Politics News

i just pulled all of my advertising from 930AM and will not advertise on a station with such a hateful lineup (savage). conservatalk wouldn't be so bad if the hosts would just set people straight when they say hateful/untrue things. instead they encourage, promote, create it.

No doubt, they'll claim this was just a business desicion, so I made one this morning as well. I wasn't a large advertiser, but they lost me.

Don,

You're right- most of the format is conservative talk...but I would hardly describe "Voices of Montana" as conservative talk- as we bring in voices from all over the spectrum. While you listened today and heard former Bush White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel- I wish we could have been on the air in Missoula yesterday when I featured Native American Vietnam Veterans FROM MONTANA who are returning to Vietnam tomorrow on a "Healing Journey." Or how about tomorrow when Missoula's Bob Struckman with the SEIU backed "Montanans for Change that Works" is on the show (after former Senator Conrad Burns of course)...or how about last week when UM's Nobel Prize Winning Dr. Steve Running was on the show...or on 9/11 when UM's Dr. Merhdad Kia was on the program...or when the head of the Montana Democratic Party Jim Elliott joined us for the full half hour.

Tune in again tomorrow- and join us for the conversation...heck- if you're ticked off about someone says- then give us a call...I'll even pay for the phone bill if you call 866-NBS-LIVE.

I heard the President of GapWest will be in Missoula on Wednesday so we need to get our comments in now about the format change.

Aaron,
whatever show that replaced stephanie miller was chalked full of hateful, ignorant callers this morning. it was sad, scary, and infuriating. give me the name of the show and the phone number and i'll join the conversation every day. progressive radio has def been hijacked. i miss steph already.

I like to think of myself as a true independant. That means I get mad at both sides once in a while for being full of you know what. I'd put on the Stephanie Miller show & when the BS and self rightious indignation got too deep I'd switch over to O Reilly & soon enough I'd be sick of his spin I'd turn him off too.

This is simply about the dollars, as it should be. They can make more as a conservative station than they can a liberal one. They owe us nothing. If you want to hear liberal talk radio then buy your own station.

Don't get me wrong. I'll miss the variety. Like I said, I think both sides are little full of BS some of the time. But don't have a pity party for yourselves. The world of big business is a cruel, hard place and if you want to play with the big boys you'll need to learn to hit back as hard as it hits you. You want a progressive station? Buy one. That's the way it works.

I have to laugh. Haven't you people heard of XM/Sirius and or podcasting?
Further, you really need to be thinking hard about what exactly a "fairness doctrine" might entail. Or, the proposal by the SAME people who demand a return of the "fairness doctrine" for journalism to be set aside in a non-profit shelter. Way too many opportunities for manipulation and, you bet, politicization of our public debate.
Finally, "progressive" radio should work...I must wonder if it is because progressives all work for the government and don't see a need to advertise?

I too will not listen to the right-wing racist, hate filled talk! I was a fan of this station - NO MORE. Instead of progressive talk (KMPT) it is now putrid talk. Everyone I talk to about this has the same opinion. I thought there were alot of liberals in this town. I thought we were "Berkeley" of the north. Hijacked again. I ditto the Damn You!

We doubled our advertising on 930 am making it possible for the station to obtain much better shows. And business has already significantly increased. No one listens listens to liberal radio - that's why Air America went bankrupt.

Dave Skinner- please look up "straw man" in the dictionary. No one serious on the left WANTS a fairness doctrine! That's what Damon and I both said. Either we were unclear or you are misrepresenting the argument. That's how a straw man works. Well done.

Dave, I'd say the majority of folks arrive with their beliefs preloaded. Given a strong argument from an educated host, perhaps they could be convinced otherwise. As for media ownership share, etc., it's a far cry from saying that the public is not well served by monopoly ownership, to claiming that the left wants government control of content. No "progressinese" spoken here.

Damn!

I had 930 on all summer as I worked in my garden and liked to listen as I've done household tasks since. This was my favorite station and I made a point of using the advertisers when I could. This stinks.

