“Everyone worries about FOX News.  But as you’ll see in these charts, Fox is the puny kid on the block.  Talk Radio is the big bully.”   Source:  talk-radio-v-fox-news

• 53 million people in the U.S. listen to Talk Radio.  (source: Arbitron Radio Today,2009.)

• 91% of Talk Radio Programs are Conservative.  (source: Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio, Center for American Progress and Free Press, 2007).

• 2,570 hours of Conservative Talk Radio are broadcast each week day on these stations compared to 254 hours of Progressive Talk.   (source: Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio)

• 92 percent of talk radio stations do not broadcast a single minute of progressive talk radio programming.   (source: Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio).

• Despite the availability of numerous new media alternatives, radio’s weekly reach has declined only modestly in the past several years, from 94.9% in Spring 2001, when the iPod was introduced, to 91% in Fall ’08  (source:  Arbitron Radio Today, 2009)

Sorry conservatives,  it is not because of popular demand. It is because 5 corporations own 96% of all media. Clear Channel owns more radio stations than anyone, 850 at last count.

Here in Iowa, where Democrats, Republicans and Independents are essentially evenly split, we are not choosing to have the publicly owned airwaves completely and utterly saturated with Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Savage, etc., day in and day out, in one station’s case, 24-7.  These corporate-produced-and-disseminated programs are being rammed down our throats, to borrow a famous former Alaska governor’s phrase.  Even the People’s Republic of Johnson County is forced to endure 6 hours daily of conservative blather on our “local” station, KXIC.  [See Blog for Iowa's research on the state of  talk radio in Iowa,  Iowa's Talk Radio Landscape].

And it’s not just the conservative blather that is the problem. It is what the conservative blather takes the place of.

“Clear Channel neglects its emergency system, disaster strikes, and people die. Pentagon Pundits profit from the same war they promote. Fox News gets a court ruling that news does not have to be true. And Hate Radio rules.

Media Policy is killing people in this country. Literally. And it is killing our democracy, too. Corporate financed lawmakers have stacked the media policy deck against We the People. “

It is past time to fight  back.  Check out this educational movie Broadcast Blues.   A public viewing  in your community might be a good place to start.