BlatherWatch

Advertisers moving away from talk radio

Ever since Rush Limbaugh called  Sandra Fluke a "slut" and listeners complained to advertisers, those advertisers have been heading for the exits.  Controversey is a death-knell to selling to the public since across the dial there is something sure to piss off everyone. Radio Online reported recently:

Almost one third of marketing professionals surveyed by Aquent and the American Marketing Association indicate plans to decrease their focus on radio and other traditional media, opting instead for a stronger presence on digital media. 28% of those surveyed said they they will shift away from radio, with 82% of respondents saying they plan to shift their focus to mobile media and 76% looking to social media.

The survey was conducted online within the United States by Inavero on behalf of Aquent and the American Marketing Association among 2,620 marketing professionals, from senior-level executives to entry-level marketers across a variety of industries and organization sizes. Marketing professionals working within agencies represented 24% of responses. Marketers from health-care, financial services, professional services, and retail, e-tail & distributors were also well represented, with each providing more than 15% of the total responses.

The survey was conducted between the Oct. 31 and Nov. 19, 2012. Respondents included marketing professionals on lists provided by both Aquent and AMA. With a pure probability sample of 2,620, one could say with a 95% probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.9 percentage points. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

Of course, this hurts all of talk radio as advertisers move away from everyone, regardless of political leanings. It is much safer to advertise on music stations where their audience target is more narrowly defined.

Has the free market spoken??

This is an open thread.

NRA, et al continue to spiral out of control on TeeVee and Talk Raydio; slept thru 1934,1989 and 1998

 

In the aftermath of the recent mass shootings around the country, the National Rifle Assn (NRA) has come out with yet another ad aimed this time at the President's school age daughters. The ad, later pulled after criticism from conservatives such as Joe Scarborough purported to connect the Presidents use of Secret Service protection for his children at school as hypocritical to the rest of Americans who supposedly face the same type of threat.

Scarborough related on his Morning Joe show via Media Matters:  Scarborough, who as a Congressman was a strong supporter of the NRA, responded to the ad, asking "what's wrong with these people?" He continued, pointing out that once Obama decided to run for president, his children "have targets on their backs." Scarborough also said that the NRA is now a "fringe organization with millions of mainstream members." He concluded by saying the ad was "frightening and over the line."

The NRA wasn't the only dog whistle being blown, El Rushbo was also in on the act:  

Comparing the executive order signing yesterday with children standing around the President, Limbaugh bellowed: "The children's as human shield show" Others collaborating with Rush on twitter includes FOX radio's Todd Starnes who yapped:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another spare parts talker, FOX' Tammy Bruce tweeted "Really? How about Obama using dead children as pawns?"

Republicans are threatening to impeach Obama over executive action on gun control, but many presidents have issued executive orders on gun control, including George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Executive orders concerning a ban on assault weapons is nothing new. In 1989 after a mass schoolyard shooting in Stockton Calif, then President George HW Bush signed an executive order banning the importation of certain semi-automatic . This was based on the 1968 gun control act.

1952  Supreme Court ruled Executive Orders cannot be used to make new laws.  However, Executive orders can be used to manage the enforcement of an existing law such as the Gun Control act of 1968. Both the 1989 signing and President Clinton's signing in 1998 banning 50 semiautomatic weapons that were modified due to "sporting purposes" exemptions.

 

 

The President could also use another existing law to sign additional orders.  The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934,(after the St Valentines Day Massacre,FDR signed)  which levied a tax on the transfer of firearms. The President could use an executive order to institute a database and background checks centered on the sale of firearms; in other words, managing an existing law.

Neal Boortz plans retirement with Happy Ending. Replaced by Herman Cain who is now free to call the President a "Nazi"

42 years in broadcasting comes to an end, or Happy Ending  for Atlanta syndicated talker Neal Boortz. Not heard around here but in the backwaters of Aberdeen, Spokane and Tri-Cities

Nearly 5,000 fans and guests gathered in Atlanta the past Saturday, including Jeff Foxworthy, Sean Hannity, and Boortz successor Herman 999 Cain.