Yeah, Susan, I hear that bastion of 'liberalism', NPR is going bankrupt, too. Oh wait, no its not. Montana Public Radio is still the most listened to station in western Montana, still the most supported station in western Montana, still has the best radio news room in western Montana.

(congrats to Aaron and company - I love to hear more local viewpoints - even if Hannity and Rush took Running's comments out of context!)

Losing that station is really unfortunate.
I guess the truth hurt too much.
Time to go back to dumbing down the population.
No more talk radio for me.
Bring on the music.
And somebody please fill the huge gap.
What a shame, and how sad to only have half the argument presented to us. pathetic.
i'll be damned if i listen to any more talk radio in missoula.
jerks.
bring on the music.

Don't be fooled by Flint's awe-shucks, "I'm above the fray" shtick. It was the same thing he pulled to get elected to ASUM, and then spent the year butting heads with his senate. His crowning even was suing the school when he was told he had to adhere to the same campaign finance measures that all the other students did. This show is just one more notch on the resume, so he can follow in the footsteps of other "esteemed" Montana broadcasters such as Conrad Burns and Flint's own boss Taylor Brown. I'm not buyin' it, and advertisers definitely shouldn't pay for it.

Bingo, Tim H.
If the beliefs are preloaded, then changing minds, which apparently is the eventual goal, is pretty much a moot issue. So what is the real bother??
Well, I find listening to Thom Hartmann excruciating. I also find Thom somewhat on the needlessly-vituperative side. So if Thom was the only thing I could get on the issues-discussion format, I'd be ripping and miffed. Amy Goodman? Homicidal, by golly. So I understand why some of the folks here are upset.
But there is, after all, National Progressive Radio, aka NPR. But why is it that nonprofit, government sanctioned media is the only place on the radio waves where "progressives" have an intellectual home? This is not a random sort of thing.
Here's one way it's not random...people like to hear stuff that affirms their worldview. Ya know, more of that Stuart Smalley sort of stuff, in a bipartisan way.
But along that line, of hearing what "should" be heard, why do outfits like Free Press want the "nonprofit" model to become the mainstream of journalistic practice? That's not a random brain fart, but there are fundamental structural and psychological factors in play here.
But going back to the start, Tim, if the purpose is to change minds or find solutions, and the audience is preloaded, then it really doesn't make much sense to demand equal penetration.

to SueNami,
have the guts to tell us where you work.

to aaron flint,
your guests this week and next include the vice president of fed ex, the president of the chamber of commerce, and denny rehberg. how progressive of you.

Radio is what it is. Mostly agitation and propaganda for some serious coin.

Over at Pieceofmind.wordpress.com:

Marshall McLuhan called radio “the tribal drum”. (Marshall McLuhan, Radio: The Tribal Drum, 1964)

"Radio is provided with its cloak of invisibility, like any other medium. It comes to us ostensibly with person-to-person directness that is private and intimate, while in more urgent fact, it is really a subliminal echo chamber of magical power to touch remote and forgotten chords. …Radio affects most people intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and listener. That is the immediate aspect of radio. A private experience. The subliminal depths of radio are charged with the resonating echoes of tribal horns and antique drums. This is inherent in the very nature of this medium, with its power to turn the psyche and society into a single echo chamber. … The only medium for which our education now offers some civil defense is the print medium."

Too bad I won't be listening to that station again.

Another good lineup sucked into the black hole of hate radio.

Travis. You asked;

"does missoula have a huge, conservative base to support all of this hate talk? the answer is a resounding NO. so why do our radio stations only air the garbage spewed by the right wing minority"

It's either one of two things. Either it makes more economic sense to have conversative programming (they can sell more ads) or the owners of the station have made a personal, moral judgement that, "economics be damned we want to promote a conservative agenda". That's their prerogative. They have that right. It's a free country.

Life is not always fair. I want a new car. I can't afford one. Does one of the local dealerships owe me one? After all, other people have one, why can't I?

You want progressive radio. Who do you think owes you that? Why is it your right? If you owned a local radio station would you like someone telling you what sort of programming you should run? How would you like it if the "tea baggers" protested outside your station and insisted that you carry the Glen Beck program? See how that works? The knife cuts both ways.

