Friday, February 23, 2007

Howard Stern Loses #1 Power Ranking In Radio

I think he wouldn't mind so much if Stern hadn't dropped from #1 to #12 and the sub-Stern team of Opie & Anthony wasn't at #6. Does this mean Stern will demand to have a slot in terrestrial radio AND on satellite? Somehow, I don't think so. And if you're not a fan of far right politics, shout-fests, fake doctors and even hate speech (Hello, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck), this annual ranking of influence and importance by the industry bible Talkers is downright depressing. The top 15:

1. Rush Limbaugh
2. Sean Hannity
3. Michael Savage
4. "Dr." Lauara Schlessinger
5. Ed Schultz
6. Opie and Anthony
7. Laura Ingraham
8. Mike Gallagher
9. Neal Boortz
10. Glenn Beck
11. Mancow
12. Howard Stern
13. Randi Rhodes
14. Don Imus
15. Bill O'Reilly

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Top 15 according to...?

bannedunfairly said...

You call it hate that these guys spread maybe you and John Aravosis ought to stop banning people. Ever heard of freedom of speech. Most of what Mike savage speaks is truth not hate.

Michael in New York said...

Anonymous, this annual ranking is according to Talkers, the industry trade magazine that is the most respected in the radio biz. (It's like Billboard for music or Variety for movies.)

Bannedunfairly, I have never banned anyone from this blog because there aren't enough comments to bother. No matter what you think of American Idol, surely it's no reason to get vitriolic. John Aravosis is of course responsible for Americablog. He gets literally 100,000+ unique visitors daily quite often and on busy days a LOT more. 99.9999% of them never even have to be cautioned much less banned from his site. I have to assume you were either using inappropriate language (which you say you avoid, on your own blog entry) or you either repeatedly harassed other commenters or were simply logging in to attack or somehow otherwise disrupt the comments section. Feel free to share your side of the story with me here. But having watched him for years, he only takes such action when necessary. Many people who disagree with the ideas of Americablog are free to comment. But it gets tiring listening to people call in on talk radio just to rant and if they do it on John's blog he removes them. But that doesn't take away your free speech. You have no "right" to comment on someone else's blog or disrupt the business by which they make their living> It is a platform for Americablog to disseminate THEIR views, not the views of the people who comment and only at their discretion. I don't have the right to call in to Rush Limbaugh every week and criticize what he says, even politely. It wouldn't make for a very good balanced radio show and he rightly wouldn't want me calling in every week. If I was disruptive and yelling, of course, even less slow. You are free to start your own blog, as you have done and that's freedom of speech in action. I started my own blog and because I choose to talk about entertainment and not focus my blog on one area (like, say,. sci-fi tv or primetime soaps or reality tv or punk rock or whatever), I have a very small audience. If you or I were ever able to attain the audience Americablog does, it would be through a lot of hard work. And once we got that audience, we would have the right not to have outsiders mess with our blog. Michael Savage's comments on many subjects (telling a gay caller to get AIDS and die, for example or calling for the slaughter of 100 million Muslims because it's them or us) are well-known and beyond the pale. I don't agree with a fair amount of what Bill O'Reilly says, but he doesn't promulgate hate and if he says something inappropriate (the guy is on air for about four or five hours a day, after all), he apologizes. I've never heard Michael Savage or Glenn Beck apologize for anything. Rush Limbaugh -- I don't agree with MOST of what Limbaugh says, but he doesn't usually peddle vitriol the way Savage and Beck do. If you like them, great. That's one more example of freedom of choice in this country.

Anonymous said...

Michael in New York:

You are an utter disaster of a person. Do us a favor and jump.