Papi4baby said:
I think their betting on the Bush hate fiasco, and Democrat victory of the last election to get ratings
Which is perfectly idiotic. You can't get a dedicated listenership with determined audience participation solely on the basis of "I hate Bush".
Air America survived mostly on contributions - conservative radio survives the same way the rest of radio survives - advertising. Which tells me something I already know - Air America was never able to draw enough listeners as your typical conservative talk radio show. And they were in big markets.
I don't know why this phenomenon - the one I'm about to describe - exists - but I've known about it since at least the government shutdown when I watched C-SPAN every day to find out when I was going back to work. And that is that conservative listeners participate far more heavily than liberal ones. I don't know if it is age - interest level - rage - education - issues - or what have you - back then they had to implement a policy to curtail the lack of balance they always used to have by asking viewers to call in on separate lines according to their viewpoints - because simply taking callers as they arrived meant a massive conservative over liberal ratio. To present "balance" they have to curtail the number of conservative participation - because there's just too many of them.
Now I've heard any number of theories on this - but I keep coming back to the one that still makes the most sense to me, even though my more "moderate" self chafes at it - and that's that there are simply more conservatives reading the papers, calling in, writing their editors, writing their Congressman - they're more involved in greater numbers. Have a rally with conservatives on an issue they're passionate about, and they'll show up in the middle of an earthquake. Have a rally for liberals, and half of them are only there for the free food. I'm sorry if that sounds rude, but I've talked to people at some of these rallies. A good portion don't really have any other reason to be there except for some band or their friend is there. They just don't seem tuned in.
