Finally some good news in California: Right-wing talk radio on the decline
By John Amato Tuesday Mar 17, 2009 4:00pmI know it's not big news, but it's still nice to see that Larry Elder is off my LA radio dial.
Tune 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.
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.
What these lunatics don't seem to understand is that California is facing a huge economic crisis.
The immediate question facing the state's conservative radio hosts is whether they can wield enough clout to block Schwarzenegger's ballot measures in May. They portray them as reckless proposals that would hasten California's economic decline. The worst, they say, is Proposition 1A, which would extend billions of dollars in tax increases for an extra two years, even while it imposes a spending cap long sought by conservatives.
In a special election likely to draw a dismal turnout, they hope that those most upset by the $12.5 billion in new taxes will be the ones most strongly motivated to cast ballots. Their inspiration is Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure that capped property-tax increases.
I'm not sure where they think revenues are going to come from, but protesting the Octomom is pretty pathetic even for them.
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That's why they have so many Viagra commercials.
randi rhodes, gone. peter b. collins, going.
hourglass
what really happened to randi? it's been too long without news...
XM left has changed the lineup after 2/3pm... i don't miss nancy skinner at all, and thom hartmann is a welcome switch, but it's weird without randi...
For any who don't know, if you were Larry Elder and/or John Ziegler fans in LA, you can now tune in to Ron Reagan Jr 3-6p and Mike Malloy 6 - 9 pm daily over on ktlk 1150 am.
Much better shows all around! Real outrage expressed, not staged. Such good news for the state of progressive talk radio !!
Mike Malloy is the best!!! If you get a chance you must listen. His first hour is always best but the whole thing is good.
he is the far left wing version of el druggo
Must be delayed though, as he's live at those hours EDT.
Wonderful news getting rid of more hate-monguering shows from the Reslugs and Resluts.
You made my day.
KABC used to be a wonderful radio station. They had two nice fellows during the morning drive, and Michael Jackson from 9 to 12. He was wonderful with lots of very informative guests and very intelligent interviews. They also had the Dodgers. They brought in Elder and O'Reilly and lots of other hate. It got so bad that I took their button off my radio.
Maybe there is hope.
I used to listen to him in LA years ago.
I've had to suffer with various right wingnuttitude mouthpieces includeing Mark Larson. I don't listen to him so I'm glad to know he's off the air. Now if we can only shut down Roger Hedgkook and that tool Michael Reagan. Air America radio played out it's unfortunate drama in San Diego and despite a large support for it, it disappeared here. A bright light for progressive oriented values in San Diego has been Stacy Taylor who is certainly knowlegable and skilled enough to be a national host. Unfortunately he also lost his most recent show to the economic slide. Not having his voice on the airwaves of socal is a big loss. At least it's good to know that the right wing fucktards are also losing their shows.
I remember a few years ago I decided I'd try listening to the right wing AM radio I'd heard so much about. So I turn on some station (the station Stacey used to be on before KLSD) and it's a right wing station with right wing callers, but the host is being, in my opinion, pretty darn fair about stuff. It was Stacey, and shortly afterwards he moved to KLSD. I'd say Stacey isn't left wing. He seems more of a pragmatist, and was very enjoyable to listen to.
I agree. He's not exactly an avowed liberal left winger but more of a common sense guy for a lack of a better way of putting it. So he's back on the air? Which station?
Randi Rhodes back!
whut about there freedomz of speach?
The largest employer of rightwing talkers, and owner of many of the stations, is getting hit big time by the recession. And since the market place rules, right wing talkers are a major fatality of it (as is the case here in Sacramento). And any time Melanie Morgan gets a pink slip is a good time for me....
As if left wing radio was more successful? Air America is barely surviving in far left markets and only exists because its subsidized
by George Soros.
First the left wanted to violate the first amendment to silence talk radio. Now that they have seen how unpopular censorship is they think that they can damage it by dismissing talk radio and stereotyping their listeners.
But here's the deal.
The only losers in talk radio are the left, that's why they want to regulate it so bad.
The LA times needs to issue a retraction since John and Ken's listeners are actually 1.1m not 650K as reported in the article.
It's clear from the article that they never actually listened to the show either.
The only thing in decline here is left leaning newspapers which will all be out of business in a few years. Right wing radio is here to stay, until the left uses fascism to suppress it. The notion of the LA times reporting on the decline of another media institution is laughable.
Besides the left acts as though its good the the state government just passed 40 billion dollars in tax increases!
This will end up costing the average California citizen $1500, not to mention the outragous car registration taxes and increased DMV penalties.
The tax increase will automatically counteract any money coming in from Obama's porkulus bill.
Are you people crazy or just plain dumb!
huh?
