Every station we can get that has gone to bland and safe cannot possibly be as profitable as political talk radio.
This is hilly country. You can put up with some static for a minute or two with talk, You usually don’t miss that much and transcripts are usually available online, if it was that important. But music? It can sound like something from outerspace if you cut out various frequencies for a second or two. It is very annoying and I will always just turn it off. I can play my own music in my car, get good sound and the tunes I like without using the radio at all.
How many sports stations can there be? How many sports fans are there? If it was as popular as talk, it would be as profitable. I doubt it is.
Even *localized* talk can be better than distorted music or play-by-play of some game or repeat broadcast of some game no one cares about. My local *community* talk radio is awful. No talent, bland topics, lame comment, with only the weather or perhaps a local scandal, which is handled *delicately* around here, to make it interesting. Most of it is the disguised advertising of the puff piece review of local restaurants you might find in the local shopper. Soon, they will have to resort to radio infomercials to fill the time available and make some money at it.
This is going to kill radio. It is going to impact advertising and therefore local business.
Will it stop people from having conservative thoughts? NO! It will simply force such thinking into other venues, like books, blogs or podcasts. Did Rush make me a conservative? NO! I didn’t care for him when my husband made me listen 20 years ago. But DH said, give him a chance, he sounds like what you are already saying. So, once I got beyond the bombast and self-promotion, I found out that I agreed with him. But I already agreed with him, I just found it comforting to know I wasn’t as alone as I had thought.
I think I will start using the shortwave if this happens. It is more interesting than sports or local blather or distorted music that I can hear better on my CD player.