WORT News - Nathan's weekly dig

I'm on a bunch of listservs, and many of them have been abuzz lately at the news of the seeming end of "The Mic 92.1". And by "seeming end," I mean that the format of WXXM will change from progressive talk (Air America) to Fox Sports. WXXM will still be WXXM, and still owned by Clear Channel.

Today, another WORT host sent me a link to a story about the whole situation. This one was to a Capital Times editorial that read in part:

The Mic 92.1, the FM radio station that features a format of liberal talkers such as Al Franken, Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz, along with some outstanding local programming, was never the sole expression of progressivism on the local radio dial.

But that does not mean that The Mic's proposed Jan. 1 format shift from "progressive talk" to sports should be regarded as a wise or necessary one. It is neither.

At least the Cap Times notes that The Mic isn't wasn't the only place for progressivism on the radio dial. It's unusual for papers to mention lil' ol' WORT in this sort of thing. About a year ago, Madison Magazine did a "Women of Radio" cover story in which they failed to include anyone from WORT (or WPR for that matter, weirdly). Even the Isthmus ran a cover story a while ago looking at the state of radio news. Inexplicably, the writer focused only on commercial radio news outlets, though one of the interviewees gave WORT some props totally unsolicited (which was flattering).

Still, it's kinda sad to see Air America kicked to the Clear Channel curb. Not for the loss of the syndicated programs. Frankly, I couldn't stand to listen to most of them. Al Franken was good back when he used to be funny. Ed Schultz strikes me as a somewhat leftist version of Rush Limbaugh minus the pain killer addiction.

But I don't want to go down that road too much. It just seems like rubbing salt into the wound. Besides, the loss of Air America in Madison means the loss of some good local programming, and that is really too bad. Laura Gutknecht and John Quinlan did a lovely job with Forward Forum on Sunday mornings. Many weeks, it sounded like the sort of thing that could've fit into WORT, minus all the commercials. In fact, on a listserv we're both on, John Quinlan recently said some very nice things about WORT's high standards that The Mic was only trying to measure up to.

John went on to interrogate the loss of accountability or public service in radio programming decision-making throughout the commercial radio world:

Deregulation of broadcasters produced the deplorable results we see today as local radio becomes less and less accountable to the specific needs of our community--and it's the resulting concentration of ownership from afar that produces decisions out of step with the actual needs of local communities. For a brief shining moment, I believe that The Mic transcended that trend, especially through the high quality local programming we provided. Ironically, at least as they explained it, it was the fact that Clear Channel owned six local stations that gave them the broad financial base necessary to take a risk on the then new format of progressive talk radio (a trend the repeated itself in countless other cities across the U.S.). The progressive talk format took off in ways that they never expected--fulfilling a hunger that broadcasters barely knew existed. In broadcasting parlance, it's called "reaching an unrealized niche market," something broadcasters consider both rare and extremely lucrative for their bottom lines. And, in fact, ironically, the national management of Clear Channel still believes in that format, and is working actively to promote it. Air America may have declared bankruptcy, but that's actually a good step from the perspective of its longterm stability. And even if Air America were to end tomorrow, many of its component programs will still be available through syndication. So neither Clear Channel nor the state of affairs at Air America can be blamed for the decision to end The Mic's progressive talk format. That responsibility lies squarely with local management.

It is still a genuine mystery to me what actually happened here, because the station was doing well in the ratings when compared to others in the genre of talk radio, and the station attracted countless new and loyal listeners who had rarely listened to commercial radio in recent years. Sounded like an advertisers dream to me.

I've heard from a number of people who've taken the time to write to Clear Channel management, who've received replies that say.... "hey, we've got the situation under control. Trust us, and stop filling my inbox." This, despite the fact that one of the central roles of broadcast professionals is to listen to the full diversity of people in the communities reached by their signals. In fact, each email or letter must be put into a public file, and these files are to be thoroughly reviewed at the time of sale of a station, or at the time of a station's license renewal. In the era before deregulation, station managers wouldn't be caught dead stating that the public's feedback was unimportant, and yet in the current climate, they seem to be oblivious to those facts.

Ironically for those same station managers, in the wake of the recent elections, the trend toward deregulation may soon be a thing of the past, and the FCC might actually return to its traditional role of insuring accountability on the part of broadcast owners to local communities (meaning their responsibility to provide a high quality of locally-based programming to all sectors of the communities they serve). There is after all, a finite amount of available bandwidth, and the airwaves do indeed belong to the public. In this case, local management wasn't even willing to listen to the marketplace. Something about the progressive talk format seemed to represent a threat to the powers-that-be in the labyrinth of hallways at Clear Channel Madison who claimed to be doing what the public wants in programming another sports station, but who seem defensive and oblivious to those who are asking them to bring back a popular format that served greater Madison well.

Commercial radio is never going to equal the standards set by WORT. That I can live with.... But we need and deserve for it to do much better, nonetheless. In recent years, commercial radio in Madison has slipped into a rut of complacency that runs counter to the accountability that local stations are supposed to show to their local communities.... hence, the severe cutbacks on local news and local programming of the past decade, that have robbed Madisonians of one of the most important venues in which we communicate with each other.

Well put. And thanks, John.