/dumbshit freeper
:P
You lost the election goose. Get over it. Get ready for the next 8 years . The wrong wing radio got trumped in the election.
You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts.
You do realize that the GOPers put the country in the situation it's in, right?
Did mommy forget to give you your meds again?
preese tew me when you be praying a crub in LA, I want to see you comety act!
He's part of the great CON-servative quack-up. They've lost, they're marginalized, they're on the ash heap of history.
Take a flying leap, you goddamn idiot.
Better get GPS coordinates from The Bird...
Goose Goose Goose...
Do you understand why the taxes need to be raised? It is becasue of the failed Republican policies that said give all the money to the rich and it will trickle down to the little people. You jokers tried it for eight years. You almost destroyed the world economy. To quote you, "Are you people crazy or just plain dumb?"
Also the only people talking about the fairness doctrine were the right wingnut scardy cats.
See, conservative radio flourishes mainly because the hosts have great control over the format of the show. All legitimate dissention isn't allowed to air and if it gets through the screeners, it is quickly squashed. It also flourishes because the braindead soundbites that comprise 99% of contalk radio is easy to listen to, requiring no thought whatsoever of the listener.
he was talking about this story...
minutes later, he announced that President Obama will be on his show this thursday...
i swear i heard the screams of the wingnuts...
I don't think there's an ideological bent to the radio decline - not only talkers on the left and right are getting dumped, but stations like Indie 103.1 and KLSX 97.1 in LA signed off recently. I think it's a "radio" problem, not a right-wing radio one.
The politics of Prop. 1A are byzantine, and it would take quite a while to explain them, but suffice to say that 1A would be awful for progressives, as a hard spending cap would ratchet down spending year after year, and tie the baseline to this year, during the worst budget crisis in state history. It would make matters objectively worse in California, if that's possible.
Bummer.
John,
I have listened to KGO (810 AM, San Francisco) most of my life. It is the best talk radio available. John Rothmann is my favorite host. His show is 1 - 5 am Saturday and 1 - 6 am Sunday. I record it on the internet, and download it to my iPod.
You can fool some of the people some of the time. And that's how Hate Radio has been surviving for years. Just as the Republican party has.
If you're a fan of the sheer hate, racism, sexism and bigotry that qualifies as "free speech," just turn off the radio and join a Purity Cult. Seriously, all you're doing is gifting money to massive corporations that don't give a shit about you.
Yes, Larry & John & Laura Ingraham are gone, but they were replaced by Mark Levin, Kennedy & Suits, & Mike Gallagher. Only the names have changed, but the idiocy is the same (or in Levin's case, worse)
The Peter B Collins show is going off the air. He can't afford to keep it going. Which raises the point that the left wing radio stations are just normal working class hero's.
Not some super funded anti America station that want's to cut all taxes to the bone. Then, cut the bone up too.
America isn't free. If you want America, you have to be willing to pay your share if you can. But the GOPers don't want that. They'd rather see Americans leave. Or go destitute. Then they'll bitch about them being on welfare.
Hey Goosed, how do you feel about all the homeless Veterans?
Are you willing to turn your back on them? Again?
... working on that story.
Oh, if only I could have written in the headline what I was REALLY thinking ... ;)
A positive trend, indeed. Now if we can just get more Millers and Malloys and Skinners and Hartmanns on the air ...
BID
that's the problem.
i've heard stephanie miller talk many times about how even when left radio is doing better that right in some markets, the station will change the format, dropping left radio, even taking a loss...
makes no sense.
There are plenty of quality left leaning hosts, but they can't get on the air. I remain unconvinced that progressive/liberal talk radio can't draw a sizable market if placed on stations with a decent signal. However, unless we break up the current media monopolies, that won't happen and we may never know. Voter registration in San Diego County is about a 50/50 split between Democrats and Republicans, but all we get on radio here is right wing talk radio, much of it syndicated. There is no way the public is well-served by this use of the so-called public airwaves. The public airwaves need to be returned to the public.
vetoed extension of unemployment benefits yesterday even though the money is coming from the feds. Talk about putting yourself out of business. These idiots are being thrown out of office every where because the middle class finally sees that republicans hate America.
My facts are straight.
Left wing radio doesn't make any money and is a debacle.
The 40 Billion tax increase averages out to about 1500 per family.
They also took away the dependent child tax credit. It will cancel
any benefit from porkulus in California.
Actually I think the left is responsible for this. You were the ones
who insisted on "affordable housing" remember? No down payments.
Or how bout Maxine Waters "There is no crisis at Fannnie Mae"
Or Barney Frank "These institutions are fundamentally sound"
Or Chris Dodd and his sweetheart mortgage with Countrywide.
Plenty of Republicans were involved with Freddie/Fannie too but there's way to much Democrat activity there to ignore.
