Still Not Dead
By Mitch Berg
So why is the left – not just the the media and the attack-PR-osphere and the left’s lumped horde of chattering classes, but indeed the Administration itself – so invested in attacking the informational lynchpins of the opposition, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News?
Not to mention slandering the motivations and character of every single dissenter to their polities, on a national, media-wide and systematic basis?
Because the opposition just keeps growing. The April 15 tea parties drew 600,000 people; the 9/17 parties, millions.
Dissent from Hope n Change isn’t going away.
And they’d so hoped that it would.
Four years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 2004 elections, a slew of radio consultants made a zillion dollars telling talk-radio program directors that conservative talk radio was dead.
It was wishful thinking, of course. And now that conservatives are the underdogs again, we have entered – as I predicted during our election-night broadcast – a second Golden Age of Conservative Talk Radio.
The I Hate The Media blog R unpacks the latest Arbitron ratings nationwide in head-to-head competitions between Rush Limbaugh affiliates and affiliates carrying Ed Schultz and/or Stephanie Miller, the closest the left’s come to “successful” programming so far.
And it’s not a pretty picture – unless you like conservative talk radio. Then, it’s a very, very pretty picture.
Note that the ratings below are for the stations as a whole, not for Limbaugh (or Schultz/Miller):
1. New York
WABC Rush 3.7 (8th in market)
WWRL Ed/Steph 0.2 (50th in market tie)2. Los Angeles
KFI Rush 5.0 (1st in market)
KTLK Ed/Steph 0.4 (48th in market tie)
Catch that? In two of the nation’s largest and most liberal markets, the conservative talk leader not only beats liberal talk, but does it by an order of magnitude and more.
8. Washington
WMAL Rush 2.7 (17th in market)
WTNT Ed only 0.3 (33rd in market tie)
This, not long after Washinton’s “Obama 1260” all-leftytalk station bit the dust.
16. Minneapolis
KTLK-FM Rush 3.6 (13th in market)
KTNF Ed/Steph 1.1 (21st in market)
It’s not “libtalk’s” best performance – that’d be in Seattle, where the Rush affiliate only gets 2.5 times the ratings the FastEddie/MiniIngraham station gets.
But Rush is hampered by the fact that he’s on KTLK-FM, a station that only recently adopted conservatism as a driving format motif, and has otherwise made a royal botch of things until fairly recently.
Now, there’s a fair point to be made here; liberals don’t need to listen to talk radio; they already have the mainstream media, plus National Public Radio, plus MSNBC, CNN and CNBC, plus the Big Three, plus their real news standardbearer, Jon Stewart.
Andt that’s true. The real point of this post isn’t so much “how bad is conservative talk clobbering liberal talk” – everyone in their right mind knew it would – as it is “how wrong were the consultants four years ago”, and “how does that inform the Administration’s current campaign to demonize all dissent?”
Very wrong, and very much, which is providing both a mission for the Administration and an inconvenient truth for its mainstream media supporters:
Yes, the release of Arbitron radio ratings for August 2009 created quite a stir in Los Angeles last week when it was revealed that AM news-talk giant KFI had moved into first place.
But judging by the coverage in the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Business Journal, this feat was somehow accomplished without the help of the medium’s star performer, Rush Limbaugh.In covering the achievement, the latter two publications didn’t even mention Rush, while the Times noted Limbaugh only in passing deep into one story and left him out of another entirely.Is it really that hard to admit Rush could be so popular in their own backyard?
Here’s what we know about Limbaugh’s contribution to KFI’s feat, along with some new details on his performance elsewhere during August: The Rush Limbaugh Show gained a full share point overall, from 5.9 to 6.9 to take first place with a weekly cume of 635,700 listeners. With men 35-64, the jump was from 4.7 to 5.6. In the 11am hour, Rush pulled in a mammoth 6.3.
These results are cropping up from coast to coast (read Maloney’s entire piece).
Which tells the media that the peasants are revolting.
And that is why the White House and the media it keeps in its hip pocket have switched into full-blown smear machine mode.
TANGENT: During the Bush years, the left clutched at its pearls and accused Karl Rove of running a “smear machine” through any number of right-leaning groups – the Swiftboat Vets, Fox News, you name it. But can you imagine what’d happen if there’d been the faintest hint of Bush Administration involvement in leaning on media dissent – which, unlike the current Administration, was omnipresent and utterly vicious?
October 21st, 2009 at 9:31 pm
“You get what you pay for.” And generally the more you pay the better the product you get. That is why health care outcomes track health care spending pretty well and why France and Canada have better outcomes than Costa Rica. The glaring exception to this general trend is the U.S. We spend twice what France and Canada spend per capita, but get worse outcomes. We get less than half what we pay for. Because we get so little for our healthcare $s, little Costa Rica can get nearly the same results for %5 of the cost.
