Free Republic

Somebody at Seattle's KOMO-TV sure doesn't like Matt Drudge. After linking to a photo at KOMO's website, the station had the image changed from one of an illegal drug/alien/terrorist smuggling tunnel between Lynden, Washington and British Columbia, to this:

I don't expect much from the local WB station, but what's the problem at PBS? Do they have the ability to take a live BBC feed? With the big debate about public television's future, why don't become more relevant to the immediacy of global news developments? Did broadcast network anchors seem surprisingly caught off-guard today, considering it's just two weeks later? Or were they simply frustrated at the lack of early details? ... The busy recent news cycle has given Rush Limbaugh a huge boost, as there's lots to talk about and Rush tends to get fired-up at times like...

What's it going to take to get talk radio out of this increasingly-dismal ratings slump? The Radio Equalizer is tired of the post-election cycle excuse, since better-programmed stations are falling a bit less, while incompetently-managed outlets are getting creamed. The emerging Spring 2005 figures paint an especially bleak picture that must serve as an urgent industry wake-up call. Spring and fall Arbitron releases are considered the most important for media buyers, a loose parallel to TV's "Sweeps" months.

Looks like liberals weren't done attacking talk radio's field trip to Iraq, after all. Nor did the Radio Equalizer's piece on the subject go unnoticed, either, becoming fodder for the Huffington Post's Michelle Pilecki: "Since this was also a morale-boosting trip giving regular servicemembers cookies, coffee, and a chance to talk on the radio, I wouldn't have any problem with it if it weren't that the rhetoric of so many trip-supporters was as heated as Iraq in July."

If you blinked, you've missed Boston radio talk show host Jay Severin's national cable talk stint. And if one source is correct, he may be finished on TV for some time. What exactly was the real reason for Severin's departure from MSNBC's low-rated "The Situation With Tucker Carlson"?

Move America Forward's radio talk show host expedition to Iraq must so far be a stunning disappointment for liberals. Where's the blatant propaganda? The partisan "non-reality" of events there, as we were warned for days would occur? As it turns out, the visit by American talk hosts seems more a morale booster, Bob Hope-style, than a sinister "radical right" plot....

Today's All Access online edition contains an ad that had the Radio Equalizer just plain baffled: CHRISTIAN RADIO NETWORK FOR MEN 25-54 WOW! We still have not found the right guy, who does not sound like he works at Salem. For the last time... if you are a FLAME-THROWING AIR-TALENT who has personality and not a limp-wristed girly man sound, send you're Mp3 now to programming@centalkradio.com or info@centalkradio.com Our national network targets christian men 25-54 "No chicks". We pay great not like the other so-called christian radio networks who pay low and bonus with God. Working for CEN means you...

If the sagging ratings, incoherent dialogue, inconsistent positions and fossil-like delivery aren't enough, Don Imus delivers more: another legal flap involving his New Mexico ranch. Former Imus Ranch Physician Dr. Howard Pearson has sued him for slander, after the radio host said he "was one of the worst doctors in the world and did not care if children suffered," according to the suit and USA Today.

According to a late BBC report, a bomb explosion in central Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad, has injured 13 people, two critically. It appears to bear the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda attack, or at least one in sympathy with recent Islamist atrocities in London and elsewhere. With extensive Trinidad and Tobago experience, allow me to build a case for Islamo-fascism as the cause, even if local police aren't yet saying so.

When stories as big as London's first break, it's obvious you'll cover nothing else. The topic picks you, rather than the usual other way around. Yesterday, I asked WRKO/Boston morning hosts Peter Blute and Scott Allen Miller whether they'd even considered discussing another issue on Friday's show. Their answer: a definite no. But what about this weekend? That's where it gets trickier, not just for talk radio, but for the blogosphere as well. It seems appropriate to cover other stories today, with an eye on the latest London developments, but the financial and other specialty programs on talk radio today...

"...Cable goes wall-to-wall, broadcast networks mixed. Some stations still running regular programming. Local news mostly focused on story, but with major local angles that sometimes seem too provincial. Focus on the news that has actually occurred. Let's show we care. Some other stories being covered as well. Actually heard an Aruba update. Let's take a pass on that one for a few days, shall we? ...While the blogosphere jumps right in, talk radio is caught with its pants down. Many regular hosts are away this week and the substitutes in their place range from nightmarish, to completely unairworthy. ...Please leave...

Nothing's worse than seeing a major news development, especially one having such a huge potential impact on conservative activism, getting buried by holiday distractions. Especially ironic: a judicial assault on free speech, just before Independence Day. Since a Thurston County, Washington, judge ruled late last Friday that comments by Seattle talk hosts are considered in-kind campaign contributions, subject to reporting under state disclosure laws, it's been an uphill battle getting conservatives to understand its ramifications.

Fed up with increasingly disturbing cases of judicial activism? Get ready for one that will knock your socks off. Proving that the US Supreme Court's decimation of private property rights in the Kelo v. New London decision could be a mere warm-up act, a Washington state judge has now taken a wrecking ball to the First Amendment. Talk radio's ability to freely express on-air opinions on the day's top news, especially of a political nature, is now taking it on the chin.

ABC's politically loaded "Welcome To The Neighborhood" has been cancelled before even a single episode could air, according to the Drudge Report and Washington Post. Set to debut July 10, it's been entirely removed from ABC's site, as if it never existed! The ill-conceived reality show, previously covered in-depth at the Radio Equalizer, put three white families in a position to select their new neighbor.

ABC's attempt at the ultimate in political correctness for a new reality show, has instead hilariously backfired, with furious lefty groups busy denouncing it. Conservatives and Christians will have just as much to worry about,

Is there a weekly contest at Air America to see which host can make the most asinine public statements? Perhaps there's a chart in the breakroom where each silly press outburst gets a happy face sticker next to the person's name?

It can't be easy being Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney these days. While he works overtime trying to bolster his "ineffective governor" rap, the real villains are playing golf on Cape Cod! Perhaps Romney expected too much in taking the Bay State's reins,

Is the recent talk radio listenership dropoff continuing? The first set of ratings figures for the three-month period of March, April and May, have emerged tonight and early indications are of a sustained, rocky period for talk radio. It's just a little bit too soon to know for sure, however.

Air America's New Outrageous Claims We've heard some pretty outrageous claims made about Air America's programming in recent months: that it was available to 60% of Americans via radio, that liberal (including non-Air America) talk shows have grown faster than Rush did in his first year. And we were lectured on the "fact" that radio ratings weren't available to the public, therefore we couldn't possibly know whether the network was performing well, or not.

It's a sure sign of industry saturation: with liberal talk radio now the flavor of the month (despite the lack of results), every Progressive Peter or Socialist Sally who's ever walked a precinct, waved a sign, or run for town council, seems ready to kick off a syndicated talk program. Announcements of new efforts, some by relatively unknown people, now seem to emerge ever more frequently.