Another Roots Initiative
Published by Mike Stark March 30th, 2006 in UncategorizedThis is pretty much cross posted from my diary over at DailyKos… but I know a lot of CAW fans are likely to help out in talk radio efforts, so I’m posting here as well…
The Washington Post has been poking sticks in our collective eye for way too long. Their hiring of Ben Domenech, coming right on the heels of the Deborah Howell/Jack Abramoff fiasco, was salt on our wounds.
Think about it for a second. That hire, that blog… well, at conservative establishment media institutions like the WP - that shit just doesn’t get done overnight - especially at a time when they are laying off real journalists… I’m betting they starting planning this while licking their wounds from our last dust-up.
We can’t roll over on this. It’s time for some push-back.
As many of you know, I’ve kind of fallen into being a talk radio “specialist”. Recently, in addition to making my own calls, I’ve recruited others to join in “call-ins” to Bill O’Reilly’s show. Our efforts resulted in a huge embarrassment for Bill. We provided fodder for Olbermann’s show and even Howard Stern ridiculed O’Reilly for his hubris and arrogance. Not to imply causation, but O’Reilly’s ratings are tanking while he watches Olbermann make serious gains. Today, MoveOn.org added their substantial weight to the effort.
Anyway folks, this situation with the Washington Post cries out for talk radio action. Consider the O’Reilly affair “proof of concept”. A committed troupe of talk radio callers can make a huge difference in shaping public opinion. Public opinion, in turn, can influence events.
Here’s the plan.
Because…
We need to start asking some hard questions.
Why in the world would the Post hire a person that called Coretta Scott King a “communist”… on the day of her funeral?
Why would they hire a guy who counts Jefferson Davis amongst his heros?
Has the Post totally lost any sense of responsibility towards their readers? It can’t possibly think their readers would embrace Ben Domenech as one of their own? So why hire him?
If these questions come to dominate the DC talk shows, the Post will have to answer. Until now, they’ve done a great job of ignoring us. Talk radio is one of the only venues of truly egalitarian media. Anyone can call, anyone can be heard.
It’s our time.
Update [2006-3-30 19:7:50 by Mike Stark]: I wasn’t clear. This IS NOT another wingnut operation. The point of this is decidedly NOT to call into right wing talk radio shows. Instead, we want to blanket the DC airwaves with discussion of this topic. We want our voices to set the agenda. We, after all, are “the people”.
To that end, we want to work with the stations and hosts that will work with us. This is not to say that we don’t want information regarding right wing talk in DC (that is also important), rather, this action is focused differently than the O’Reilly action was. We’re the Roots. We’re nimble like that… most nimble roots you’ve ever seen.
Update [2006-3-30 20:22:20 by Mike Stark]: firedoglake and Crooks & Liars are both part of this effort. (truth is that Jane Hamsher at fdl put all of this together… the rest of us are proud as hell to be her acolytes)
Taylor Marsh (the next firedoglake/glenngreenwald/name your favorite new blogger) and Steve Gilliard are key players too.
25 Responses to “Another Roots Initiative”
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Not to crap your post, but O’Reilly’s ratings are “tanking”? That’s a bit of stretch, man. He’s got the number one cable news show by far, and beats Keith more than 2-1 in the “demo” (25-54). In total numbers, it’s more like 5-1. See cablenewser.com for complete daily ratings results. Is Keith gaining? Sure, but his percentage gains look so much higher given that his starting point was so low.
I came to your site after I heard the fox security call thing. I’ve listened off and on to O’Reilly’s radio show since then, and I never hear anyone from here get on at all. Either they got smart, or everyone lost interest? Either way, looks like a bust there. You barely mention his show anymore. I guess you’re not getting through, either? Anyway, be careful with the ratings. I work in the ad world, and I see stations try to hype up their numbers all the time. But the real numbers don’t lie. For now, O’Reilly is still the cable king. I don’t see any real indications that’s changing. It’s more of a fight for second and third place.
Thank you Bittz for your comments.
Again, Bittz points out the biggest but certainly not only flaw with Mike, his points, and his entire operation. Mike does not operate with facts. He bases his thinking and points on half truths, false truths, his own bias, emotions, and believing what he wants to believe. What are my sources for this? My many posts under each of his call sections where I point out obviously flaws in Mike’s points and I simply point out the lack of citation in his points, posts, and calls. Bittz is yet another person to step forward and show Mike his point was simply incorrect. Oreilly is #1 in ratings, that is a fact Mike. If you plan on going to law school, you better become familiar with this concept or it will be a very short stay there indeed.