Susan Reneau said;

"The radio commendators that have survived have comments based in fact. Air America is based in fiction and emotion. Advertisers didn't support them. For any show to last 20 plus years, elements of fact have to be found. Air America simply didn't have that.

That's okay, liberals, you still have most of the media. Oh, wait. They are going bankrupt, too."

Now if that isn't a laugh! Seriously. I've listened to both conservative & liberal radio and it's pretty much a dead heat as far as who is more hypocritical or full of BS. The same bombastic techniques the left was using 18 months ago are now being used by the right. No one is lilly white or has clean hands when it comes to talk radio. or even politics if you want to be honest.

Both the left and the right stand on the stairs and beat their chests and put on a great show about how much better they are than the "other" side. How different they are. Why they are right and the other side is wrong. Their scream and spit & shake their fists.........then they go into the building together, close the door behind them and shake hands. Behind the closed doors all of the animosity fades. They sit down together, have a drink and a good laugh as work together to **** us all.

The joke is on you. The rabid right and the loonie left. No one wins, except for the politicians in power.

Cheers.

Travis - I can tell you that right wing talk is on most stations because they are owned by right wingers. The city of Chicago is very liberal, yet the airwaves are totally dominated by right wing talk.

Great site! Thanks for the contact info. KMPT HAD a interesting line up of talk radio shows -- the new format is disheartening to say the least. I like liberal and conservative thought but PLEASE give me intellectual thought and dialogue NOT dumbed down idealogical hate talk that promotes fear and panders to big corporate interests!

Low-Power Radio and What the Media Won't Tell You About the Media Saturday 07 November 2009
by: Amber Sands, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

There's a classic problem for progressives who want to change the media: the media doesn't like to cover itself. Especially not when it comes to issues that challenge the status quo of corporate control. It's like turning to the military for news about the peace movement, or asking Big Oil to report on climate change legislation.

So you may not have heard much about the grassroots effort to create hundreds of new, non-commercial radio stations. Overcoming nine years of opposition from the broadcasting lobby, the Local Community Radio Act is on the verge of a vote in the House of Representatives.

The bill would expand low-power FM (LPFM) radio, first introduced by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000. Media activists and community groups nationwide demanded this access to the airwaves to combat the deregulation that concentrated media ownership into fewer hands. The FCC began licensing low-power stations between the larger ones on the radio dial, but Congress promptly hobbled the low-power service with restrictions.

If you're wondering why Congress would step on the toes of the agency that regulates communications, well, ask the media - they may not cover media regulation, but they spend millions influencing it.

Fearing competition from stations that would carry original, local programming, broadcasters claimed that LPFM stations might interfere with the signals of full-power stations. The broadcasting lobby demanded that Congress widen the required distance between the radio frequencies of an existing full-power station and a would-be LPFM. Congress made the spacing requirements so vast that only rural areas can meet the criteria for a low-power license.

To put this in context, although 800 LPFMs are already on the air, only one (in Richmond, Virginia) is licensed in one of the 50 largest radio markets. These markets are collectively home to more than 160 million people. Under the new bill, Congressional restrictions on LPFMs would be repealed and the FCC would regain the authority to regulate the radio spectrum in cities as well as rural areas.

Like so many scientific arguments written by industry lobbyists, the case against LPFMs doesn't make much sense. A $2.2 million taxpayer-funded study showed that low-power stations don't cause harmful interference to full-power stations. And 100-watt LPFMs are almost identical to the 250-watt mini-stations (called translators) that full-power stations use to repeat their signals across wide areas. Translators rely on the same equipment as LPFMs, operating with higher power levels at distances even closer to full-power stations. Yet no one's complained about them. The difference is in the name on the license: Incumbent broadcasters own the translators. LPFMs are owned by local governments, nonprofit organizations, churches and schools (in other words, the competition).

Reading the names on licenses is a good way to see the effects of deregulation on radio. Before 1985, there were simply more names on the list. An individual or company could own only one AM or FM station in each market and only seven of each nationally. Several rounds of deregulation later, a single company can now own up to eight radio stations per market and any number nationally.