Boortz had planned the Happy Ending prior to his last air date of Jan 18th.  From Radio Online and his Facebook page he gushes:

"Thanks to the 4,650 people who came to my Happy Ending party at the Fox Theater in Atlanta last night," Boortz posted on his Facebook page. "You're my extended family -- LOVE YOU. And thanks to my Happy Ending guests! Banks & Shane, our emcee Chuck Dowdle, Sean Hannity, Jeff Foxworthy, Rush (no last name needed), a nice greeting from Larry the Cable Guy, Jamie Dupree, Herman Cain, Clark Howard, Erick Erickson, Monica Pearson, the two women I love the most to whom I'm not related, Belinda and Cristina, and my family, THE QUEEN, of course, and my daughter, Laura and her husband. The grandbaby stayed home taking care of a babysitter. Oh ... and Hannity, The Queen and I closed down a particular bar at 2:30 last night. That was the after-party. Love you all -- mean it -- and Royal was deeply missed."'

Boortz is known for creating the kind of on-air controversy his contemporaries live for.

 

 

The day after the Nov election, Boortz compared the President to Ted Bundy and Hitler.  We've noticed a lot of talk show hosts lately with a fascination with a black Hitler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even Hogans Heroes had to be careful when using Ivan Dixon to impersonate a Nazi and only at night.

Boortz also claimed President Obama "is a bigger disaster to this country than 9-11." That comment drew harsh criticism from 9-11 victims' families.  According to Talkers Magazine, Boortz holds a national audience of about 6 million weekly listeners, 200 stations.

We find it hard to believe since only so many hosts can claim 6 million listeners and also since his show is not heard around here.

He was ranked by the magazine as the 13th most influential radio talk host in the nation this year.

Your weekend open thread

We'd like to thank Rush for the downfall

But we're not sure, so we publish an open letter from one of talk radio's lesser known, but still in the "Heavy Hundred" of talkers trying to make a living in a ever changing radio world.  His name is Doug Stephan and he just posted in Talkers about his decline in ad revenue immediately following Limbaugh's comments about Sandra Fluke.  In fact the Fat Man's comments were cited in Talkers by Dial Global for their de-listing with the SEC from NASDAQ due to a "$67.2 million impairment charge".

Here is the letter:

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Reading the statements by Spencer Brown at Dial Global about what has happened to the advertising agencies’ attitudes toward controversial programming gives me cause to want to add my perspective as an independent producer with almost 25 years of syndicated radio experience…pretty much the same amount of time as Rush Limbaugh.

First and foremost, I’m a champion of and cheerleader for the format.  But what is represented here is the same quandary that faces the Republican Party…relevance.

 

We can praise the format’s audience loyalty to many advertisers following the Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke incident and complain about those who no longer want to stay in the atmosphere of controversy surrounding “those” shows, but we are outnumbered and outgunned because, let’s face it, the agencies and advertisers are how we survive.  So to tell them that their clients are stupid for not staying in an atmosphere in which they don’t want to be is akin to the Republicans not reading the tea leaves about changing demographics.

I’m not here to argue the point, but rather to tell you what this ONE incident has cost me as an independent in a sea of big corporate operators, who are obviously losing tens of millions of dollars due to this one event.

So far this year, my losses are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Cancellations, avoidance and decisions to just not buy across the whole format, no matter what the content, have led to this rude awakening.

I’m not looking for Limbaugh to send me a check (although that would be nice), but I do think we have to let it be known that his actions have been devastating to our survival.  I do think we have to do what we can to expand the format and let agencies know that their message can be safe with those who produce good programs that are fun, relevant and aimed at a different audience.  Letting the news media, and even agencies, get away with lumping all hosts and content together is irresponsible for them and their clients because they know they get the best results from spots delivered in the spoken word formats.

Solution: Expand, broaden, open up the potential for non-political talk to be aired and encouraged on weak stations in markets of all sizes.

Daytime television is telling us something.  Why aren’t we paying attention?

Doug Stephan is president of Stephan MultiMedia and host of the nationally syndicated “Good Day” program.  He can be emailed at [email protected].

The Day After--Update: Ted Nugent Death Watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day of reckoning has arrived, otherwise known as the second worst hangover day or post election night blues.