“If one of these uninsured medical tourists goes to CR, gets suergery, comes back to the states, has a problem & ends up at the local emergency room or in a hospital long term, who picks up the tab for that?” Some combination of the person, tax-payers, and insurance premium payers. Why
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:17 am
Your anecdote was worthless, RickDFL. God knows where you picked it up, but it contributes nothing to the discussion of whether or not Obamacare is a good or a bad thing. Some Canadians come to the US for care and pay for it out of their own ditto. Some English people go to France or God knows where when they need care their government does not want to pay for. The Americans who go to Costa Rica do it to save money. They could get their are here. The Canadians who come here can’t get the care they are willing to pay for in Canada.
If we cut the GDP cost of health care in half we’d be back where we are in a few years if we haven’t managed the rate that its cost is increasing. If we could reduce the increase in medical costs to the rate of inflation we wouldn’t need to cut the current cost to the GDP.
I’m not against reform, I’m against bad reform, and when proponents talk about the ‘efficiency’ that government is going to introduce to an industry I think rationing.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:55 am
Boy I messed that comment up! Try the edited version:
Your anecdote was worthless, RickDFL. God knows where you picked it up, but it contributes nothing to the discussion of whether or not Obamacare is a good or a bad thing. Some Canadians come to the US for care and pay for it out of their own pocket. Some English people go to France or God knows where when they need care their government does not want to pay for. The Americans who go to Costa Rica do it to save money. They could get their care here. The Canadians who come here can’t get the care they are willing to pay for in Canada.
If we cut the GDP cost of health care in half we’d be back where we are in a few years if we haven’t managed to control the rate that its cost is increasing. If we could reduce the increase in medical costs to the rate of inflation we wouldn’t need to cut the current cost to the GDP.
I’m not against reform, I’m against bad reform, and when proponents talk about the ‘efficiency’ that government is going to introduce to an industry I think rationing by bureaucrats.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:51 am
To some, rationing by bureaucrat is better than rationing by business man. To me, it’s not. It’s a whole lot easier to fire the business man.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Nice meltdown DickyDFL!!!
*hands him a paperbag*
“If I were given an equal amount to spend…” – DickyDFL
Typical DFLer, always looking to take other peoples’ money instead of earning it themselves. Thanks for reminding us of your true colors, DickyDFL.
*grin*
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
No, just trying to figure out why you think margin of error is relevant to the disscussion.
The fact, RatioRick, that you did not know what nomenclature “+/-” meant when arguing finer points of statistics while desperately trying to prove existence of AGW, makes your pulling of links out of your anus to make your arguments for you without understanding the math behind them makes you very poor debater. Masturbator or a baiter, maybe, but not a debater.
Just a reminder, as Mitch so aptly put, one cannot type slow enough for you to understand what is being discussed.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Theoretically this could go on until Costa Rica was just one giant U.S. hospital. So what?
Why do you hate Costa Ricans so much?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Terry:
“anecdote” I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Troy:
” It’s a whole lot easier to fire the business man. ” Try firing your insurance company and hiring a new one when they rescind your policy or won’t cover some procedure.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:53 pm
RickDFL, your entire comment, http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=5573#comment-57758, was anecdotal.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Terry:
If you think CDC studies and polling data are “anectdotal” you must sure be the life of the party. Sophisticated ladies must just swoon at your clever repartee.
Seriously, try to stick to words you understand.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 am
RickDFl, your Costa Rica Post referenced http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/costa-rica/090321/another-reason-visit-costa-rica?page=0,0
Contained such examples of diamond-hard research as:
“This Costa Rica holiday involved a face-lift and liposuction — or, as Ervin puts it, it was a chance to “freshen up.””
and
“Recognized for its high-level hospitals and doctors — many of whom boast U.S. medical school degrees — Costa Rica is a prime destination.”
And this gem:
“An estimated 20,000 health travelers sought treatment here last year, although no official count is available, said Dr. Alfredo Lopez, board member and spokesman for the Council of International Promotion of Costa Rica Medicine.”
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
Silly Terry.
Only Rick is allowed to sniff down his nose at other peoples’ “citations”. He can – and usually does – post any kind of crap he wants, before commenting thirty times about what a dummy everyone else is.
We clear on this?
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
The guy offered a medical-tourism puff-piece by an unknown writer in an obscure web publication as proof that Costa Rica had a better health care system than the US.
I like to keep these exchanges on tap to slap him with when he starts thinking he’s an intelligent person whose opinon matters more than my dog’s.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Terry:
Regardless of the evidentiary value of Dr. Lopez’s estimate on the number of Americans who travel to CR for HC and regardless of what that shows about the relative merit of the US HC system, his estimate is not an anecdote. Learn English.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Learn English.
From RatioRick? +/- RationRick, +/-