The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

04 June 2006

Limbaugh, Hannity, AFRTS

OUT OF LEFT FIELD

Limbaugh, Hannity Face Armed Forces Radio Loss




***UPDATED***


Handing liberal opponents a sudden victory in their longtime battle over Armed Forces Radio content, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity may soon be removed from broadcast outlets serving American soldiers stationed around the world.

With last year's addition of liberal talk shows to the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service lineup, how could this happen now?

Wasn't the previous flap over such programming resolved at that point?

In this new scenario, ALL political talk shows will be nearly eliminated, including those hosted by liberals Ed Schultz and Al Franken.

If Hannity and Limbaugh aren't being singled out for quasi- cancellation, that might seem fair, but the devil is in the details.

And it's a particularly ugly devil: upon closer examination, an astounding picture of anti- conservative bias is clearly revealed. Was it intentional? We don't know.


In a highly unexpected development, a radio consulting firm hired by the military has strongly recommended dumping these programs from stations that reach the vast majority of troops and others residing overseas.

After an extensive study was conducted that included a number of focus groups, Lund Media Research determined that talk radio and country music should be largely eliminated to make room for hip-hop, rap and pop formats, according to Stars and Stripes.

Only in rare cases where three military radio frequencies are available in a region would Limbaugh and Hannity survive in any manner. Even then, only about an hour of each show would remain on the schedule of the third station, rather than their entire three- hour broadcasts.

Included on the cut list is NPR's programming, generally regarded as liberal, but it would still air for at least three hours daily.

While the military must decide whether to act on Lund's advice, if it wasn't intending to take these recommendations seriously, we find it unlikely that AFRTS would pay a significant amount of money and assist in coordinating this research.

Until now, station programming decisions have been handled locally, with area brass making the call as to what was suitable for troops stationed in a particular conflict zone or military base. Under the new proposal, that will be centralized.


Back to the key question: if both liberal and conservative programming are dealt the same blow, where's the bias?

Because conservative talkers are many times more popular with the troops than their liberal counterparts, the right will suffer greatly, while "progressives" have much less to lose. That's because very few stationed overseas are listening to the lefties.

It's in Lund's own data, reprinted here from Stars and Stripes (click on image to enlarge), proving that Limbaugh, Hannity and conservative advice host Dr. Laura are infinitely more popular than Franken and Schultz.

Based on their results, 24.9% across all age groups reported enjoying Rush Limbaugh and 13.2% also favored Sean Hannity, with Dr. Laura generating a 12.9% approval rating. Keep in mind that these are excellent numbers, far higher than the audience shares they generate at home.

When looking at those 35 and older, Rush generates a huge 35.2% figure, just behind NPR, while Hannity and Dr. Laura come in with 17.6% and 20.6%, respectively.

By comparison, Franken and Schultz fare poorly, with 6.3% and 2.2% respective overall positive ratings, according to the study. In the 35+ category, the results were similar, with a 6.7% for Stuart and just 2.8% for Big Eddie.

Even in the younger 18-34 demographic, conservative talkers clobbered their liberal counterparts.

With this kind of data, how could anyone determine that nearly all political talk radio should be eliminated from the two proposed primary worldwide broadcast stations? Why not remove the unpopular liberal shows and keep the rest?

Whether Lund was the best consulting firm to handle this assessment of worldwide AFRTS programming is unclear. If there's any agenda, it is likely pro- music in nature, as the company primarily works on that end of the business.

But with such an astounding misinterpretation of its own data, we can't rule out partisan bias.

For the left, including some Democrats in Congress, this could be Christmas in June. From here, it's up to the military to make the final call. Their first meeting to consider the proposed changes will take place Thursday.

At least for now, however, substantial deviations from these recommended changes seem unlikely.


UPDATES: substantial trade publication coverage today.

--- Radio industry (and Vietnam) vet Mike Anderson of STLMedia talks about his own experiences with Lund Research.

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19 Comments:

  • Brian,

    To call this "an astounding picture of anti- conservative bias" is absurd. Or, if true, I assume that means you feel the current programming reflects an anti-liberal bias.
    But to the more important point that you neglet: This is a regretable decision. Our armed forces should be allowed to listen to political discourse, even if it is through the echo-chamber medium of talk radio.

