Posted on 02/28/2006 5:40:40 AM PST by joesbucks
Interesting take on how talk radio programs take callers.
See link for article.
http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060227/OPINION02/602270319/1014
Ping!
Thank you. I keep going to the HTML sandbox, but some things just don't sink in.
This really doesn't tell me anything but that the author is getting desperate for listeners, and he seems to be envious of the more famous talk hosts.
I wonder why they wanted to keep it a secret.[/sarc]
I don't think Bryan Hyde has ever listened to anyone except himself.
Uuuhm. Who's Brian Hyde? And what the hell am I suppose to do with this information, call his show and tell him I read it?
I feel tricked into wasting my time for reading this.
I'm not sure I understand, but this writer is an idiot.
Seriously, if all the "intellgent liberals" are screened out, explain DU?
Rush makes no bones about it. He brags that the role of the caller is to make the host look good.
I've been on with Rush and O'Reilly as well as some other national hosts. The Rush and O'Reilly depictions are pretty close. If you disagree intelligently with Rush and have your presentation in order and especially with published facts, you either wait endlessly on hold, all the while the screener keeps comoing back and saying "your next" and then 2 hours later the show is nearing the end when he'll finally say, we've moved on, except you continue to hear callers on the topic.
If you disagree but come off as a liberal loon, Rush with play with you like a cat plays with a mouse until he can go in for the attack just moments before the break. If you get through and he doesn't like where the conversation is going, you're muted until the commercial while he pontificates a point. They don't dump you, but you can hear him, but he and the audience can't hear you. I've even been accused of hanging up before while all the time not being able to respond.
I've also been in charming agreement and he'll keep you until moments before the break when he needs to make a close going into the break and you can no longer communicate.
Once in a while he'll let a intelligent diagreement caller stay on for a while, and that's usually when you'll see the comments here on FR about that caller and how they had Rush dancin. But it's not often.
Of course some of it is anecdotal to a point, but there is a lot of fact in his story.
Agreed--stopped reading this tripe halfway through.
Any habitual talk-radio listener could have written that article.
His last three paragraphs basically fall in line with the most successful radio hosts in the business, which basically is, "have a point and stick to it".
So which is it?
On Rush's show, if you're a liberal loon, you get bumped toward the front of the line, even if you've called in half way through the show.
I agree with me...and I bet the other guy agrees with himself. It is self-serving nonsense written by a jealous guy. What insights did you gain from this "article?"
Heck, one time a few weeks ago, Rush had a liberal caller right at the top of the second hour, and the caller asked Rush if he could take as much time to make his point, Rush gladly gave him the floor, and at the end of his 10 minute "monologue" the caller said "thanks for wasting my time", hung up, and Rush sounded confused and asked Snerdley if they called him.
Funniest radio I've heard in YEARS!
I gathered from his article, he's revealing a helluva lot I already knew, and he's a veritable nobody on some small hay-bailin' radio station somewhere in Utah.
Levin takes liberals so he can insult them.
Rush takes callers that allow him to make a cogent argument for his position on any given issue.
Rush rarely takes calls that merely feed his ego and he rarely if ever insults a caller no matter how base the lib's argument.
Easy, there are no intelligent liberals.
Hannity also takes women who will flirt with him. Just annoying IMO.
Theres an old notion that only crazy people write letters to the editor, I'd say that goes double for people who call into talk radio. At least the letter writer licked a stamp and went on with his day, the callers - do these people have jobs or what? I just dont get people who open with "I totally agree with everything you say" if thats the case why did you waste hours on hold? He's got Hannity to a tee there, heard him use that "So you think the world would be better off with Saddam in power" argument til I'm sick of it. At this point I think a caller could make a strong case that we'd be better with him in power actually... but not me ;) I have a job.
Lightweights All!
They use all the national talk shows to fill in between the idiots like this guy.
But there are many people who have no idea how these shows work, both on this board and in the general public. For them, it could be an education.
On this board, they may see it as an attack because it's conservative hosts being discussed, but if the artcle exposed how Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller handled callers on their shows, then this article would be a great expose.
Ever listen to what a lib host does to a conservative caller? Take a listen to KGO after one in the morning.
Copy my tag line and add the rest (=/20060227/OPINION02/602270319/1014) of the article link you had in the original thread. Skip all ( & ).