 

To be sure, we weren't sure the outcome nationally would be in as soon as it was, and in a few places including the Inslee/Mckenna race, it still may not be decided for awhile.  We do know this, it was the year of the woman and minority vote.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For schadenfreude, we tuned into FOX news when Ohio put the President at 274, clinching the electoral college vote.  Karl Rove was busy with his calculator saying Ohio should be 'challenged'   FOX was already calling the election though at 9pm PST. 

 

We know to the victor goes the spoils, including conservative talk radio, with hosts like Limbaugh et al who will spend the next 4 years calling voters 'stupid' and woman 'sluts' and of course 'rigged elections'.    More women and minorities turned out than in previous times, including the elections of Elizabeth Warren and the 2 Tammies, Duckworth and Baldwin to what were considered long shots to win, weeks earlier.  Should we mention SCOTUS appointments?

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will follow the chatter from the blogosphere and talk radio and teevee as it makes for interesting analysis or just plain intervention on the part of public safety as the next 4 years promise to either change the party that lost into a more mainstream message or one that will go the way of the Whigs.  We leave you with Diane Sawyer last night, somewhat out of it.

 

 

This just in, Ted Nugent is still alive

“If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

 

Odds and Ends: KGY updates programming, President social media outreach, Rush Limbaugh Movie?

 

KGY AM 1240 in Olympia has changed what is refered to as a Full-Service format, 24/7 hosts who would host blocks of the stations time. 

They still deliver the morning news, playing a song or 2 and inviting the Mayor or someone local in for an interview, but now KGY has joined the larger markets from having live/local all of the time, to a local morning show and then syndication the rest of the day and night from Dial Global and other networks featuring Jim Bohannon, Dennis Miller and Micheal Smerconish and Overnight America with Jon Grayson. A music block called Just Great Songs is offered on Saturday til midnight.

 

According to Talkers, President Obama Friendly to African American-Targeted Radio.  President Obama

SiriusXM talk radio star Joe Madison (whose program is also heard on terrestrial outlet WOL, Washington, DC) tells Talkers that the President has reached out to the African American community,  "being the first presidential candidate to seriously use social media to assist his election and re-election efforts but he’s also been a user of radio programs that target the urban audience." 

"Madison says he believes the get-out-the-vote effort targeted to black radio by the Obama campaign appears to be working.  “I believe the early voting we’ve seen in our community is due to black talk radio encouraging our audience to vote.  Yesterday in Dade County, Florida, voters were in line until 1:00 am.”

 

Also from Talkers, Actor John Cusack to Produce and Star in Film About Rush Limbaugh.  The Huffington Post reports that actor John Cusack’s company, New Crime Productions, is putting the finishing touches on the script of a movie about Rush Limbaugh tentatively titled “Rush.”  The story quotes actress/director Betty Thomas (who also directed Howard Stern’s “Private Parts”) saying she will direct and that production starts sometime next year.

Frank Rich takes a swim

  NY Times columnist Frank Rich spent a week listening to what
passes as right-wing media these days, feeling empathy for it's listeners while laughing at how out-of-touch right-wing media really is.

Overly paid, fatuous hosts parroting fear mongering while the establishment of the right remains rudderless due to in-fighting from the grassroots and with an extremely wealthy candidate, oblivious to mainstream America making Chevy Chase's SNL Ford character look ready for the job.

 

 

 

           voter fraud found at country club

Rich chose the week of the GOP convention to chronicle his findings in the NY Times piece...  "On the sixth day, I listened to Glenn Beck, and I saw that he was good. Or if not exactly good, then honest-to-God funny."  

"I had tuned in as part of a thought experiment then entering its final lap: an attempt to put myself in the Republican brain by spending a solid week listening to, watching, reading, surfing, and otherwise gorging on conservative media. As would also be true of an overdose of liberal media, it was lulling me into a stupor, and I was desperate for a jolt. Beck provided exactly that, in the form of comedy, and to my astonishment, I found myself laughing out loud—with him, not at him." 