    By Blogger Justin, at 04 June, 2006 20:07  

  • The current programming is more than fair, considering the data showing Franken and Schultz to be unpopular.
    It's in the graph.

    Given this information, liberal programming should be removed and conservative shows should stay. The results are clear.

    It's crazy to punish Rush, Hannity and Dr. Laura, simply because Franken and Schultz aren't well liked by the troops.

    You simply can't lump all talk shows together and say they're underperforming. Franken and Schultz are clearly dragging down the rest.

    By Blogger Brian Maloney, at 04 June, 2006 20:14  

  • This has all the hallmarks of someone in the Pentagon trying to make a justification for having an office in the E-ring instead of the mail room.

    I have a tough time squaring NPR being left at three hours a day, with Rush, with his almost identical approval numbers amongst the listenership, being cut down to one hour a day - especially when NPR's coverage of United States military activity overseas is almost universally cast in a negative light, especially concerning OIF and OEF, and Rush's is almost universally positive.

    The same can be said regarding the approval numbers about Joyner and Hannity - why is Joyner being bumped but Hannity kept at one hour?

    What is obvious about that graph is that Big Eddie and Barr have no bidness being on AFRTS in any capacity.

    In any event, the soldiers will have the final say, because when Joyner and Limbaugh inform their audiences overseas that AFRTS is about to dump their programs, I expect that the crap will start hitting the fan.

    Whether or not the splatter will make it all the way to DC is another question.

    Lund has a self-professed track record of building listenership through adjusting current formats to reflect the current times. What the folks at Lund might not recognize is that AFRTS is not commercial radio - it is supplied as a SERVICE (the "S" in AFRTS stands for "service") to the military, and jerking around with the programming just to be new and hip and cutting edge is just dad-blamed stupid.

    Someone ought to send a copy of "Good Morning Vietnam" to the nice folks at Lund Research.

    By Blogger SierraSpartan, at 04 June, 2006 20:49  

  • My question is since when has The Fairness Doctrine been revived from the dead? And I will give that Franken-stein and Darth Fargo have been on much shorter than Limbaugh, Dr. Laura and Hannity.

    The troops want stuff to boost morale and those two libs do NOTHING BUT REDUCE morale among our soldiers so much as they want to see Madame DeFarge (Monica Crowley's nickname for the so-called New York Senator Hillary Clinton) in the White House.

    Yeah, if Clinton is a New York Senator and a Yankees fan I MUST BE A RED SOX FAN!

    By Blogger The Real Bob Anthony, at 04 June, 2006 21:12  

  • They'd trash talk radio and country music to make room for rap and hip hop formats?

    Obviously shifting the target audience away from the right and toward the left. How many Republicans do you know who listen to hip hop radio?

    It doesn't matter to the left that most listeners are center and center-right. The aim is to engineer the audience, rather than serve it. It's just more social engineering.

    Besides, t's dangerous to let those young soldiers listen to Rush. They might come home and vote conservative.That's at the botom of it, isn't it.

    By Blogger SLH, at 05 June, 2006 00:55  

  • I was in AFRTS for 20 years and am not shocked to see this bone-headed decision by a bunch of liberal civilian bureaucrats at the heart of the organization. It should be interesting to see how far they can push men and women who carry guns.

    If there were ever a cause for an e-mail campaign, this is surely it.

    By Blogger Lone Ranger, at 05 June, 2006 02:52  

  • I find it odd that NPR, Franken, Shultz, ect... would even want to be on the Armed Services Network anyway. Is their goal to bring down troop morale with their vicious anti-American and anti-Military propaganda?

    By Blogger Capitalist Infidel, at 05 June, 2006 06:32  

  • Lund Media Research determined that talk radio and country music should be largely eliminated to make room for hip-hop, rap and pop formats...

    Um, wouldn't it make more sense to simply create a Talk Channel, a Country Channel, and a Hip-Ho Channel?

    Oh, but wait, too many soldiers might choose "the wrong channel." And we couldn't have that, now, can we?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 05 June, 2006 10:32  

  • Or, you can say that Hannity and Limbaugh are pro-military and that is why they should remain on the air.

