Remember when Friends was on TV. It was one of the top
rated television shows. Did you ever head NBC boasting that they were beating
CBS out in the ratings game during that period? No you didn’t. While NBC had the
number one show on, CBS was still the highest rated network.

Now you may wonder why I am brining up television ratings
and old sitcoms on a political blog. Well your about to find out.

On August 8, Rush Limbaugh issued a press
release titled
“Rush Limbaugh Leads the Race Against Liberal Talkers in Austin, Baton Rouge,
New Orleans, San Antonio, and Memphis”. Of the 591 stations that carry the fat
man of hate, he chose four to highlight.

Take for example the New Orleans station he highlighted.
WSMB was carrying conservative talk radio personality such as Dr. Laura and Bill
O’Reilly. They changed formats on July 25 of this year. The ratings Limbaugh is
going off of were for the period which ended on July 31 of this year. So
actually in that market, he was beating out other right-wing talk shows. Sorry
Rush, wait until the next period ratings come out and see how you really do.
Also it is worth noting that in these markets, Air America is aired on stations
that have a far lower output than Rush’s stations. That means Rush has the
ability to reach more listeners than Air America does.

The most ironic part is that Rush is losing out in his home
state.
Raw Story is reporting that in Miami, the Ed Schultz show is actually
beating Rush out in the 25-54 age group. Rush is at 3.2 and Ed is at 3.4. Now
that may not sound like a lot, but back last winter, Ed was only at 1.5. He has
made tremendous progress in Rush’s backyard.

There are numerous other markets that he 15 month old
network is growing in including; New York, Denver, Seattle, Portland, and
conservative San Diego. The point of most optimism is the fact that Air America
is such a young network and gaining momentum after a rocky start. They add new
markets almost every day and still lead in the on-line radio ratings.

The most ironic thing you hear from the right is the
continuous allegation that Air America is about to fail. They have even tried to
start an attack associating them with stealing money from a youth group. (Could
this be the last throes of the right wing media?).

Conservative talk radio has enjoyed a long time run of
airing without competition. Their only competition would generally be in the
form of music format radio stations. I use to find myself listening to Rush and
other conservative talk shows, not by choice but by lack of choice. I would get
tired of hearing the radio station play the same song every 20 minutes to I
would switch to talk radio and the menu was limited to one choice – Conservative
talk shows. Now the conservative’s no longer enjoy the monopoly and talk radio
and people have a fresh new choice.

So next time you read a headline that conservative talk
radio is beating liberal talk radio, take the time to look into it. Air America
is a network, not just a single show like O’Reilly, Hannity, or Limbaugh. When
Air America launched, it was selling a new idea in talk radio. The idea was an
entire network of liberal talk radio instead of a single syndicated talk show.
The more fair comparison would be to look at the ratings of a conservative talk
show as compared to a liberal talk show in the same time slot.

Now Americans are getting a choice in what to listen to.
They can choose between the right and left side of the dial, and more are going
for the left side. Does this mean there is a growth spurt of liberals in the
nation? Most likely not, but when you listen to any of the Right big three
(Hannity, Limbaugh, O’Reilly), it does get old. They all try to attract
listeners with a hate towards other humans, rather it be Muslims, liberals,
Democrats, pro-choice groups, the ACLU. The left side of the dial entertains
their audience with questioning of policy. They question the motives of our
government and looking at recent polls, that is something a majority of
American’s do anymore.

So back to Friends. We never did hear NBC say they were
beating CBS out in the ratings war because Friends was the number one show. NBC
knew that CBS was still the overall winner and did not manipulate their data to
show the opposite.

Think
Progress has more on this story.