Contrary to the "free market" logic of deregulation, the lifting of ownership caps has driven prices up. Radio stations that once sold for between seven and twelve times projected cash flow now cost 20-22 times cash flow, requiring equity that most small businesses don't have. Ownership is limited to the very largest chains, which can buy advertising, music and on-air talent at bulk rates - which is why every station on your dial features the same format and cycles through the same overplayed pop songs.

The loss of local programming is only one casualty of deregulation. Media consolidation disproportionately affects women and minority media owners, for several reasons. Historically, women and people of color have often been barred from the business. Back when the radio spectrum was less crowded and commercial licenses were free, only white men got them. In today's cramped radio market, you must buy an existing station to get a commercial license, requiring enormous upfront capital. It's a high barrier to market entry for women and people of color, who face discrimination when applying for bank loans and the jobs needed to gain high-level industry experience.

Low-power radio lacks these barriers. The engineering and legal fees are low, licenses are free and community leadership is more valued than industry insidership. Unlike the slick but vacuous programming produced by commercial radio's huge economies of scale, LPFMs are hyperlocal. With limited resources, they do what big networks won't, covering city council elections, local musicians and high school football.

That may be why the Prometheus Radio Project's campaign to expand LPFM (http://www.expandlpfm.org) has brought together groups with seemingly little in common besides the need for a locally accountable voice in the media.

Native American Tribal groups hope to use reservation radio to revitalize their languages. Mississippi emergency responders want to broadcast hurricane alerts. Florida's migrant tomato pickers and Oregon's farmworkers use radio to organize for better wages and working conditions. And music fans everywhere want to hear independent musicians who don't have the business ties to get corporate airtime.

Even in the age of Internet, radio remains a vital resource for community organizing and expression. This is especially true for the elderly, speakers of minority languages, and communities with low literacy rates or limited broadband access. With a range of 3-5 miles, LPFM is well-suited for issues that affect a single neighborhood, such as organizing around housing rights or building community gardens.

If the media did cover the fight for low-power radio, the story shouldn't be about FCC rules, or engineering studies, or even the Local Community Radio Act's supporters in Congress. The real story is a national movement of grassroots groups who are claiming the airwaves - after all, we lease them to broadcasters to serve the public interest. If they aren't doing the job, we can take the airwaves back and do it ourselves.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

You want to know WHY they changed? It has nothing to do with politics or ideals.
No one listens to those stations. Those that do, don't support the advertiser enough.

ITS THAT SIMPLE

The advertisers stopped buying time.

When are you going to wake up? There are no laws stopping liberal/progressive radio, they just can't seem to make any money at it. It's tough to pay the bills when no one listens and no one wants to advertise. The only reason NPR is still on the radio is because the tax payer subsidize it.

Listen to it, get a job, and buy the stuff being advertised. That's the solution! There's no conspiracy

A little over a year ago, an a.m. station began programming the conservative format to listeners thought to not have enough right wing talk from the other, more successful conservotalk station in our area out west. A year has passed and that new station is bleeding $$, the ratings so low they're less than a 0.5 on the scale - third from last place, yet the owner won't flip; he's staying the course come hell-or-high water. He's willing to operate on his own savings in the hopes that eventually his station can become profitable by investing the bank and years it takes to develop listener-ship and sponsor-ship - some day.

Did KMPT flip because they just don't like the progressive format, if radio folk think along those same lines as the owner I talk about here? Or is he wrong for losing money on his conservative format? I guess my point here is that it's not as simple as "ayn's" take, though he articulates well, the straight-line, ill-informed thinking of a partisan wingnut, teabagger, etc. etc.

The man who said the station owes the community nothing is mistaken. The airways are public. The right to use those airways used to be subject to corporations taking responsibility for giving real information to listeners. When they didn't respect their obligation, Congress passed the fairness act to enforce broadcasting ethics. The crap that passes for broadcasting today is niether ethical or fair, but he is right...it's profitable. We will die of corporate greed before any other tyrant gets around to it.