Top Talk Radio Shows by Audience Size and Ideology

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[Asphalt]

1. Rush Limbaugh (Conservative)

14.50

2. Sean Hannity (Conservative)

11.75

3. Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Conservative)

8.50

Howard Stern (Non-ideological)

8.50

5. Michael Savage(Conservative)

7.00

6. Jim Bohannon (Moderate)

4.00

Dr. Joy Browne(Non-political)

4.00

Don Imus (Non-ideological)

4.00

George Noory (Non-political)

4.00

10. Neal Boortz (Libertarian)

2.50

Mike Gallagher(Conservative)

2.50

Clark Howard (Non-political)

2.50

13. Glenn Beck(Conservative)

2.00

Ken and Daria Dolan (Non-political)

2.00

G. Gordon Liddy(Conservative)

2.00

Doug Stephan and Nancy Skinner (Non-ideological)

2.00

17. Kim Komando(Non-political)

1.75

Bill O'Reilly (Conservative)

1.75

Jim Rome (Non-political)

1.75

20. Bob Brinker (Non-political)

1.50

Rusty Humphries(Conservative)

1.50

Michael Medved(Conservative)

1.50

Dave Ramsey (Non-political)

1.50

24. Dr. Dean Edell (Non-political)

1.25

Phil Hendrie (Non-ideological)

1.25

Laura Ingraham(Conservative)

1.25

Tom Leykis (Non-ideological)

1.25

Bruce Williams (Non-political)

1.25

[OriginalIntent]

Dean Edell is a hard left blowhard. He is a total bait and switch liar when he deals with political or social issues.

[taillightchaser]

You are right--he is always taking shots at our President.

[Final Authority]

He is non sensical except when he does an interview then he is the best in the business. I used to hang out in a machine shop/hobby race car shop on weekends while in high school and sometimes while in college and the repartee that went on there happens on Imus. It is of men and what they are thinking irreverently. Most of the time it makes no sense but is gratuitous indeed and that is why it sells.

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

Medved only gets 1.5 million? Man, that's a shame.. They need to get him on more stations.

Maybe if he sounded like an actual man more people would tune in. I can stomach his limpwristed whine for about a minute.

[JoeGar]

Dr. Savage and Medved are the only one's worth listening to anymore.

Dr. Dean Edell and Dr. Joy Browne are pretty good non-ideologs.

[Final Authority]

Savage is only a liability to those who equate the GOP to conservatism. He is indeed a liability to the likes of GWB and the bobble headed followers of GWB. But he is also a critic of liberalism, or haven't you noticed?

[Mobile Vulgus]

--- I'm just curious as to how you know for sure that Savage doesn't care about the issue he's discussing.

Well, OBVIOUSLY we are talking opinions on these radio guys.

---Is there any evidence to this effect?

The evidence is that he goes straight for the most controversial issues of the day, ALWAYS. I have listened to many of his shows and found him fun at first. But the more I listened the more it appeared that he is just desperately and forever trying to get noticed as opposed to engaging in serious discourse. In truth, he is NO different than Howard Stern in that all he is about is controversy. (Stern goes for utterly prurient matters whereas Savage goes for political)

--- Savage's recent questioning of Bush on a number of issues could actually hurt is ratings, unless you think he's trying to draw anti-Bush centerists from the Dems

No I don’t think it will hurt him at all. Because his base audience is filled with Buchannanesque, hate mongers who will be against just about ANYONE in office. Sure they are generally conservative, but they are from the I-hate-everyone wing of the Party. His core audience is angry, nut cases. Savage won’t lose them unless he suddenly gets to sounding reasonable. Then his audience will feel he has suddenly "gone soft"!

---When he was warning of the dangers to the economy presented by millions of illegals, Hannity and Rush were busy promoting the 2004 election. Now that the minutemen are making headlines, now all of a sudden the other talk-show hosts are following suit. One could claim they're the ones trying to get noticed and care about ratings.

Um, I have listed to both Rush AND Hannity and NEITHER of them ignored the illegal alien issue. Its just that they didn’t rant and rave like Savage does. They stated their feelings and they are not too different from Savage in how they feel.

The bottom line is, that Savage is a ranting, lunatic, name calling scandalmonger who’s sole purpose is to line his own pockets and get noticed. He has no real ideology. He believes nothing but cash and would jettison his supposedly conservative beliefs if he could become rich taking the left’s side.

[Final Authority]

# 3 is right on. But I will not offend you by offering the most used stupid phrase in radio, "dittos".

[Ciexyz]

I listen to Rush, Sean, Glen Beck and Michael Savage on Pittsburgh FM Newstalk, 104.7.

[Final Authority]

Leykis had a great gig in Boston but he used to get really drunk and one night he beat his wife up with a fireplace poker that was just used to tend the fire, as it was reported. He is a real nice guy, would you say?

[cookcounty]

"Doug Stephan and Nancy Skinner (Non-ideological)"

When Nancy Skinner was on WLS, she was very ideological, very far to the left. Battle of the Lauras: Dr. Laura beat Laura Ingraham by better than 4-to-1? I don't believe it.

[cookcounty]

The three Best talk shows:

Dennis Praeger (the most well-reasoned)

Laura Ingraham (the best zingers)

Hugh Hewitt (He always asks the right questions) ---and where is he on this list?

[Final Authority]

With respect to #187, the term lunatic is a term of art, please define it as it pertains to Savage with evidence.

I think you could retract that comment or at a minimum offer it as an opinion of how you see him.

With respect to him taking a liberal side if it meant money to line his pockets, well that is just absurd as he has taken positions on every issue way before the mainstream media or the conservative pundits have taken theirs and he even leads the discussion of sensitive issues on a regular basis. If you say he takes positions to gain and hold audience for which to sell advertising to then you have a point but so does every TSH or they would be doing a different line of work.

The late great Gerry Williams, the Dean of talk radio who essentially invented it by developing the delay technique, used to ask the audience at least once a year what business he was in. The answer of course was, advertising.

[brewcrew]

Everyone is entitled to make value judgements about these things, and in the big picture, they matter little. My own value judgement is that there is no value to what exits Imus' mouth. But to each his own.

[cookcounty]

If you like Hewitt, you may like Praeger, the resident philosopher of conservative radio, who is very tightly reasoned, and full of great analogies. He's very gentlemanly, the last hour is usually non-political.

Hewitt knows the law and the political process better than any of them, though.

[Final Authority]

You are correct in how you see it for yourself. I look at the larger picture as I suspect I have witnessed more and been exposed to a wider spectrum of social, academic, and intellectual situations than most and I see Imus as a guy who has made much of his abilities and excels at some of those. One of his greatest talents is recognizing talent around himself and maintaining it for the purposes of his program. He does report that every regular on-air personality on his show are millionaires. He knows how to keep them.

[ariamne]

You are both right: He DID balk at releasing his tax returns and they DID kick him to the curb.

[justshutupandtakeit]

As I said I don't listen much but recall one incident where he had a homo caller and they got into a spat during which Savage was reduced to screeching at the guy "I hope you get AIDS and die." Now I have no love for those of that persuasion but this was no way to impress an audience.

[ariamne]

You are right on the money with that incident. No matter how you feel about homosexuals or what they do, wishing AIDS on anyone is just sick. I've seen people die from it and it goes beyond the political realm.

I think it also shows a lack of control on behalf of the host to lose his cool and screech like that. Not someone I want representing my point of view.