Dem's have been in charge of congress for years, they oversew the regulatory institutions and did nothing. When the bubble was blowing the Dems loved fannie and freddie.
Besides your tax cheating treasury secretary is the one of wrote the original bailout plain and Obama voted for tarp.
The only people that stood against the bailouts were principled conservatives in the house. It was your guys along with bush and obama that pushed tarp.
You guys can dish it out but you can't take it.
And your so dumb you think the Federal government financing pork barrel projects, giving tax refunds to people that don't pay taxes, printing trillions in fake money, monetizing debt and borrowing from the chinese is going to fix out.
Obama is Carter all over again. Cap and trade will lead to an energy crisis in his first term. The Chinese and Russians are already taking advantage of his weakness and incompetence by engaging in provocative military maneuvers. I guess there will be no magical world peace because we elected a black man. (could have told you that)
Central economic planning doesn't work and never will.
Also can you guys manage to find anybody to work for Obama that knows how to file their taxes correctly.
Of course if a Republican cheated on their taxes we all now it wouldn't be called a "mistake" by the media. Or "sloppiness" when Sandy Berger steals classified documents from the state department by stuffing them in his socks.
Hypocrites
You're conveniently forgetting that the GOPers had both houses during the Clinton admim. Remember Newt and the Contract with America? The Dems took the House in 06. Starting in 07 . Then you lost the Senate in 08. Really Goosed, you should pay closer attention.
Oh, does the name Gramm ring a bell?
Recession during the Reagan years. Did he fix it? No, he just passed it off. Trickle down. sure thing.
Then GHWB couldn't fix it either. "Read my Lips, no new taxes."
So what does he do? He pass's it off.
Clinton ended up with a surplus. GWB completely fucked that all up.
Now we're dealing with the aftermath.
dumbass freeper troll
That almost half of the so called pork in this bill came from the GOPers. Like I said, you're entitled to your opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.
We've seen all this before. People get tired of explaining it to people such as yourself.
Does the color of the President have to do with anything?
Wow. Your true colors are showing.
Quote: "Dem's have been in charge of congress for years, they oversew the regulatory institutions and did nothing. When the bubble was blowing the Dems loved fannie and freddie."
The Dems have been out of power in congress since 1994 until Jan of 2007. So enlighten us oh wise one, how could your favorite scapegoats i.e. Frank and Dodd be responsible?
And for what it's worth, if the top 5% make 80% of the money in this country, they should pay 80% of the taxes at least.
Pay not attention to Goosestep. He is here only to spew nonsense. Personally I'm glad he came around so I can see how these wingnuts think. It is always good to know how the other side is thinking.
same lines, same bullshit, same LIES.
"Dem's have been in charge of congress for years, they oversew the regulatory institutions and did nothing..."
Republicans controlled BOTH HOUSES of Congress from 1994 through 2007.
(Not to mention the executive branch from around 1998, when they impeached Clinton, through 2008)
Democrats have had control of Congress since 2007.
...this could be a trend? 'Cause we all need a little less right-wing idiocy on our airwaves up in the Northeast.
What I wouldn't give to have WRKO drop Howie Carr off of the Zakim here. Maybe he might land on Gerry Callahan if I'm lucky.
A guy can dream.
I think its funny how all the responses don't challenge any of my specific points but degenerate into boastful name calling.
Rather pathetic.
The political winds can change quite quickly.
The reason CA is raising is taxes is we have a ravenous state government that has grown 40% in the past 10 years.
So I have to be looted to pay out welfare entitlements and kickbacks to the teachers and prison guard unions.
Lets make it so you guys spend all the taxes, we won't use your useless services or failing public schools and you can have all of it!
I'd like to see if you know what your talking about.
When did the affordable housing bill pass?
And what was the vote tally?
C'mon goosed, put your money where your mouth is.
Supply us with the facts.
Muddy.
Goosestep, like the rest of his ilk, cannot seem to understand that the reason California and many other states are running deficits is because they/we are not getting revenue becasue of the horrible economy. They are not collecting property taxes because there are so many Republican induced foreclosures. They are not collecting state income tax becasue there is so much Republican induced unemployment. There are other Republican induced problems that have caused this cluster fuck as well. Goosestep is just living in denial. An economy that his right wing masters created with their "only the rich prosper" policies. EVERYTHING he says ins just bullshit.
... paved roads, mail delivery, functioning stoplights, public libraries and all manner of other -- get ready for it; here comes the "S" word! -- socialistic entities that hold our communities and nation together.
Take your reich-wing Ronnie Raygun trickle-down shit and shove it back up your ass.
Oh, and learn to think and write cogently while you're at it.
Howzit going? Dees guy one lolo, no?
... this guy be loco!
