The big media people as well as the radio listeners in San Francisco got a wake up call this week.
In the most liberal city in America on the most liberal radio station in that city, a new voice was heard on Green 960 where Stephanie Miller normally gave her liberal rant. Glen Beck took Stephanie’s spot.
The green label is gone. This station is owned by Clear Channel, which is owned by Bain Capital. It’s now going fair and balanced, following the Fox format.
Is Bain Capital pandering to Romney in the election year? Will all Clear Channel programming be switching over from liberal to balanced?
The conclusion reached by Gingrich, Perry, Paul, and Obama would be, yes, Romney is pulling strings at Bain to get more conservative viewpoints on radio stations owned by Bain. That’s how politicians think. That’s how politicians act. That’s now politicians earn their money, by making speeches, lobbying , by having someone write a book for them, and by prostituting their influence any way possible for a buck. They get stinking rich while in office, while out of office, and while you work for a living. Maybe this group will use the San Francisco radio station to attack Romney and capitalism. After all, Romney didn’t make his millions selling books or selling anythings he could sell with a political label. Gingrich would go on late night TV and sell Veg-A-Matics if he could make a buck. No, Romeny was a businessman.
He was part of a company that did due diligence to determine whether a floundering business had better potential with better management and strategies. Then he had to lay down investor money on those decisions. If he failed investor money dried up. If he succeeded, more investor money came in and more deals could be done. In his tenure investors were well rewarded. More good decisions than bad were made. Bain returned 50-80% to those investors, depending on the time frame you pick.
What does this have to do with a radio station in San Francisco owned by Bain? Everything to do with it. You see Bain is still focused on giving investors a return on investment. The radio station is not making money. Too many radio stations competing for the same big liberal market. While San Francisco may be 70% liberal, no radio station is appealing to the poor neglected 30%. They all want 100% of the 70%.
Bain, like Fox News, has decided the 30% is there for the taking. That 30% is so damned tired of not having the choice to listen to other than liberal drivel, they just don’t listen.
Bain, unlike the rest of the owners of media in this country is not in it for a hobby. A toy to use to give their chosen ideology to the world. Bain is in it to make money. To do that today you need to change your format. With most media dedicated to the liberal perspective, and liberals only 20% of the national market, that’s a lot of noise going after a small market.
Maybe others in the business will follow the direction pointed out by Fox and Bain and we will get more choices. After all, they’re all losing money. Except, Fox.
