Liberal Radio Tries Again

Wall St Journal Political Diary
http://opinionjournal.com/politicaldiary

The first radio network explicitly created to bring liberal talk 
to a medium dominated by conservatives will debut January 5 on 
stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 
"Democracy Radio's" first talent find is Ed Schultz, a North 
Dakota talk radio host who says he wants to broadcast a national 
show aimed at "blue collars who take a shower after they come 
home from work." Mr. Schultz is expected to be joined on-air by 
comics Al Franken and Janeane Garafalo.

The founder of Democracy Radio is Tom Athans, a former 
Congressional staffer married to Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie 
Stabenow of Michigan. Mr. Athans is driven by frustration that 
in talk radio "there is only one political perspective that 
prevails, and that's the conservative perspective." He estimates 
that some 85% of the 340 major political talk shows in the 
country lean right.

Radio industry analysts say there is a reason for that 
imbalance: The market just isn't there for liberal talk. 
"Networks have tried such liberals as Mario Cuomo, Jerry Brown 
and Jim Hightower," says Michael Harrison, editor of the radio 
industry magazine Talkers. "Politics doesn't drive talk radio, 
the search for revenue does and liberals don't bring it in."

Another flaw in the business case for liberal radio is that 
liberal listeners already have a government-subsidized 
alternative that caters to their views and doesn't make them 
listen to commercials for heartburn relief. "Any market that has 
National Public Radio has a liberal talk show," says Tim Graham 
of the conservative Media Research Center. "I'd say liberals 
have already got 700 affiliates of NPR to say what they want to 
say."

Talk radio may not be so much biased as it is bifurcated: 
Liberals hang out on the FM dial while conservatives congregate 
over on AM. Why one gets a huge taxpayer subsidy and the other 
doesn't is, of course, one question you won't hear discussed on 
liberal radio, now or ever.