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I fell asleep on the couch after getting home from work and watching a couple of mindless TV episodes on Roku. I woke up about an hour ago and went to bed but am still awake.
Yesterday at work I was thinking about my socialist radio idea. It occurred to me that "all red, all the time", the socialist analogue to many of the Christian radio formats I hear in western MA and upstate NY, risks putting the cart before the horse; if the goal is to get a message into as many minds as possible, then it is necessary to attract a mass audience, and that is best done by focusing primarily on the needs of the targeted listeners. There are two traditional alternatives: music/entertainment or news/information. Neither is essentially socialist, but either can serve as the substrate, or carrier-wave, to which a socialist message might be added.
It is noteworthy that even in a country as overtly Christian as the United States, Christian radio rarely draws much of an audience in any market, and survives on donations from a few devoted listeners or subsidies from stations' parent organizations. This "all-message" model does not seem promising, nor does that of traditional conservative talk radio, which was emulated by the ill-fated Air America. My suspicion is that conservative talk appeals mostly to people who were already long time listeners to the stations, mostly AM's, that carry Rush Limbaugh and his ilk; in Boston, where Clear Channel has built a new station and attempted the format de novo (as "Rush Radio 1200"), it has failed spectacularly, most of Mr. Limbaugh's listeners choosing to stay with AM 680, his former Boston dial position. If someone with the stature of Mr. Limbaugh, who was once hailed as the savior of AM radio, can't attract new listeners to a station with an "all-message" format, that does not bode well for this model.
Ironically, AM 1200 was the former home of Air America in Boston, albeit with just 5,000 watts as opposed to the new 50,000-watt plant of "Rush Radio".
It would seem, than, that the choice boils down to music + socialism or news/information + socialism. Which is the better way?
There is a dog snorting at me. I wonder what he wants.
Yesterday at work I was thinking about my socialist radio idea. It occurred to me that "all red, all the time", the socialist analogue to many of the Christian radio formats I hear in western MA and upstate NY, risks putting the cart before the horse; if the goal is to get a message into as many minds as possible, then it is necessary to attract a mass audience, and that is best done by focusing primarily on the needs of the targeted listeners. There are two traditional alternatives: music/entertainment or news/information. Neither is essentially socialist, but either can serve as the substrate, or carrier-wave, to which a socialist message might be added.
It is noteworthy that even in a country as overtly Christian as the United States, Christian radio rarely draws much of an audience in any market, and survives on donations from a few devoted listeners or subsidies from stations' parent organizations. This "all-message" model does not seem promising, nor does that of traditional conservative talk radio, which was emulated by the ill-fated Air America. My suspicion is that conservative talk appeals mostly to people who were already long time listeners to the stations, mostly AM's, that carry Rush Limbaugh and his ilk; in Boston, where Clear Channel has built a new station and attempted the format de novo (as "Rush Radio 1200"), it has failed spectacularly, most of Mr. Limbaugh's listeners choosing to stay with AM 680, his former Boston dial position. If someone with the stature of Mr. Limbaugh, who was once hailed as the savior of AM radio, can't attract new listeners to a station with an "all-message" format, that does not bode well for this model.
Ironically, AM 1200 was the former home of Air America in Boston, albeit with just 5,000 watts as opposed to the new 50,000-watt plant of "Rush Radio".
It would seem, than, that the choice boils down to music + socialism or news/information + socialism. Which is the better way?
There is a dog snorting at me. I wonder what he wants.