*sigh* Can’t we all get along? Guys. This is Mike’s site and Mike has the freedom to do what he wants. This is Mike’s site, his blog, and he has the complete freedom to call radio stations all he wants since there is no crime to it. Don’t like what you read or write here, then leave. Doesn’t anyone believe in the 1st amendment anymore? If Mike wants to view opinions and see things his own way, just let him. This ain’t your site, it’s his. He can discuss what he wants. Fuck off if you don’t like Mike.
If Mike makes an assertion that is incorrect or makes a statement that he claims is fact that is false, that should be noted and he should be called on to retract false statements.
It would seem that Mike believes it is worth it to call all these talk radio shows because he think their percieved lying needs to be called out, well I believe Mike’s endless incorrect and inaccurate statements need to be called out as well.
Hi Chuckie. You are here as a guest of Mike. It’s his server, you tiny little numb-nuts, his bandwidth, his software, and his domain.
What part of “guest” don’t you understand?
What investment have you made in this blog, except to abuse his investment?
I like it when he edits you, and when you get your panties all wadded up because of it. It’s funny because he owns your posts, and you are so clueless, so wrapped up in your own pompous self-importance that you don’t even know it.
Mike can say whatever he wants on the airwaves. Know why? If you don’t, I’ll let you put your attorney cap on, and go out and seek the answer. As I recall, you’re really into “facts”.
Bye for now, darling.
So you just sit there all day full of hate and rage Bob?
Your attitude and writing doesn’t impress anyone. It just makes you look small, childish, and immature.
The hypocrisy I see here is, you guys accuse Mike of not giving any valid insight or source, yet you guys aren’t doing the same thing. Where is the source is that O’ Reilly’s show is #1?
Mike is correct that the O’Reilly Factor ratings is going down. Bill O’ Reilly has been acting like a douchebag on his own show lately.
Mike is reffering to O’Reilly’s radio show, not his TV show dumbass. O’Reilly’s radio show is going down. While O’Reilly’s TV show is still going strong, it’s just that his radio show is going down. Pay a fuckin’ attention, you douchebag.
Kevbrock
This is what Maria was talking about, and I responded to Maria’s post
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/q1_06_msnbcs_keith_olbermann_beats_cnns_paula_zahn_in_the_demo_34504.asp
Maria
Your statements are misleading. As the article clearly states:
1. “Bill O’Reilly averaged 450,000 IN THE DEMO (down 24 percent).”
2.”Zahn and O’Reilly still had a SIGNIFIGANT ADVANTAGE in the category of TOTAL VIEWERS, though.”
Maria was talking about the O’reilly tv show and I responded to her comments.
If you payed attention before, Mike wasn’t talking about the O’Reilly TV show, he was talking the radio show, big difference.
KevBrock, just to be clear on this, what radio ratings are you and/or Mike citing to base your claims on? It would take a lot of calculation to determine who’s “going down” in radio, due to the fact that shows like O’Reilly’s are on hundreds of affiliates.
I can honestly say that with every “book” (radio parlance for a ratings period), you will find various shows going up in some markets and down in others. It’s whether one can determine a real trend that’s important.
I’ve never seen/heard Mike try to assert that O’Reilly’s radio ratings were going down. He would need access to proprietary and confidential ratings info that’s not easily obtained for many, many markets. radioandrecords.com posts market ratings, but they don’t break it down by all the demos. It’s usually 12 , and it’s not always by time-of-day.
How would that apply to Olbermann? He doesn’t have a radio show. So, it’s pretty clear the O’Reilly/Olbermann ratings statements were in reference to the TV side.
Again, if you want a running tally of how cable TV ratings are going daily, go here:
http://mediabistro.com/tvnewser/
Look for headings called “Scorecard”. You will see a tallies for each day. The latest (as of this posting) are for Wednesday, March 28. Here’s the O’Reilly vs. Olbermann totals for both total viewers and the important 25-54 viewers (advertisers like 25-54):
Total viewers at 8pm:
O’Reilly: 2,327,000
Olbermann: 488,000
Keith does much better, proportionally, in the 25-54 demo:
O’Reilly: 568,000
Olbermann: 229,000
Still, however, there’s no real “battle” here, at least not yet. It would take a shift of 170,000 viewers to leave O’Reilly (in 25-54) and go to Olbermann to even them out.
Bittz
You shouldn’t waste so much time and effort on your posts. Most, but not all, of these people are not interested in facts or making assertions based on sources or evidence. They prefer to make these type of claims:
“By the way, those camps they are building are not for “terrorists”, they are for us, THE DISSENTERS.” (lickspittle).
And then cite no sources, no news articles, nothing.
