They May Be Talking, But We're Not Listening

I wrote this column last year for another blog that I write for and with all the talk that is going on today I thought I would recycle it on my blog with some updates. To think that the tragedy in Arizona happened because of talk radio is ridiculous and here is why.


I want to talk about talk radio. If you were to believe all the stories and articles that appear constantly in the news and on the net, one would think that the entire world is listening to talk radio and watching them on TV. Fortunately this is not the case; in fact it is not even close.

Let’s take a look at the ratings. First of all, Rush Limbaugh claims to have 18 million listeners. This is a totally made up number. Since Rush is syndicated and runs on different stations and at different times in every city, there is no way to actually know the number of people listening. The syndication people who own Rush’s show, Premier Radio needed a number to sell the show to advertisers and this is the number they came up with.

This made-up number is probably much higher than the number of actual listeners but we will give ole Rush the benefit of the doubt. Ok, so they say 18 million people are listening Rush shoot his mouth off. Here is the real number to remember: 292 million. That is how many people are NOT LISTENING to Rush. Think about it. The truth is a tiny fraction of people are actually listening. The same with Glen Beck, approximately 306 million NEVER watch his TV show. The same numbers apply to Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. The vast majority of the people in this country NEVER see or hear any of these blowhards.

According to the latest ratings, Katie Couric who is in third place behind NBC and ABC and has been since day one, has twice as many viewers as Bill O’Rielly and Glen Beck combined.

So why are they always in the news? Very simple. The media is an incestuous business. Their main agenda is to keep promoting themselves. They want you to think that, you the public, are listening, involved, angry, and enjoying all this bullshit that is being bandied about. That keeps them, The Media, the center of the universe. It is a legitimate business and that is the key thing to remember here. They are in business to make money and they do that very well; they are not here to inform, help, or make the world a better place.

A great example of the mentality behind the microphone in most of talk radio today happened this week. Radio shrink, Dr. Laura said she left the regular waves of radio and moved to satellite radio because she was afraid of being assassinated. Not only a dumb thing to say after the Arizona situation but does she think satellite radio just goes out to folks living in outer space? Dr. Laura joins Sarah Palin in the world of great contortionist by being able to stick her foot in her mouth and her head up her ass at the same time.

This is America where anyone can go on a radio or TV show and say any stupid thing they want. We can also choose not listen or watch. The agenda for all of these shows is to inflame not inform. They need controversy or they don’t survive and they need you to believe everyone is listening.




Stay tuned for future adventures.