Swirling About The Drain
By Mitch Berg
I hate to indulge in schadenfreud.
But I’m only human.
Arbitron numbers are in for the Fargo-Moorhead area – and the two big lib-talk hosts at KFGO (which is sort of the WCCO of the Fargo metro area) are sucking fumes.
Joel Heitkamp is off sharply, according to Rob Port.
But even more sweet? Mike McFeely – the sportscaster turned incompetent liberal talking head – is sucking pond water.
Conservative talk thrives in liberal bastions like the Twin Cities, Chicago and LA – as a contrarian Jeremiah, and a rallying point for the areas beleaguered conservatives. You’d think, orthagonally, that liberal talk would work for the same reasons in relatively conservative places like Fargo (although Fargo is the most liberal major city in North Dakota).
I guess not.
August 12th, 2014 at 3:14 pm
AM 1280 needs more watts to cover a larger area.
That, or put you on at night so people can listen to you on the skip, the way I used to lie abed in Southern Minnesota listening to KAAY in Little Rock and WLS in Chicago on my AM radio.
August 12th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
Ahh, those were the days. I’d be up late listening to the 50,000 watt clear channel sound of ‘Fat’ Eddie Schwartz on Chicago’s 720WGN or the ‘Truckin’ Bozo’, Dale Sommers on Cincinnati’s 700WLW or “??” personality on 830’CCO.
But clear channel stations have gone the way of the do-do.
Good thing there are now apps & websites like IHeartRadio where you can listen to just about any station on your smartphone or computer. You can even listen to the Patriot via their website – ain’t the 21st Century grand?
August 12th, 2014 at 7:16 pm
The difference between conservative talk radio & lib talk radio is that conservative talk radio hosts speak in full sentences. Lib talk radio hosts talk in conspiracy theories and chanting points.
In other words, they talk in sound bites or they talk in wild conspiracy theories. That’d get old in about 38 seconds.
August 13th, 2014 at 5:44 am
Nice, thoughtful piece. I appreciate your uncertainty MBerg. I take it as a sign of intellectual honesty. When you get an increasing proportion of the people listening to just one group of advocates who constantly lie to them, it’s not going to end well.
August 13th, 2014 at 10:15 am
I agree with AM 1280 needing more power. I live out in St. Cloud, and I would have really liked to get a continual feed from you last night as I went to the Emmer for Congress primary results party in Monticello. KNSI (St. Cloud area) doesn’t have much reach south of town.
August 15th, 2014 at 12:20 pm
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August 19th, 2014 at 8:26 am
You’re right that KFGO is the CCO of the Fargo/Moorhead area. It’s always been a big-signal, general outreach sort of station. And when Ed Schultz jumped from WDAY, back in 1996 or so, he went to KFGO, because they would let him get in on selling ads–which can be much more lucrative than just talking on air. The advantage of being on KFGO is that it does a lot of syndication to other North Dakota stations, so one can get a bigger audience right away.
But North Dakota is a conservative place. Even their Democrat senator, Heidi Heitkamp (sister of Joel) had to abandon her socialist youth affiliations to get elected statewide, and now is a pro-gun, pro-life and pro-farm subsidy populist.
Ed Schultz knew that. Whatever one says about Ed, and folks who know him have a lot to say, he understands the broadcast business. Even when he figured out there was room in the market for a liberal host who understood radio, he kept his act in North Dakota much less lefty. For a lot of years, he had a more balanced program statewide in North Dakota, and a shouty pro-union national show. Plenty of folks in North Dakota only ever heard the general interest show, because the liberal show couldn’t pull the listeners in North Dakota.