Why Mike and the others operate in this world of no facts, sources, evidence and false truths, I do not know. I can only guess. Perhaps it just makes them “feel better” to type such things like lickspittle’s comment or Mike’s comment that “20 million people get their news solely from talk radio.” Regardless, the best moment in Mike’s, career, if you will was on Hewitt when Mike made a point and Hewitt asked him what he based his point on and all Mike could say was (paraphrasing) “I can’t give you a source for that right now. I think I saw it on the news somewhere, sometime maybe.”
Keep up the good work though Bittz.
Chuck
If I remember right you plagiarized somebody else’s interpretation of Florida Law and passed it off as being actual Florida Statute. Your citation was totally inaccurate and you gave no credit to the original author.
If that’s the standard you want to hold people to then I guess that’s your business. I may be in the minority but I feel plagiarism is wrong but obviously many on the right don’t see it that way.
Yeah, Mike, you should be careful of exaggeration, especially since it’s unnecessary in regard to every right wing lie, distortion and slander.
But Chuck, you’re hardly one to be virtuous with facts. You have lied and distorted throughout this site. You’re facts are as real as Saddam’s WMD and his link to 9/11.
And you’re posted “evidence” to support your lies do nothing to prove your points. Don’t post a link unless you’re prepared for someone to click on it. For example, I told you that we’re underfunding the Nunn Lugar program (securing old Russion nukes) and you responded by saying (paraphrasing on my part) “nuh-uh…” and then posted a link. The link simply mentioned and described the Nunn Lugar program. How did this support your point or negate mine? (see “Prager” post).
Yes, Mike exaggerated in his description of O’Reilly’s declining ratings. A 20% YoY drop for his TV show is indeed sharp, but he’s still way ahead of Olbermann. But Chuck, why don’t you just say he exaggerated O’Reilly’s decline, rather than say “he’s got no facts…” ?
Chuck, you’re bankrupt of facts.
O’Reilly is still the leader in cable TV, nobody can dispute it even though his ratings aren’t what they once were. Eventually this will change- every day O’Reilly loses viewers to the cemetary. A large portion of his audience is made up of old folks who seem to believe that dead sluts in Aruba are as newsworthy as our President’s screw-ups.
I undertsand O’reily’s radio show was pulled from Denver - his TV show viewers dropped 21% in feb.
I am having a hard time seeing the pride displayed here for O’Realy’s ratings.
O’Reilly could have every sob in the country watching and listening to him and that means what?
That intentionally deceiving people works?
Well, yes I know it does, that is proven by the child king daily, but should we be all giddy about it? Rush is a lying propagandist, and what does that prove? Again the more you lie - if you do it with some panache - our muddled brained population will follow.
Our nation is run by a cult. Half the country would eat a dog turd if Bush told them to….
a quick question on the TV ratings…
Do we know how many households FOX is in compared to MSNBC? I would think this would be a significant stat to use in order to compare apples to apples. I am under the impression that FOX is on many more cable systems than MSNBC. I would like to know if this is true. If it is, than raw numbers don’t do squat. It’s kinda like comparing box office numbers. If you get a movie that opens on tens of thousand of screens (probably an exaggeration), it’s gonna post big numbers, but mayby not as big per-screen numbers as one that opens on 500 screens. To me that would be the money stat.
Frank,
I went back and found the Lugar post where you had your argument with chuck 2. You mentioned several stories that showed the Bush administration proposed about 10% less spending on the Nunn-Lugar program than the previous year.
“Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) – The Administration is requesting $372.1 million for the CTR (also known as “Nunn-Lugar”) program, 10.4 percent below the current level of $415.5 million. Further, the request recommends a reduction (or rescission) of $4.5 million in current funding. The CTR program assists Russia and the former Soviet republics safeguard weapons of mass destruction and related technologies.”
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002239.php
However, I also found that in previous years the administration asked for increases in funding for the program.
“Following a week of increasing pressure to revamp key strategies in US Cooperative Threat Reduction efforts, the White House has submitted to Congress a request for $50m in additional funding over the next two years to secure weapons of mass destruction located outside the countries of the former Soviet Union.” (3-28-2003).
Also, Frank quoted a story that said funding went down in fiscal 2005 as well. Well I read more and it seems a possible explanation is that certain tasks were completed, hence less funding is required.
“On the other hand, the overall budget for securing Russia’s nuclear materials would decline from current levels of $259 million to $238 million under the president’s fiscal 2005 request. The decline stems largely from the completion of security upgrades at Russian Navy warhead storage and nuclear waste sites. There would be increases for two key programs”
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_03/NunnLugarFunding.asp
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke-weapons/nonproliferation/29197.html
Chuck2 - you’re an Republican operative assigned to infiltrate Mike’s left wing group and muddy the waters of debate.
Tell me where I’m wrong. I’ll give you the last word.
