[BC] Talkers from one side or another

[Rich Wood]

------ At 01:02 AM 2/17/2009, Donna Halper wrote: -------

>I wrote about him in my book, as a matter of fact-- Jackson, with 
>his courtly manner, great command of issues, and British accent, 
>didn't necessarily lose out-- he had excellent ratings for many 
>years in LA radio, usually (as you correctly recalled) on stations 
>where he was the "leftie" who came on after the "rightie"-- and one 
>of those righties was indeed Joe Pyne.  Jackson's long career in 
>talk began in the early 60s, when he had emigrated to the States.  I 
>believe he is still alive, and only recently lost a job on a smaller 
>station, but for many years, when people thought of the 
>quintessential liberal talk show host, they thought of Michael.

I used to affiliate Jackson at ABC (the accent is South African). 
He's much too genteel for today's Talk Radio. ABC gave Limbaugh the 2 
hours before Jackson on the network. Limbaugh was playing parody 
songs and clanging pots and pans in the days when he still was an 
entertainer. Michael suffered the fate of following Limbaugh as soon 
as stations moved Limbaugh from weekends to weekdays. It was like a 
church service following a carnival. I believe that Michael would 
have had far more success if he had the hours before Limbaugh. I 
remember cringing when the noise level dropped between shows. It was 
like falling off a cliff.

These were the really hateful Limbaugh days when he would suggest 
chartering busses to ship the homeless to Malibu and bashed every 
minority. He even tackled the majority (women) in those days. Now 
that he appears to be directing the Republican Party I don't find the 
show much fun. Once a show gets a mission it usually begins to die a 
slow death.

You're correct in saying that there are several Liberal talkers, Ed 
Schultz in particular, who are doing quite well. The problem is that 
they came to the party years too late. By that time all the Heritage 
50Kw major market stations were taken. It didn't help that Air 
America got off to several bad starts. I can't picture a Liberal 
format on WWRL, New York, ever competing with WABC.

I know the folks at Dial-Global. If they had introduced Progressive 
Talk instead of Air America I think we'd see a far different result.

Rich