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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