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72. Here's Why the Right Wing Dominates Talk Radio Today

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/heres-why-the-right-wing_b_206444

06/21/2009 05:12 am ET Updated May 25, 2011

Ever wonder why the right wing continues to dominate talk radio, even as it loses elections?

“Your Huffington Post piece showed only the tip of the iceberg,” a major talk-show figure e-mailed last month following my blog here on Rush Limbaugh’s empire being built initially by giving his show away for free to hundreds of smaller-market talk stations. My veteran radio source, assured anonymity, added, “The main story here is vertical integration in the radio business” and the way the big urban talk stations get their programs.

Vertical integration: Precisely what the federal government has moved to ban in the television and movie industries with anti-trust actions. But the radio business has gotten a free pass.

Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates righties Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Dr. Laura, among others, is owned by the nation’s largest radio-station conglomerate, Clear Channel. Clear Channel, thanks to FCC deregulation, was allowed to gobble up over 1000 radio stations — including 16 of the most powerful, (lower-case) clear-channel AM stations in major markets.

Today, Clear Channel either owns or programs most of the nation’s 58 strongest, 50,000-watt AM radio stations, liberally stocking them with right-wing talk shows. Among them: Los Angeles’ KFI, New York’s WABC, Detroit’s WJR, Denver’s KOA, Portland’s KEX, and Chicago’s WLS.

Yes, Clear Channel does own liberal Air America stations. But none of them is a 50,000-watt “blowtorch.” Instead, Clear Channel puts shows like Thom Hartmann’s on its smaller, 5,000-and 10,000-watt “sticks” (antennas).

Clear Channel is more than a corporate name. It’s also a radio descriptor: A clear-channel radio station is a powerful, 50,000-watt signal with interference-free nightly coverage 750 miles from its city.

Clear Channel owns 17 of those coveted licenses, and its Premiere supplies much of the programming to many of the rest. There are only one or two 50,000-watt stations carrying Air America’s — or any — liberal shows.

Wherever Clear Channel owns a big AM radio station and other smaller ones, it always puts Premiere’s Hannity, Rush, et al on its biggest signal. This puts liberal stations at a big disadvantage in virtually all large markets — where the real radio money is.

“The prevailing assumption right now in talk radio,” one talk programmer told me. “Is that you won’t lose money on conservative talk. That could change, but it’ll take time.” SNIP

I realize this article is from 2009/2011, however, things seem to have gotten worse since then.