This reply
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1586932/posts?page=30#30
should have been to your reply #4
Now admittedly I don't get to hear Tony Snow or Medved, but I am guessing they are not rude to libs or anyone else for that matter.
As a woman, I am embarrassed at the groupies who swoon over Sean.
http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060227/OPINION02/602270319/1014
Not a problem. The page will do it for you.
After waiting for so long, I was told that they were not going to be able to get to my call/opinion after all (no other callers got through) and the screener sincerely apologized and offered me a free year's subscription to Rush 24/7. I thanked him but told him that I was already a member and the wait was no problem--don't worry about it. He then offered me a 1yr subscription to the Limbaugh Letter. I took it! LOL
IMO, it's Rush's show, I chose to call, I chose to sit on hold for 2 hours. They didn't owe me anything.
I wonder how many of Hyde's readers asked, "who is Barabbas"?
What if it had been a liberal show and you had information that would damn their latest tirade. They took no additional callers, but they kept you on hold for two hours?
I can remember first hearing Rush's show in 1989, and his show was more focused around him, and hardly had any callers put on the air, because that was Rush's choice.
His bosses at the time told him he needed to have more callers on his show because that's what listeners listen for. Rush said that was the first time he ever did what management told him to do.
I've heard Medved's show a few times, and 9 times out of 10 he takes liberal callers over callers who agree with him. It makes for more interesting radio (at least for me anyway) when you have different points of view clashing on the airwaves, and it's even more fun when Medved gives the liberals a smackdown at the end of the call.
Bryan Hyde is a local talk show guy I try to avoid because he cannot make up his mind whether he's a conservative or a libertarian. He leans a bit left in this rightest neighborhood, but now and then he gets it right.
Could be because KSUB is in Cedar City, Utah and is a small station. He is certainly not qualified to render an expert opinion on the how's and why's of talk radio.
The way talk shows are run on the big stations is almost the same way they've always done it except for computerization and more modern equipment.
The mechanics of a talk show remain the same.
This guy has already turned green for St. Patrick's day, in his envy of Rush, et al. It shows in the way he tries to bring them down to his level.
If that's the way he really thinks it's done, he might as well go ahead and buy a house in Cedar City, because he has already reached the high-water mark in his career.
By the way, Cedar City ain't no city. There's a nice photo of their downtown here at their website:
It does look like a nice little town to live in, but not big enough to sustain a radio career. It is a university town so maybe he's still in school. In any case, here's a guy at a "peanut whistle" radio station analyzing the big boys and offering his advice.
Never mind his motivations. I found in the limited space allotted, he was probably right about 75-85% of the time as to how callers on the national shows are handled. Yes, there are always exceptions to those rules, but to give the details to everyone would miss the point.
Been on with Bob Grant too. He's a great conversationalist and listens to your points too. He's not multi tasking when he's got a caller.
Sean is on IM with Drudge or Levin, chatting up his screener or sweet baby james who is his bro in law.
Grant really was the best of the best for the longest time.
Got a chance to disagree with a local host too.....and then Rush used by call to Gambling as part of his morning update.
Heck, he even lets E. Frank on, and that other caller that calls only to complain that everybody else has blacklisted him.
Sometimes, Drudge just has the screener line them up without screening.
Oh wait! The hay bailing hicks are now selling their land for big homes and condos while becoming instant millionnaires. Worse yet, the growth rate here is #2 in the US (and we hate the whole growth thing!). The radio station is a poor one what with numerous failures of the broadcasting equipment, faux pas galore by the radio "personalities" and on at least three occasions the station has been sold to new guys just to confuse everyone. None get it right to date.
Liberal Ed Schultz used to do that, but I believe the last time I listened, he was screening.
Err, sorry, Brian is located and broadcasts (and is a columnist for the local Gannett leftist rag) in St. George, not Cedar City. He's looking for a larger station, perhaps. Any takers? Please take him away!
His show has a wide variety of guests, and he likes to consider his show a way for Montanan's to get together in a statewide conversation, if only for one hour every morning for 5 days a week.
Coincidently, Mr. Berg helped Michael Reagan take his show nationally, and he's very good friends with Michael and was a long time friend of his dad.
But then again, I was a smart-a$$ when I first got into the business also so I should not be criticizing.
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