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Jerry Springer

ANALYSIS

Conservative radio springs a surprise

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio). Sunday, March 27, 2005

by Clint O'Connor

You either hate Jerry Springer or really hate him.

Thus, he is the perfect radio host. Someone to enrage listeners with habit-forming bombast. His fledgling syndicated show landed in Cleveland this week on WTAM AM/1100.

Springer's first few shows were wall-to-wall Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose medical condition became the story of the week. One topic endlessly driven into the ground is about as interesting on radio as it is on cable news. Springer droned on too long; his callers droned on too long.

What's shocking, however, was not that another TV personality was taking radio for a spin, it was the focus of his attacks: Republicans.

For more than a decade, radio talk has been astoundingly dominated by right-wing hosts. Rush Limbaugh and his descendants - Sean Hannity, Tony Snow, Michael Medved, among many others - have kept the conservative drums beating and stuck strictly to the script: America's greatness is diminished only by the liberal media elite, tax-and-spend Democrats and godless gun-hating lefties who want to kill fetuses.

Springer is the conservatives' enemy.

An unwed, crack-addicted, welfare mother proclaiming her lesbianism would be considered a tame guest on Springer's sleazy TV show.

And yet. Here he is weekday mornings on WTAM, home to Limbaugh, being touted as a "passionate progressive" and the "voice of the middle class."

WTAM is owned by Clear Channel Communications. Executives of the San Antonio-based entertainment giant, which owns more than 1,200 radio stations, repeatedly have financed various Republicans, especially George W. Bush. Now they're paying Springer to attack the war in Iraq, the Christian Right, Bush's Social Security reform and Republican "hypocrites." What gives?

"These are businessmen, and there must be money there," said Mike Mc Vay?, head of the Westlake-based Mc Vay? Media, the nation's largest radio consulting firm.

Mc Vay? said Springer should serve as an interesting lead-in to Limbaugh, as he evolves from "shock TV host to intellectual radio talk-show host."

Two things happened last year to make Springer viable for Clear Channel.

In March 2004, Air America Radio debuted. The New York-based liberal talk-humor network featuring Al Franken and Randi Rhodes billed itself as the "other side of the debate" to counteract the glut of conservative talkers. It started on 11 stations. It's now on 51.

A few weeks later, as an experiment, Clear Channel added Air America to KPOG, one of its smaller AM stations in Portland, Ore. KPOG shot from a bottom-dwelling 26th in the ratings to third. With a mix of liberal local hosts and Air America programs, Clear Channel has expanded the experiment to more than 20 markets.

Then last month, Clear Channel reported losses of $4.67 billion for 2004. It was actually a "write-down of asset values" from its radio stations. Fellow media behemoth Viacom also devalued its radio group, Infinity, by $10.9 billion. Ouch.

Fewer people are listening to the radio, so why not try something new? You would expect that to fly in Portland, or, say, Madison, Wis., but what about Cleveland? Certainly someone inside Clear Channel noticed that John Kerry scored well in Northeast Ohio in November (even Tim Hagan's anemic gubernatorial campaign in 2002 managed to carry Cuyahoga County).

Does that mean "progressive talk" will revolutionize the industry and be the salvation of sagging corporations? No. But it's a format that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^can be plugged in on underperforming AM stations to try to grab some new listeners. It's not a huge gamble.

And neither is Springer on WTAM.

He's on at a dead time for listeners and ratings, from 9:07 a.m. to 11:30. It's not like they're blowing up the whole station. Springer replaced conservative Glenn Beck, who moved to one of Clear Channel's smaller AM stations in Akron. Beckaholics were outraged. No less outraged than Dr. Laura disciples when she was bumped by Beck in 2001.

Despite the turnover, the three shows have one thing in common: their last half hours were and are pre-empted in Cleveland by the news and commentary of Paul Harvey, who's been on radio since at least Marconi.

Harvey's odd, punchy, typewriter-key, heartland homilies are not considered conservative, liberal or progressive. Just endless.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

coconnor@plaind.com, 216-999-4456

© 2005 The Plain Dealer © 2005 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.