Making your side feel comfortable

This article appeared in the LA Times this week:

Conservative talk radio on the wane in California

Tune in to conservative talk radio in California, and the insults quickly fly. Capturing the angry mood of listeners the other day, a popular host in Los Angeles called Republican lawmakers who voted to raise state taxes "a bunch of weak slobs."

[...] But for all the anti-tax swagger and the occasional stunts by personalities like KFI's John and Ken, the reality is that conservative talk radio in California is on the wane. The economy's downturn has depressed ad revenue at stations across the state, thinning the ranks of conservative broadcasters.

For that and other reasons, stations have dropped the shows of at least half a dozen radio personalities and scaled back others, in some cases replacing them with cheaper nationally syndicated programs.

One of the "dropped" shows is just silly. John Ziegler had the 6-9 pm hours, but he left pretty suddenly for undisclosed reasons. He went on to make "Media Malpractice" a well-publicized and excerpted documentary on the election. (He was the one standing outside of the voting places asking Obama supporters about his positions, and being answered with vacant stares and nervous laughter.)

He was also replace by a locally-produced conservative show. So, it's not like that slot was turned over to something completely different. All that happened was the host changed.

I thought at the time that the LA Times was being sloppy, and shading their evidence to make their liberal readers feel good. Now this from the Whittier Daily News (an LA suburb):

Kobylt and Chiampou [aka the John and Ken mentioned above in the LA Times piece], whose radio ratings have skyrocketed by 30 percent since the first of the year, hammered home these points during all four hours of Thursday's show (3 to 7 p.m.), urging listeners to join the tax revolt, join the recall efforts, join the campaign against Proposition 1A.

So, a bunch of conservative hosts get replaced by other conservative hosts (I checked, and the local Larry Elder got replaced by the national Mark Levin,) and at least one show has seen its ratings skyrocket. This story isn't about conservative radio being in trouble, this is a story about ad revenue declining across the board. I think the LA Times knows a thing or two about that little problem in the media industry.

Steve Says: Sorry to hear about Larry. I like his libertarian leanings.