C'mon Now, Let's Just Be Fair...

This is not good…not good at all:

Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week.

As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format:

· Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is 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.

· A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

This dynamic is repeated over and over again no matter how the data is analyzed, whether one looks at the number of stations, number of hours, power of stations, or the number of programs. While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, conservative talk continues to be pushed out over the airwaves in greater multiples of hours than progressive talk is broadcast.

[…]

Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.

Hoo-Boy. The bit that is particularly scary is the “multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system,” which one could take as code for the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (the resurrection of which is one of my serious hot-buttons). But you know what’s really scary? This: “Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton Will Target Talk Radio: Inhofe.” And you know Her Hillaryness would do just that, should she be elected Leader of the Free World. In a frickin’ heartbeat. It doesn’t matter what the market (read: the people) wants…it’s all about outcome. And the Lib-Left is sick and tired…beyond sick and tired…of losing their ass in the radio world. The next logical step in the process is to eliminate conservative talk radio…in the interests of “fairness,” ya know. We just gotta be fair about the whole thing.

And just for grins and giggles, Confederate Yankee notes the following:

Back before he was governor of Minnesota and was still prowling the squared-circle as the villainous heel "The Body," Jesse Ventura used to growl, "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!"

That maxim seems to have been taken to heart (and wallet) by the progressive Center For American Progress (CAP), which released a document called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," which advocates the return of the failed "Fairness Doctrine" in talk radio, in an attempt to censor and stifle the dominance of conservative talkers.

What the Center For American Progress won't tell you is that one of the authors of the liberally-biased "report," Paul Woodhull, is a founding partner of not one, but two liberal talk radio show companies, Big Eddie Radio Productions, LLC (BERP), which produces The Ed Shultz Show, and Bill Press Partners, LLC, producers of The Bill Press Show.

As I said…it’s all about outcome. Oh yeah, and advancing your own financial interests, as well.

Update 1224 hrs: Here’s Peggy Noonan on Her Hillaryness, which has nothing to do with talk radio or the Fairness Doctrine, but is interesting, none the less:

As for her attempts to appeal to centrists, two items deserve note. One is that Mrs. Clinton has taken, on the stump, to referring to herself as "born . . . in the middle of America in the middle of the century." This is interesting because it's word for word what George H.W. Bush said in 1988 when he introduced his choice of Dan Quayle. She has also taken to referring to herself as famous but unknown, which is exactly what was said of Vice President Bush the same year. Mrs. Clinton seems to have been studying 1988, which was the last time anyone won the presidency in a landslide.

But there is another side of the Clinton campaign, and I found some of it this week. It is a new Web site called HillaryIs44.com. It is rather mysterious. It does not divulge who is running the site, or who staffs it. It is not interactive; it has one informative voice, and its target audience seems to be journalists and free-lance oppo artists.

And it reads like The Warrior's Id. Hillary "took on" a journalist this week and "beat him into submission." Bloomberg has "stripped himself of allies" in "New York's cutthroat politics." "Expect stormy days ahead for Bloomberg," who will wind up "lonely." Republicans "will attempt to rip him to shreds." "A May surprise announcement will be met with mounds of research accumulated over the next 11 months."

The woman is the veritable Queen of Darkness. Read the whole thing.

Update Number Two, 6/23/07: The whole Boxer-Her Hillaryness conversation may or may not have happened. Or it may have happened three years ago. To say this isn’t entirely clear is understating the case, but the Lefties are sure having fun with it. Here’s an update from Jake Tapper’s ABC News blog:

UPDATE: Boxer's and Clinton's offices got back to me.

"Senator Boxer told me that either her friend Senator Inhofe needs new glasses or he needs to have his hearing checked, because that conversation never happened," says Natalie Ravitz, the communications director for Boxer.

"Jim Inhofe is wrong," says Philippe Reines, Clinton's press secretary. "This supposed conversation never happened - not in his presence or anywhere else."

AFTERNOON UPDATE: Even though Inhofe prefaced this story by saying "I was going over to vote the other day," the Oklahoman this afternoon told Fox News' Neil Cavuto that this alleged conversation took place "about three years ago."

That's kind of weak.

Yeah, that IS kinda weak. The fact remains, however: The Left knows (a) right-wing radio is eating its lunch, (b) the Left has been unable to mount an economically viable, serious challenge to right-wing radio, so (c) “something must be done.” Evidence? All this talk of reviving the Fairness Doctrine. QED.