Beck provides more comic relief for Rich: "In Beck’s fantasy, someone in the Romney camp did have qualms about letting an 82-year-old geezer vamp with an empty chair. But the skeptic had been overruled by a higher-up saying just “three magic words”—to wit, “It’s Clint Eastwood!” As in: “What could possibly go wrong? It’s Clint Eastwood!” Beck kept repeating this scenario with ever-more-manic variations, turning “It’s Clint Eastwood!” into a burlesque tagline akin to Gene Wilder’s crazed “No way out!” in The Producers (a Beck favorite). Only at the end of his shtick did politics intrude. Unless the person who said the three magic words “now has been terminated,” Beck said, he wouldn’t “trust Mitt Romney’s ability to run the country.” As he explained, it was only a small step from “It’s Clint Eastwood!” to “It’s Ben Bernanke!”—and the next thing you know, a Romney administration would be extending the term of the despised Fed chairman. He had a point."

 Rich was referring to the week that was in Tampa with Clint Eastwood rambling to an empty chair.  Said Beck, " “I love Clint Eastwood”—but confessed he’d found the performance “painful to look at.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rich feels empathy for the foot soldiers of the conservative movement, even before this week's, all but concession speech from the establishments hope and no-spare change pick of Willard Romney.  Rich continues,  "... those in the right’s base, who are often sold out by the GOP Establishment, and admiration for a number of writers, particularly the youngish conservative commentators at sites like the American Conservative and National Review Online whose writing is as sharp as any on the left (and sometimes as unforgiving of Republican follies) but who are mostly unknown beyond their own ideological circles."

The praise for R$money from the inner circle of conservative writers and hosts was faint but dutiful:   "In The Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson saluted Mitt as “a good guy” only after cataloging his “breathless, Eddie Attaboy delivery, that half-smile of pitying condescension in debates or interviews when someone disagrees with him, the Ken-doll mannerisms, his wanton use of the word ‘gosh.’ ” Mike Huckabee tried for a homespun maxim: “If you’ve just been diagnosed with a brain tumor, you honestly don’t care if your neurosurgeon is a jerk.”

 

Never mind the fact that Bush' 41/43 were not invited to the confab in Tampa, nor was the last candidate for the WH treated  any more than as a country cousin,  "John ­McCain was as welcome in Tampa as Banquo’s ghost; even Bill O’Reilly’s much-hyped prime-time interview with the 2008 standard-bearer was abruptly truncated for a generic podium speech by Romney campaign chairman Bob White."  Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford were non-mentions but Reagan re-digitized for the Jumbo-Tron was brought out after the 2008 edition nearly shredded was remastered.  

After a Monday afternoon of Chris Matthews lobbing a stink-bomb at GOP Chair Reince Priebus, over a birther joke Romney made, FOX news permanently bolted cameras at the delegations of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, or the District of Columbia, all of which, preposterously enough, were given prime seats near the stage in Tampa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sez Rich,  "Even now, the GOP seems oblivious to the fact that its alliance with Donald Trump, the nation’s preeminent birther, is enough to cancel out any serious outreach to African-Americans in 2012. Were it not for Isaac, Trump might have hijacked the convention on opening night."

Speaking of celebrity, Frank's column also points out how the right uses the has beens of late 80's SNL members Dennis Miller, Victoria Jackson and Jon Lovitz , while Chris Christie's adoration of rocker Bruce Springsteen is not reciprocated.

Beck's disaffection continues with the establishment right, " The morning after opening night in Tampa, Beck fretted aloud about whether anyone had been watching at all. He was equally nettled by a study showing that conservatives “just don’t do viral stuff.” Saying that the right doesn’t share speeches like Ann Romney’s with friends and that the left does, he asked, “Are we even in the game at this point?” I thought Beck was being histrionic, but my own anecdotal experience that week bore him out: The Twitter feeds I followed of conservative voices, pundits, and institutions generated far less volume and snark than their liberal counterparts. “Got an awesome hug from the convention info lady at the terminal,” read an all-too-typical missive from one of the more prolific conservative tweeters, Jonah Goldberg."

