I’m a conservative. No surprise there.

But when it comes to a couple of things, I pretty much suspend politics. My day job would be one example; good interaction design isn’t political.

The other is the business and tactics of radio; while my political sympathies are obvious, when it comes to the business and the craft itself, I’m supremely clinical. I’ve said in the past that Janet Robert (GM at the local Air America affiliate) could hire me has her Program Director and I’d do a better job that whomever she’s got doing it now (not that she could afford me), without even impinging on notions of my own political orientation.

Good business is politically agnostic.

That’s just the setup to the real piece here: the pack on the left is getting a chuckle over Rush Limbaugh’s eight year deal with Clear Channel:

“I think it’s a monster error,” [CNBC contributor and Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael] Wolff said. “I know – I’m sitting here saying, ‘What are these people smoking?’ You know, the truth is that Rush Limbaugh has been – he’s ridden the rise of conservatism for 25 years and I don’t, maybe nobody quite, quite has been following the news, but that’s coming to an end.”…”According to a link posted on the Drudge Report on July 2, a New York Times Magazine story will reveal on July 6 that the long-time conservative talk show host has secured a 9-figure signing bonus. The report says the total package is valued north of $400 million.

Now, the irony here is that Michael Wolff is, more or less, the equivalent of a talkradio personality, only in print – and as such, he should (and, I suspect in the pit of my gut, does) know better.

Again, we’ll come back to that.

Wolff based his assessment on the assumption Americans are shifting to the left politically, based on the success of presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois. Wolff’s comments repeated Obama’s theme word “change” at least six times.

“It’s going to be over and Rush Limbaugh in a relatively short period of time is going to look like a really kind of out-of-it kind of oddity,” Wolff said. “And I can not for the life of me imagine how someone could have made this deal.”

Again, we’ll come back to that.

Wolff, y’see, isn’t the only one coming up a buck short in the perspective department:

Brian Stetler, a media report for The New York Times, appeared with Wolff and maintained Limbaugh was worth the deal. However, he suggested Limbaugh may have to “be a little less conservative.”

“[I] don’t think it’s a good sign though for the ad market,” Stelter said. “I talked to Clear Channel and Premiere Radio today and they said it’s pretty much a flat-to-declining market. That said though, Rush is looking at the long-term and if he has to reinvent himself, if he has to be a little less conservative – I think he will, as long as he can retain that audience.”

Let’s take a whack at this.

Does anyone remember when Limbaugh got started? It was 1988. Tne end of the Reagan Administration. For all of Reagan’s accomplishments, there’s no way around the fact that outside of foreign policy, the last two years of the Gipper’s administration were not the ones that’d go on his resume. Petty scandals, media riposte over Iran/Contra and our involvements in Central America, and some legislative setbacks had some of the punditry – including George Will, if memory serves – declaring that conservatism as Reagan had practiced it was dead. George HW Bush was talking “compassionate conservatism; pundits said America was wearying of the right.

This was the market into which Limbaugh launched, twenty years ago this summer.

And yet while there’s no way you can say America has had as conservative a president as Reagan in the past twenty years, times have been – to say the least – good for Rush Limbaugh and the industry he led to prominence, pariah-dom and immense profits over the past twenty years.

However, Wolff wasn’t convinced there would be a demand for conservative talk radio – including talk radio host and Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes” co-host Sean Hannity. Even though eight of the top 10 talk show hosts on Talker’s magazine “2008 Heavy Hundred” list are conservative hosts, Wolff asserted the era of conservative talk radio is drawing to an end.

“I mean, I think that there’s another underlying thing here and this is talk radio has been the province of conservatives, if that’s going away – then there’s going to be a big problem – not just for Rush, but obviously for Sean Hannity, too,” Wolff said. “And I do not think in a major way that it’s a question of them becoming less conservative to follow a less conservative audience. They are conservative – that’s what they do. If they can’t do that anymore, they are worth much less than they are being paid.”

Well, there’s a huge “if” in there. There’s no rational sign that the demand for conservative talk has changed.

Still, Limbaugh has demonstrated his ability to maintain high ratings no matter who is in power. He enjoyed much of his success during the eight years of the Bill Clinton administration – a Democratic presidency, as CNBC’s Julia Boorstin pointed out.

“I think the theory here is that Rush Limbaugh has held up despite who’s been in office and he has a loyal listener base,” Boorstin explained. “These are people who tune in every single day, in the same way that people want to tune into Howard Stern. Limbaugh has his audience and they’re going to be tuning in no matter who’s president – whether it’s a conservative administration or a liberal one.”

Let’s get one point firmly established, here; Limbaugh, and all of conservative talk radio, is at its best when it’s swimming against the current in Washington (and, for that matter, Saint Paul). There is, indeed, an argument (a badly flawed one, at that) that conservatism is at its best when its on the outside, firing in; with Limbaugh and conservative talk in general, that’s certainly true.

An Obama presidency would usher in a second Golden Age for Limbaugh, and conservative talk in general.

Conservative talk has never been about being on top of the trends (assuming Obama’s “audacious change” is a broad social trend at all); indeed, even when conservatism was at its peaks in the past twenty years, conservative talk radio nagged and hectored conservatives to stay true to the beliefs that got them there; it’s to the GOP’s chagrin in 1996, 2006 and, likely, this fall that they didn’t listen.

Not so, says Wolff (emphasis added):

“You know, I just think that that’s myopic,” Wolff said. “Things change and when they change, they change in a big way. And we are now looking at that kind of change. It’s the kind of change, which if you run a large public corporation, you’re supposed to look at and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. There is something here and this is something that we have to take into consideration.’ When change comes, it is going to be devastating and absolute.”

The only “change” involved in this campaign (I’m stepping out of clinical mode here) is that a Chicago ward heeler has managed to armor himself with a perfectly vacuous set of slogans.

So forget Michael Wolff’s advice; go long – if not on Clear Channel, then at lest on conservative talk in general (barring, of course, federal action to censor it via the “Fairness” Doctrine.  Government intervention inevitably skews markets, pretty much always to everyone’s detriment).

Here’s the funny part:

Wolff isn’t exactly batting 1.000 when comes to this sort of analysis. Jack Shafer, a media critic for Slate.com called Wolff a “sloppy, lazy media columnist” in a May 5, 2005 column.

“Gifted with a hyperactive and malicious mind, Wolff’s forte is not reporting and analysis. It’s the oh-aren’t-I-naughty clever slur, a talent worth admiring if not applauding, especially when you’re the target. Which I, and the Web site I call home, am,” Shafer wrote.

He’s a pundit who looks for an emotional hook to his statements – something to keep people tuning in to see what he’s going to say next.

Just (stepping back into clinical mode) like a talk show host.

(Via Gary at LFR)

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.