From those wonderful people ...

... who brought you John McCain as the Republican 2008 Presidential candidate. You might remember that I, as a homeboy Conservative, warned you about him way back when.  Yes, I voted for McCain, but only because I couldn't stomach voting for a Marxist.

Lots has been written over the past few weeks over how ratings for conservative talkers have declined.

In Salon and The Atlantic, for example.

Salon: The News Beast's John Avlon suggested in March that right-wing talk radio's worst enemy may be the Portable People Meter, which measures audiences and demographic numbers much more accurately than the old surveys. It turned out that a shrinking number of old white people listen to conservative talk radio -- which is such a coincidence, because the Republican Party has a very similar problem!

The Atlantic: Since last fall, radio stations have dropped syndicated talk shows from Sean Hannity and Glenn Back in major markets like Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, where Beck got his start. Diversity of programming is well and good, but some think that Americans are just plain tired of hearing conservative pundits' negative rhetoric.

I tracked these and other articles and Message Board entries back to a single article written by John Avlon at The Daily Beast, a leftist website.

The  real facts are these:

The original article misrepresents the accuracy of Arbitron's PPM measurements, as defined and admitted by Arbitron itself.  Talk shows do not do well with the PPM.  The ratings system surveys the listener's environment, not his actual personal preference.

The articles misrepresent the dropping of Conservative shows in various markets, all of which are Liberal hotspots.  Bad PPM ratings in any market would cause a business owner to knock a poorly performing show of any stripe off the air.  Ratings=income.  Hell, I'd run Jim Hightower if he'd make me more loot that Rush!

The addition of Liberal-oriented shows at any station has been, for many years, just a stopgap measure (see above).  None of them, including AirAmerica, has been successful in ratings or profitable.  And we're in business to make money, right?

I have always advocated a level playing ground for talk radio players.  That means that each item on each side of the equal sign is...equal, one side is the same as the other.  Sadly this is not what's happening.  The Left wants to have the Big Load.  There's not even a shred of the Fairness Doctrine in their recipe.

The Left, with the help of huge infusions of cash from George Soros, is sending more and more information, which may or may not be true, to the barricades that is where the press and the public meet.

This will not end well.

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