Part of the problem with the MSM take is the deeply misguided idea that the audience for talk radio is an audience of followers when in fact it is an audience of activists looking for information that MSM doesn't supply. Rush pioneered the delivery of reliable news from a worldview that most MSM elites simply do not understand. Since his breakout in the late '80s, the rest of us have followed using our own styles and deliveries to open up additional delivery routes for information that otherwise would not get to our audiences. Because we have collectively delivered the goods, the audience has grown and grown.
Left-liberal talk radio has failed miserably because there are already a multitude of places to get news and information deemed valuable by liberal-left audiences, beginning with the networks and major newspapers, and on the radio from NPR. There wasn't any need for Air America. Even if it had been able to find talented broadcasters, they would have been reduced to reading the copy already provided the left via the New York Times and others in the MSM food chain.
But we do not expect our audiences to "fall in line" the way a left wing authoritarian would expect his or her audience to do. All of our programs are built on a combination of sincere passion and reasoned argument, and persuasion requires wining and losing points. The left hates the talk radio world because it is built on reason and facts which they would rather never have aired much less have to confront. Our approach is very effective in influencing conservative opinion. We have collectively counseled against a McCain vote, and the majority of Republican voters have in fact not voted for McCain, though many have. Those that have sided with the Arizona maverick haven't stopped listening, as any of us can attest by our e-mails. Nor will they. What will they do, after all? Turn to the networks or NPR?
In fact, the GOP's greatest asset for communication with its base and with the informed center remains its allies on the radio dial, which is why Republican leaders will be reaching out to the talkers no matter who the nominee is, and especially if it Senator McCain. Add up all the cable shows combined, and those audiences do not approach the weekly listenership of the syndicated shows. Compare the hours even the television programs open to conservative views have, and it is less than a quarter of the hours center-right radio hosts are broadcasting. In a news world still dominated by hard left MSMers, the only "fairness" a center-right news consumer will reliably find is on our programs. With an Obama or Clinton candidacy, the bias of the MSM will become even more pronounced even if it remains undisclosed and unacknowledged. This guarantees a greater and greater audience throughout 2008.
If Senator McCain is the nominee, we have to assume he will want to win.
Winning means a mobilized base, and mobilizing the base means communicating with it. Check back in six months. Rush will still be there, as will we all.
And either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama will wish very much that we weren't.