is smoking funny stuff. She is still very active with Move America Forward and she is filling in for Officer Vic this coming week on the Lee Rodgers show on KSFO. So she is still around and feisty as ever. She can strip a liberal down to bare bones almost as good as Ann Coulter.
Two of the biggest in the business, Roger Hedgecock in San Diego and Tom Sullivan in Sacramento, have switched to national shows, elevating President Obama above Schwarzenegger on their target lists.
Another influential Sacramento host, Eric Hogue, has lost the morning rush-hour show that served as a prime forum to gin up support for the recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Now he airs just an hour a day at lunchtime on KTKZ-AM (1380).
"It’s lonely, it’s quiet, and it’s a shame," Hogue said of California’s shrinking conservative radio world. "I think this state has lost a lot of benefit. I don’t know if we can grow it back any time soon."
Talk radio hosts move around, come and go. If they leave one station, they will likely show up on some other one. Now if you walk down the hall at KSFO to the liberal counter part KGO 81 a giant 50K watt station with fifty or so listeners. Their main problem is some of the hosts like kiddy porn and then end up dead by health problems. Perhaps if they would maintain a healthy mind and life style they would do better. Oh, never mind that because then they would not be liberals.
Still, in a state that Obama won handily in November, a decisive conservative push-back against the tax-spend-and-borrow ballot measures is far from certain. The older white Republicans who tend to listen to conservative radio are a shrinking portion of the state’s voters.
It’s also no sure bet that the radio shows are converting listeners who might disagree with their agenda.
This guy doesn’t know a true conservative, we are not shrinking, if anything we are growing. Who was it who said “If at age 20, you are not a liberal, you have no heart. At age 40, if you are not a conservative, you have no brain."? That could not be more true today, watching the floundering fools in Washington and Sacramento where way too many Pubbies have jumped the shark and gone to the dark side on so many levels.
Now I know that Liberals are basically stupid, but I kinda expect Pubbies to be a bit smarter. The ones in DC and Sackatomatoes are for the most part letting me down.
"All these people are going to vote the conservative line anyway, or they wouldn’t be listening to those shows," said Jim Nygren, a Republican strategist.
Conservative radio reached its peak in California in 2003, when stations prodded listeners to sign petitions for an election to recall Davis, then drummed up GOP support for Schwarzenegger as his replacement.
Since then, it has been a favorite ad vehicle for Republican candidates and causes, such as Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage last November.
Leading the charge against Proposition 1A are John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, whose afternoon drive-time show on Los Angeles’ KFI-AM (640) draws 670,000 listeners a week, according to the Arbitron ratings agency. That makes them the most popular conservative talk radio hosts in the state.
Day after day, they pound Schwarzenegger and the Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats in approving the tax increases. They are encouraging recall drives against the legislators. Their website features pictures of the governor and the lawmakers — with their severed heads on sticks.
Heads on sticks? OK but let’s call them what they are “Pikes”. The more I read, the more this guy proves that he is a liberal moron.
"They’re all pretty shaken up by it," said Nygren, who counts some of the lawmakers as clients.
Last week, John and Ken urged listeners to show up with tax-revolt signs "outside Octomom’s house," taking advantage of the media presence surrounding Nadya Suleman, the Whittier mother of octuplets.
"It’s guerrilla warfare," one of the hosts said.
Many of the others on California’s conservative radio circuit are less belligerent. "It doesn’t need to be ranting and raving all the time," Hedgecock said.
And apart from KFI, whose morning show with Bill Handel draws 652,000 listeners a week, the California shows are far less popular. The only hosts of conservative programs with a weekly audience of more than 100,000 are Doug McIntyre of KABC (790) in Los Angeles, Lee Rodgers of KSFO (560) in San Francisco and Rick Roberts of KFMB (760) in San Diego."The content is the same," said Hogue, "but it doesn’t have the reach it once did. There are major players gone."
How did he compile these numbers? Possibly an internet poll at Daily Kos or Huffpo