God, wouldn't it be nice if every reich-winger just vanished back into his or her own parallel universe? I'm tired of us truth-seeking, reality-based individuals being subjected to their factually challenged drivel.
To repeat a tired but accurate phrase: They can make up their own opinions, but not their own facts.
Seeing that your moniker ees from da islands.:)
Yeah, I know it's a tired phrase. But it seemed appropriate.
I noticed that he bailed. I guess he can't stand being confronted with facts. Or being questioned about the facts.
I asked him to provide them. He disappeared. go figure.
I'll bet he's scurrying around trying to find them.
He won't like what he finds.
This country is packed with people who don't think they should pay taxes. The propaganda is so deep it will never recover in our lifetimes.
Some of the right wing radio hosts may be out because of the economy, but believe me this is only temporary. I predict a huge surge of con talk radio by 2010 election but for sure by 2012. The vitriol and hatred of the right toward democrats and Obama specifically will reach such a fever pitch, that it will make the smearing of Clinton look like a picnic. Republicans (conservatives) are experts at opposition.
Sen. Perata/California testified in court today about being carjacked. I couldn't believe how many republicans said they wished the carjacker had shot and killed Perata because he is a democrat. Nice politics there you ignorant fucks.
What sick, vicious, deranged, hateful, wicked subhumans.
Your GOP at work.
Glad you're all right, Mr. Perata.
They said that to the poor guys face?
WTF is wrong with these people?
In which place other than a Gestapo barrack would comments of that nature be considered even remotely appropriate?
he lost his job because he is impossible to work with
and im not sure why everyone is so thrilled by this news
in los angeles, there are very few local talk shows
as a result, people in socal remain ignorant of local politics
ergo, we reelected our corrupt mayor....
elder lost his job, partially because of the economy and partially because he began to believe his own drivel, leading to on air attacks against other personalities at kabc
its one thing to start an on-air feud to drive ratings...quite another to do it because you believe your own bs
and the rest of the props in May. I've also dropped my party registration as a Democrat (now an independent). I contacted my two Dem reps (Assembly member and state senator) three times each on the budget deal and got no response from either. I've voted for each of them at least twice previously, but no more. They are cowards, unresponsive, and must go. I'm tired of paying for Octamom and illegals while roads crumble and I get stuck with a higher tax bill. Spending priorities must change, state employment must decrease, and too generous state pension benefits must be reduced. The state can't raise taxes high enough to pay for all that has been promised.
Why do you think your groceries are so cheap? Because illegals pick your veggies and fruits.
And all those illegals who keep the cost of gardening, nannies and construction down? They're also contributing to the economy. And paying taxes.
I don't know what 1a is, but I've spent nearly my whole adult life in California. And first of all, there are a lot of "illegals" who are American citizens, they just happen to LOOK Mexican. And secondly, if you kicked all the true illegals out, the American economy would collapse.
The politicians know that, otherwise they'd go after the companies and individuals that employ illegals. If they can bust punks for carrying a marijuana joint, you don't think they could bust employers of illegals?
Very naive.
"And secondly, if you kicked all the true illegals out, the American economy would collapse."
I don't believe that for a minute. Kick them out and force employers to pay a living wage to American workers. The biggest impact would be on the profits of the wealthy, not on the price of produce.
Is that you expect corporations to pay living wages. Corporations would rather outsource our jobs to China and India, where they can pay a fraction of the cost.
The wealthy will never suffer in this country until we revolt and start lopping off some heads. You can bet dollars to donuts on that.
you have bought into the myth of illegal labor keeping costs down
what illegal labor does is keeps income flat...and the bosses pocket the surplus
you are aware that cesar chavez was also anti illegal, because he knew it would bust the farm workers union....right?
who is the one who is truly naive here
hmmmm.... really? You were a democrat?
and probably will be again. I haven't voted for a Republican in more than 20 years with the exception of the candidate for mayor of DC running against Marion Barry in 1994. At least when I wrote to Davis, Feinstein, and Boxer last fall opposing the initial bailout proposal, I got responses from all three. I wasn't necessarily opposed to the initial bailout, just the structure, preferring something closer to that which economists Krugman and Roubini proposed. I don't expect that I'll always agree with my representatives, even the ones for which I've voted repeatedly. However, I don't think it's too much to expect a response, especially to the biggest problem facing the state this year. Dropping my registration as a Democrat was intended to send a message. I don't expect I'll be voting for any Republicans any time soon as most I can't stand and most don't deserve my vote.
strangled by the noose of corporate ownership. These corporations seem to have paid more for the stations than can now be covered by ad revenue. They seem much more concerned about cutting costs than doing things that might actually grow the audience. Conservatism has been discredited and is in decline, but you'd never know that by listening to the radio.
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