    It is a breath of fresh air when I hear commentators praise the military rather than tear them down, aka Radio America.

    I vote, along with my dead grandparents and unborn children, to keep them on the air.

    By Blogger tradersmith, at 05 June, 2006 10:37  

  • whiner, that sounded more than a fit than a whine. Rename yourself.

    If Hannity and Limbaugh support the troops and praise them, then they should be on military radio.

    As for Franken and Rhody being promilitary, I have this piece of property I want to sell you if you believe those two are promilitary.

    By Blogger tradersmith, at 05 June, 2006 12:31  

  • Wow, what a far left wing kook fringe lunatic rant from teenage whiner.

    I'm still curious why someone who has a seething hatred for our men and women in uniform like Franken and Rhodes would want to be on the Armed Services network? I'm pretty sure that the military would rather not have the media wing of al Qaeda (Air America) on their radio.

    By Blogger Capitalist Infidel, at 05 June, 2006 16:01  

  • Maybe it's the math major in me, but I have a problem saying something is "infinitely more" popular than something else, then immediately following up with information that said something is about 15 times more popular.

    By Blogger MAX HATS, at 05 June, 2006 18:55  

  • Wow, what a far left wing kook fringe lunatic rant from teenage whiner.

    I find his delusional rants entertaining, and it amazes me that someone who must spend... what, 10-12 hours a day spanging for change on the streets has time to post. I hope he never goes back on his meds.

    As far as Franken and Rhodes go, I think the only troops they really support are the gay ones who want to get married. The left's entire "we support the troops" facade was blown away by the Snoopy dance they've done over Haditha. Dick Turban claimed he supported the troops too... even while he was calling them Nazis and Soviets.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 05 June, 2006 19:06  

  • Speaking of Haditha, j'ever notice that the left wing media goes to extreme lengths to say Islamist terror is perpetrated by a tiny minority of extremists. (Except for Reuters, which denies there is such a thing as Islamist terror). But when allegations like Haditha and Abu Ghraib are raised, they eagerly try to smear the entire US military with it?

    But of course, they support the troops.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 05 June, 2006 19:10  

  • Uncle Roy, if name-calling is the best you can do, you ought to at least learn to spell.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 06 June, 2006 08:26  

  • I get a kick out of folks on the right talking with dread about the Fairness Doctrine.

    God forbid there should be any fairness in the media.

    May I remind you that back in the days when the Fairness Doctrine was the law of the land, the nation wasn't nearly as divided as it is today.

    By Blogger Nittacci, at 06 June, 2006 11:16  

  • May I remind you that back in the days when the Fairness Doctrine was the law of the land, the nation wasn't nearly as divided as it is today.

    Because the left kept alternative points of view effectively muzzled. When the left whines about how "divided" America is, they just mean conservatives won't shut up and let the enlightened, progressiveelites enact policy without opposition.

    Cuba and North Korea are totally not "divided" because their socialist governments control the media and all dissent is ruthlessly crushed. That's what the left has in mind when they talk about "ending division."

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 06 June, 2006 12:29  

  • Don't y'all just feel the love coming from RWW? Doesn't he just exude positive and strong beliefs that would inspire people to greater heights?

    "Right wingers, must be removed from power and be REMOVED FROM AMERICA RIGHT WINGERS ARE INDEED ENEMIES OF THIS COUNTRY And all you vile TERRORISTS can KISS my 34 year old ass."

    "Removed from America?" Okay then.

    If you are such a badass and you think rightwingers are such pussies, then you can come to my town and attempt to "remove me from America." The only thing that will need to be removed is my foot from your ass.

    Open up your profile and allow some incoming E-mail and we'll set it up. Then we'll see just what a "man" you are, and whether or not you will hide behind your nick and throw feces like the simpering howler monkey you are.

    By Blogger SierraSpartan, at 06 June, 2006 21:04  

  • I find RWW's deranged rants amusing. They make me want to scruff his fuzzy little deluded head.

    And I'm still amused that Nitacci longs for the good ol' daze when someone like Mary Mapes could broadcast a news story based on forged documents without being fact-checked by the right-wing.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 07 June, 2006 13:24  

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