It's official: 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative

[sinkingfeeling]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/20/radio-report/

“The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio”, a new report was released by The Center for American Progress and Free Press.

– In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.

– Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk — 10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

– 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive.

The full report is here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/pdf/talk_radio.pdf

[whistle]

1. Holy shit, how did the owners overlook that 9% who aren't conservative

[spanone]

2. 91% eh? No need for fairness doctrine.

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[onenote]

7. unfortunately, the fairness doctrine probably wouldn't change much

First, it is more likely than not that the Fairness Doctrine wouldn't survive constitutional challenge. A good portion of the reasoning underlying the Fairness Doctrine related to the scarcity of spectrum. While spectrum is still a limited resource, the availability of outlets for speech through the Internet appears to be changing the way courts and policy makers view broadcasting.

But even if the doctrine does survive, don't expect it to make much of a difference. The doctrine required stations to cover controversial issues of public importance, and to present such issues in an honest, equal and balanced manner. The problem is that the FCC is particularly ill-suited to making judgments about whether an issue has been covered in a balanced manner. Merely mathematical measures don't work particularly well and assessing the subjective "equality" of presentation of issues is, well, subjective. So long as asshats like hannity and o'reilly invite "guests" to express "opposing" views, its unlikely that the FCC or the courts will do anything.

[EnviroBat]

3. I'll enjoy throwing this stat in Shit Head Hannity's face. n/t

[Nikki Stone1]

4. Which percentage was Lionel included in?

Just curious.

[unpossibles]

5. the problem is

this will be seen as a bragging point by freepers - an illustration of how the free market works, popularity of ideas, etc. when in fact it is the other way around. My come back for that is to point out other mindless yet popular things, such as Paris Hilton, and how "popular" does not equal "good" in many cases.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Baloney - they are radical corporate fascists, not conservatives

The republicons love to catapult the word "conservative" around as propaganda, as if it somehow applied to them

But they squander our tax dollars like drunken sailors to enrich their corrupt cronies, and they trash the envionment that we all -- and our children and grandchildren -- depend upon for survival

republicons are radical fascist fear-mongering chickenhawk control freaks, the opposite of conservatives