Should We Care About the Demise of a Lousy Radio Station?

In this morning's Sacramento Bee, a (former NPR person and) writer named Sue Wilson whines about the end of what once was the Air America station in Sacramento, she writes "There's a mournful hush in Sacramento these days, the empty sound of an entire political viewpoint quieted. More than 32,000 weekly listeners who once tuned to KSAC (1240 AM) to hear partisan Democrats beat up on President George W. Bush, now hear only Christian hip-hop." KSAC failed because it did not meet the demands of the marketplace, despite Wilson's claims to the contrary. The author does not comment on the demise of the FM version of a conservative radio station in the area, probably because it helps to disprove her point. Wilson then writes that we should go back to the failed policies that governed radio in the past. What nonsense.

In an era when the breadth and depth of opinion outlets is exploding she argues for returning to the "fairness doctrine" The idea originally came up during the 1950s when we were scared about the communist "menace" but we wisely moved away from this simple minded notion. Indeed, in a 1974 Supreme Court opinion on the fairness doctrine its ability to achieve its stated goal was questioned. ""Government-enforced right of access inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate.", said the Chief Justice in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241. Even William Brennan argued in another decision that the fairness doctrine would have an effect of "chilling speech" when in FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364 he suggested that the doctrine was actually inhibiting the breadth of public debate. The legal decisions against the fairness doctrine were fairly one sided.

Wilson whines that "The radio business model is simple: Start a show, grow an audience and advertisers will follow. But that model doesn't work for progressive talk radio." She argues, without much evidence, that advertisers don't want to be selling their wares on stations which bash corporations. Numerous examples in other broadcast media suggest how wrong she is. It isn't that advertisers are afraid of using the medium, it is more that most of what is on "progressive" radio is not entertaining. Bill Maher bashes corporations constantly, so does Larry King - yet for cable TV their ratings are at least positive. When KSAC was on the air as Air America I would occasionally turn to it. It was mostly a set of rants about how terrible things were. It was a constant diet switching between downers and moral hectoring. The repetitive nature of the rants also made it less likely to turn back the next day. You could hear a week's dose in a half an hour. If one were forced to listen to Al Franken or Christine Craft day after day, you could soon repeat the mantras almost like liberal scripture. That is not to say that all conservative radio does not also have some repetitive rants - but the variety is a bit larger than "progressive" radio.

Wilson's argument that there is no left on the radio dial is also bunk. There is plenty of representation of the "progressive" point of view on the radio. The immediate response ignores a lot of research about the biases in networks like National Public Radio. I realize there are a lot of "studies" that suggest NPR is even-handed in its coverage. But the reality is it supports left of center points of view more than conservative ones. What is particularly galling to conservatives is that NPR lives in part off governmental funding (about 15%) no conservative outlet can make that claim. 81% of the NPR sources are current and former governmental officials or academicians or think tank officials or from other places that are likely to be supportive of a growth in government. About 6% are from the corporate sector. So much for balance.

Wilson seems to want to go back to filters, just at a time when we are outgrowing them. Outlets like CSPAN perform a wonderful service of offering the breadth of opinion, unfiltered. When NPR was created in the early 1970s it was supposed to do that, but of course it did not. Want to hear the breadth of opinion on the presidential election - listen to POTUS 08 (on XM or the Web)
Were NPR fulfilling its original role, these outlets would not be necessary. Neither CSPAN nor POTUS 08 receive a penny of governmental support. Is it logical to look only at radio? Is that the only avenue for discussion of opinion?

FInally, Wilson suggests that part of the problem has been the consolidation of networks. After a series of changes at the federal level media companies can build larger networks and own a number of outlets. Nevermind that since the change was established that there is more variation in the ranges of options that we can listen to, her logic might make some sense if at the same time we recognized that governmental funding of radio is simply wrong. That is not something she is likely to embrace.

Wilson is like many on the left, she ignores the facts that disprove her case. Indeed, KSAC is no more as an outlet of left of center opinion - but that is not the fault of "media bias" nor of the lack of a Fairness Doctrine nor the result of changes in ownership rules, KSAC failed despite some growth in audience the market because its economic model was not sustainable. Magazines, podcasts and other media of expression have figured out that notion, it is too bad that no one on the left is prepared to make create a radio outlet that follows the same rules. Governmental policy should not be brought back to failed doctrines simply because those who want left of center opinion to predominate.