Chuck2 never addresses the serious questions Mike asks like: how in the world could the Post hire a person that called Coretta Scott King a “communist” on the day of her funeral?
You hijack the debate, or muddy the waters, by feigning outrage over O’Reily’s Nielson ratings. Mike points to declining numbers for O’Reily and makes a larger point about the pendulum swinging left and how we can all be a part of that. There’s nothing untrue or outrageous about that.
So O’Reily has about 2.5 million viewers and only 0.5 million are under 54. Well John Stewart of The Daily Show pulls in 1.5 million a night and most are in the 25-54 demographic so that’s where I feel the pendulum is swinging.
Now O’Reily would say that The Daily Show is a comedy but he and the entire Fox News network are a joke.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603190431mar19,1,6181031.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Show_with_Jon_Stewart
Chuck2 is trying to do to Mike what we are trying to do to the talk show hosts that spout hatred of America with every falsehood.
We are afraid of the propaganda coming over the airwaves. We want to stop it.
Chuck2 is afraid Mike and his efforts will stop the right-wing monopoly. He is trying to stop it.
Chuck2 is not honest enough to admit this, so he is pretending to debate when he is really just trying to disrupt.
Mike Stark is not doing what the right-wingers do, or he would have already cut Chuck2’s mike.
Bittz, the expert on ratings posted the following:
“Here’s the O’Reilly vs. Olbermann totals for both total viewers and the important 25-54 viewers (advertisers like 25-54):
Total viewers at 8pm:
O’Reilly: 2,327,000
Olbermann: 488,000
Keith does much better, proportionally, in the 25-54 demo:
O’Reilly: 568,000
Olbermann: 229,000
Still, however, there’s no real “battle” here, at least not yet. It would take a shift of 170,000 viewers to leave O’Reilly (in 25-54) and go to Olbermann to even them out.”
What Bittz fails to point out is that over the past eight months Olberman’s ratings have been soaring and O’Reilly’s are sinking. According to Nielsen’s Competitive Program Ranker, Olbermann’s ratings have gone up 37% since July, 2005 from 119,000 to 163,000 viewers 25-54. O’Reilly, while still number one has lost 16% of his 25-54 viewers decreasing from 540,000 to 454,000. One can only suspect that O’Reilly’s radio audience is also going south.”
In addition let’s remember that TV ratings are based on total viewers at any given time. Since Fox Shows generate a lot of geriatric white men who just turn on the channel and keep watching it all day, this results in an over-reporting of viewers. That’s why CNN still claims to be the number one network in terms of “unique” viewers.
Well, if you think “soaring” is the appropriate word for Keith’s ratings, hey, that’s you. Again, percentage increases/decreases need to be taken in context. If you start out with a very small number, any gains will seem larger. A show with 1,000 viewers in one ratings period and 2,000 in the next can claim a 100 percent increase. Sounds impressive, until you look at the real numbers.
Keith’s show is gaining in viewers, and we’ll see what the future holds. Too bad the network as a whole suffers from poor viewership. MSNBC has never had a real “identity” as such.
By the way, your “expert on ratings” comment was gratuitous. That’s lame. All I’m trying to do is impart truthful information in a highly partisan arena. I guess that’s a tough nut to crack.
O’Reilly does need to think about how to attract younger viewers as his base gets older. Again, we’ll just have to follow the trends.
As for your comment about suspecting his radio audience is going south, it’s apples and oranges. Limbaugh is the king of talk radio, but he never could successfully crossover to TV. O’Reilly’s managed to do that in radio, but he’s nowhere near as popular as Limbaugh or even Hannity. He doesn’t throw enough true red meat to the conservatives as those guys, and pisses them off with his takes on the environment and other issues that Limbaugh and Hannity would always take the GOP side on. So, most listeners are going to go where they see true GOP loyalty.
“So you just sit there all day full of hate and rage Bob? Your attitude and writing doesn’t impress anyone. It just makes you look small, childish, and immature.”
Angry Puss, I called you “darling”! THAT is a term of affection, not rage and hate. You are twisting my words!
First-time readers are gonna get the wrong impression. You are acting like Karl Rove, turning goodness into badness (by the way, is he really…oh, nevermind)?
Just because I want to peel you like an onion, to reveal how stinky-to-the-core you really are, you get all disrespectful of me.
I think it’s time for you to take some anger-control classes.
I think Chuck has succeeded in his quest. We’re being distracted from the intent of the post. We’re feeding the trolls. Let’s get back to work. Mike asked us to:
I don’t know anyone in Washington DC, or radio personalities. Does anyone here know someone that can give us this information?
i got jay severin. He is the libertarian who likes government to kill Iraqis and do 911 calls.