Progressive Talk Radio goes silent in Ohio

The third of three Progressive Talk radio stations has now gone silent. Akron's WARF followed Columbus's WTPG, which followed Cincinnati's WSAI. All three radio stations were owned by Clear Channel Communications, and all adopted the Progressive Talk (Air America and Jones Radio syndicators) format in late 2004. Ohio is not the only place where Air America has gone silent. Boston lost its liberal stations in early 2007. Dallas, Sacramento, Duluth, and others have also had their Prog Talk stations flipped to Conservative Talk or Sports.

As much as I despise conspiracy theories, I am convinced that Clear Channel (a big Republican Party donor) put Air America on lots of its low-power AM stations with the intent to let them fail, and thus "poison the well" of Progressive Talk. When new station owners ponder what format to put on their stations, Progressive Talk will not make the cut, because "that was already tried, and no one listened".

How best to poison the well? Just look at what has happened so far: the stations that "failed" (1) were not marketed via billboards, TV spots, or print ads. No events were "promoted" by the stations, and no "remotes" were done. These stations also (2) were not making money through commercial advertisers, because businesses were discouraged from advertising on the 'hippie station', and ads were sold at prices so low as to make the stations unsustainable.

The Clear Channel owners were not taking a risk when they decided to let the stations fail, because Clear Channel owns several top-rated stations in each of the Columbus, Cincinnati, and Akron markets. It is telling, however that their replacements for Progressive Talk already have established competition in their respective markets: Sports in Akron, and Conservative Talk in Columbus. At least Cincinnati was replaced with a kind of "self help" format (which has seen a drop-off in listenership as compared to Progressive Talk.) I doubt that a switch back to Progressive Talk will be made when these new formats fail to make-it-big.

I hate to "blame the victim" as much as I hate "conspiracy theories", but Air America shares at least some of the blame for these stations' failures. They had to know that Clear Channel is a big Republican supporter when Clear Channel agreed to put Air America on its stations.

Wait a minute ... I'm going to take that back. The "victim" is not Air America, but the listeners who are fans of Progressive Talk who are now denied the format from their airwaves. Actually, Air America may have been shrewd in letting the Right-leaning Clear Channel take - and subsequently try to kill - Progressive Talk. First, the agreement allowed the Progressive Talk format to be spread far and wide through the land, giving voice to a hitherto un-mainstream format. Second, when Clear Channel then takes listeners' favorite programs from them, the controversy and ensuing publicity will also be good for (Progressive Talk radio) business. Third, such blatant stifling of Democratic voices in a crowd of Republican talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity may likely precipitate the return of government-legislated Fairness to the airwaves.

So I say congratulations, Air America and other syndicators of Progressive Talk. In order to win the war, it helps to lose some battles, rally the troops, and then smash through to victory!