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Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Boston radio's Jay Severin explains why liberal talk radio is destined for miserable failure. It's about the audience...and spending power.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Liberal talk radio? No one will buy it

...You are planning to lure conservative talk listeners? Dream on. You ignore -- or are delusional about -- the gross mismatch between your product and your customers.

Your ethos, mantra, unshakeable article of faith, and every utterance will derive from the smug presumption that the values and views of nonliberals are the root of evil: "selfish" because we believe our taxes too high; "haters" because we disdain racial preferences and same-sex marriage; "cruel" because we believe in strong national defense, capital punishment, and actually oppose illegal immigration; and, of course, "stupid" because we reject your benighted viewpoint.

Yes, we know you believe with utmost sincerity that we are monstrous Neanderthals, but do you really believe your left-wing/pacifist/United Nations/French worldview will win a big middle-class audience? In America?

Understand: Your success depends on us embracing the utterly fantastic notion that we are what's wrong with America; that our national, cultural, and personal woes stem from taxes too low, affirmative action too meek, defense too strong, and illegal aliens too few. People who believe such twaddle are for the most part home watching Jerry Springer reruns. Numerous they are. A commercially viable national talk radio audience they are not...

Severin's sub-text: Liberal talk radio will never gain enough quality listenership to attract real advertising dollars. It's a temporary construct being set up for one reason, the campaign season. Once that's over, the backers responsible for artificially propping it up will lose interest, and then bye-bye.

Not an unpersuasive argument.

1 Comment

persuasive

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