 

 

 

 

 free-loading states for Romney

 

Rush Limbaugh infuriated at the grassroots movement of the right: At the start of convention week, he replayed a Bill Kristol admonition, delivered the day before on Fox News Sunday, that the convention had to advance a positive agenda. “So what he’s basically saying is, ‘Don’t make the convention about bashing Obama,’ ” was how Limbaugh translated Kristol’s advice. He was having none of it. “I think it’s been a trick the Democrats have used for decades, and I’m stunned that our side keeps falling for it,” he said. “The trick is: ‘These Independents don’t like criticism! They don’t like raised voices! They don’t like partisanship! It makes them nervous. And whenever the Republicans get critical of President Obama, these Independents just run right back to the Democrats and vote for them.’ I don’t believe that for a minute!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Micheal Savage was sickened by “the eunuchs in the Republican Party,”. Says Savage (570 the new and more KKKVI) "..“Just what we need … a man who may be president, that he does his own laundry!” after Ann "you people" Romney claimed her husband is just like us going down to the wash house. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Now you understand why the tea-party movement arose, and now you understand why they haven’t even mentioned the tea party … I have no idea what they stand for.” And he was still just warming up. “The Republicans have just dug their own grave,” Savage continued. “Unless Romney gets up there like a man and stops acting like a pocketbook carrier for his wife, he is finished.”

Another bile-filed response came from Mark Levin, "Obama is “a nasty, leftist ideologue” and to say otherwise is to emasculate the Republicans’ case against him. “Do we really have to be driven by focus groups, by Frank Luntz?” he asked. Noting the lousy convention ratings, he added: “If we’re trying to reach out to Reagan Democrats and Independents, apparently a lot of them weren’t watching.” Soon he was taking a call from a Republican election officer who was so put off by the convention that he said he would vote for Romney but not go door-to-door to corral others to do so."

 

Rich points out that the overplaying of the Eastwood video may have done more harm than good by downplaying the anger of the those behind the scenes while relying on “more in sorrow than anger” political strategy.

Frank Rich sums up his adventure in fear and loathing media: "That anger is certain to rage long past Election Day, and if I learned anything in my week strolling around the conservative mind, it was that anyone who sticks to an exclusive diet of lame-stream media is missing the news."

Rush blows like the wind, Robertson praises same

 

  In the lead up to the conventions full of more hot air than that being pushed ahead of a hurricane, Rush claims gubmint weather modifications were used to cancel GOP convention and Robertson says the big guy did same to protect Tampa.  Plus, GOP grassroots members may be forced out of convention starting today, according to Red State

"At 2:00 p.m. today in Tampa, the Republican National Committee, led by Team Romney, is moving to shut down conservative grassroots activists. I’ve been on the phone with several individuals involved in the fight who tell me that the fight is not over, it is only just starting."

"Specifically, the media is reporting that the rules fight is over because Team Romney is abandoning Ben Ginsberg’s effort to allow candidates to control delegates. Under an initial proposal, delegates would, in effect, be chosen by the presumed nominee’s campaign and not based on votes in the states and delegate selection processes in the states."

  Will Rand Paul sell out his dad for 30 pieces of end times silver/gold?

 

 

 

 

This is an Open thread folks as the next 2 weeks promise to be a doozy of a storm, so hang on to your parasols and straw hats.

 Some Updates tonight from twitter:

@ GingerGibson : Number of times "I" appears in Christie's prepared text:37. Number of times "Romney" appears: 7

@ howardfineman : A tough, harsh, nasty speech by Chris Christie -- but effective for the GOP base if nowhere else. @ jbendery : 20 mins into his speech, Chris Christie actually stops talking about himself and says Mitt Romney's name for the first time. @ howardfineman : Ann said nothing in particular by way of a narrative; did not mention her MS or their charity or any direct mention of the Mormon Church.

Talkers new ratings are out

The wait is over! Those In The Know over at Talkers Magazine have released their Heavy Hundred list for 2012. While most of the results are predictable, there are a few new faces that are sure to annoy some of you. All of them have included bios that read as if their sainted mothers wrote them. It is a  good mix of terrestial and satellite stations, men and women. This year there are a few more liberal voices on the list as well.

While we won't list all of them here--you can see the entire list at the link above--we will go through the list and show you a few of them. If you disagree, take it up with Talker's Magazine.

In the No Surprise category:

 1. Rush Limbaugh 

 2. Sean Hannity  

 3. Michael Savage

Sure to draw ire on our little blog is

 4. Ed Shultz

..and a few more names that are familiar:

 5. Laura Ingrahm

 7. Mark Levin

 8. Thom Hartmann

 9. Glen Beck

11. Stephanie Miller

12. Howard Stern

13.Neal Boortz

15. Alan Colmes

21. Dennis Miller

24. Michael Medved

33. Don Imus

38. Randi Rhodes