When the Arbitron ratings came out last fall, a lot of critics attributed the strong ratings for The Mic 92.1 (WXXM-FM) to the run up toward the general election. But with the spring numbers now out, it seems apparent that the progressive talk station is not only holding its own, but is a leader in the most important advertiser demographic.
From Madison's Capital Times...
Overall, the station has climbed to seventh place in local stations
among listeners 12 and older. But among the audience advertisers
care most about -- adults 25 to 54 -- the station ranks fourth,
behind only WZEE-FM 104.1 (Z104), WMGN-FM 98.1 (Magic 98) and
WMMM-FM 105.5 (Triple M).
"This station is still very strong despite the fact that a lot of
people have been writing it off for years," said Mike Ferris, FM
operations manager for Clear Channel Madison, which runs Mic 92.1
and five other local stations.
The new ratings, released by Arbitron this month, prove that the
station's fourth-place ratings last fall were not a one-time spike
tied to Democratic success at the ballot box.
Mike Ferris is a stand-up guy, which he demonstrated by crediting former program director Brian Turany for The Mic's recent successes. That's the least Ferris could do, given that Turany was laid off during a major Clear Channel Radio bloodletting. It's common knowledge among loyal listeners that Turany made the station into what it is today, despite having limited resources and a fair amount of corporate meddling.
Much of the station's success, from my listener's point of view, is the emergence of smart national radio personalities like Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann and Rachael Maddow. Throw in a truly entertaining morning show (Stephanie Miller) and you have a winning lineup. Of all of those shows, only one (Maddow) has been on the station in one form or another since it launched in 2004. While some of the other early hosts were good, they were not necessarily radio professionals who understood the nature and needs of good broadcasting. That doesn't change how I feel about the contributions made by Marc Maron (still miss that guy), Sam Seder, Liz Winstead and Al Franken, but to do good radio, one needs good radio people. (To be fair, Winstead, Franken and Seder are all exceptionally talented people. Winstead created The Daily Show; Franken was elected to the US Senate and should finally be seated once Norm Coleman stops being an asshole, and Seder remains a great media talent with a lot of projects going on. Maron... well, he's just freakin' funny and I wish he still had a daily morning show.)
Being the media junkie I am, especially when it comes to political media, I do wander over to the conservative talk radio station (WIBA-AM) here in Madison on a regular basis. I can only handle it in small doses -- which I'm sure its listeners say about progressive radio -- but I think it is important to hear what the other side has to say. It can be painful. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are good at what they do. The same cannot be said of local WIBA-AM afternoon host, Vikki McKenna, who proves on a daily basis that Madison is about as big a market as she'll ever see.*
It seems that the conservative talkers really have to dumb it down for their listeners, which isn't all that surprising given the demographics of progressive/Democratic-leaning people versus conservative/Republican-leaning people these days. As the GOP retreats into a primarily regional party of the South, they oddly focus only on their base. Radio hosts on the right carry that flag, directly addressing those who seem to be mostly motivated by fear and intolerance that turns on ignorance. New York Times columnist Charles Blow put it well in a column this past week as he discussed how the Republicans have lost the Northeast...
In 1984, Ronald Reagan won every
Northeastern state. Since then, the leadership of the G.O.P. has
systematically shed its idealists in favor of ideologues, reducing
itself to the current Cheney-Limbaugh illusionati whose strategy is to
exploit faith and ignorance by fanning fear and hatred. (emphasis mine)
But, Northeasterners are not so easily duped. Voters there tend to be wealthier, better educated, less religious and more progressive than those in other regions.
According to the Census Bureau, the median household income in most of these states is higher than the national average.
And, a census report released in January revealed that 31.5 percent of
Northeasterners had a bachelor’s degree or higher, more than in any
other region.
It's a great piece, and worth a complete read here.
Thinking back to the early days of Air America , it's amusing to recall how the likes of Bill O'Reilly blathered on about how progressive radio would fail because no one would listen, no one agreed with "the far left," and advertisers weren't going to support the format. The fact is, advertisers primarily buy rating points, not programs when buying national radio. Give a listen to a half hour of Rush and a half hour of Ed Schultz. They broadcast live in the same time slot, and carry a nearly identical list of national advertisers. Sponsors don't care, for the most part, about ideology. They care about reaching people with disposable income and/or a need for their product... and not much more.
Indeed, far fewer people tune into progressive radio stations compared to conservative counterparts. Might that be because liberal thinkers are far more likely to engage with a mix of media of a higher intellectual caliber than AM talk radio? Probably. And yet, the conservative radio hosts seem to be the ones freaking out over the myth that liberals want to see the Fairness Doctrine back in force. Worried? They shouldn't be. People who need others to think for them will never be in short supply. Nor will those broadcasters who look to exploit the less thoughtful and more fearful be going away any time soon. Setting all that aside, the simple fact remains that no one wants to go back to legislating content, including progressive broadcasters. Saying otherwise is nothing more than a mix of propaganda, paranoia and bullshit.
Kudos to Clear Channel (words I cannot recall typing before) for sticking with the progressive radio format. It's nice to see Madison's The Mic 92.1 continue to succeed, and do so on a better measure than WIBA-FM. The Mic reminds us that there is radio for thinking people beyond NPR.
:::
* Ms. McKenna is all hot and bothered of late because a Democratic state
assemblyman Marc Pocan (who she irrelevantly identifies as "openly gay" -- following the fear and intolerance playbook) referred to her listeners as "teabaggers," a term she calls
pornographic. Funny how the "teabag" term was coined on the right but
now that they came to the realization that it is so widely, commonly and humorously connected to a
sex act, they are all kinds of indignant. She wants an apology from the
assembly floor. Yeah, good luck with that, especially as you go after
the assemblyman from a homophobic angle. Ironically, on the very same web page McKenna bleats about her listeners being called teabaggers, she posts videos of the Madison version of the teabag event at the State Capitol last month. The jokes write themselves.
But I digress.
