Things are realigning – with Neal Boortz heading for retirement, Cumulus and Clear Channel parting ways and Michael Savage changing horses, for the past week Dennis Miller is now #4 by listening activity – now solidly ahead of Sean Hannity’s non stop election coverage.
He has a long way to go before he kicks Rush’s ass, but patience and showing up for work everyday matters. Dial Global has clearly been aggressive at selling the show to stations.
Darn good point. I grow weary of the constant pointing to “what’s wrong” with no option to take action other than “vote”. Dennis does show up and has an IQ. I like him.
As I was listening last night, national sponsors are not afraid to advertise on Miller’s show. In the end, program directors and station managers care about ad revenue, not ratings.
As much as I respect Dennis and love his show it can become a little too boring and his common sense and wit are unable to carry every show, every day. But, not quite as boring as Sean’s, non-stop political format. The good thing about Sean’s program is one can tune in and listen to an hour or so 2-3 times a week and stay current on his topic ‘du jour’, otherwise it is tedious to listen to all his shows. Neal Bortz has really been show-casing his ability to do a full three hour show that is informative, sensible and interesting. Why he waited until he was retiring to do so is a mystery to me. Mark Levin is good when he is teaching on the Constitution and is sooooo much better since he stopped yelling so much. Savage has used the line that goes like this, “Republicans are so bad and all the other shows are so much in lock-step to the GOP that you need to listen to me ’cause I’m the only one telling it to you straight” wore thin on me a long time ago. Let me make up my own mind as to what I accept as fact or propaganda.
Truth be told, they all have too many shortcomings. If someone would only put me on a show I would certainly be able to convince everyone my viewpoint is really the only true, truth and I’m the one, and only one, you need to listen to. Then I could become just as wealthy as Rush. So, how about it, any givers????? I mean,,,, any takers????
I’ve never been one who’s been shy of my abilities, but I’ll be blunt: the idea of going on national radio, five days a week, three hours a day, and talking (all the while making it entertaining to the listeners) seems like an incredibly daunting task. I’m amazed at how people can do it. Some people have guests, others field callers, but take for instance Rush: Rush is almost all Rush. He only takes callers that build upon what he’s already going to talk about, and he rarely takes guests. That takes a huge amount of preparation, and I suspect that’s part of the reason why he’s #1.
You are correct sir.
Some of that is done by staff – one of his people does nothing but edit and queue up sound bites. Rush is up early – he used to read the papers when he was in New York. National syndication is not just taking a local show and putting it on the satellite.
Boortz is the counter example. It’s clear he gets in the studio about 5 seconds before the show starts, and his show prep consists of looking at the headlines on the Drudge Report. As a result, he just talks endlessly about the Fair Tax.
Part of that may be because Cox had him working too many hours. He does a 30 minute local show (20 minutes of commercials and 3 minutes of Boortz) then had been doing 4 hrs a day on the Network.
I think doing more than 3 hours is too much. Hosts need a life outside of radio to keep perspective. Joe Pags is doing two local shows each day, then sometimes doing The Weekend. Lars Larson was doing a 3 hour regional show followed by a 3 hour network show (something I didn’t figure out for maybe a year).
Spread the work around to others – it’s the Obama way.