Using satellites instead of telephone wires to broadcast shows nationally created more diverse programming on a local level. AM stations were losing listeners and, consequently, advertising dollars since the rise of FM. Therefore, nationally syndicated talk shows were a welcome addition to stations across the country. And since “many listeners dip into a mix of local and national hosts,”1 radio stations as well as listeners benefited from this diversity in programming.
In addition to satellite technology, the rise of car phones and, later, cell
phones contributed greatly to the rise of the talk show. Cell phones gained
10,000 subscribers a day between 1993 and 1995, which “fueled the popularity
of call-in talk radio and shifted the demographics of the audience,” as many
commuters and middle class Americans listened at work to call-in or hear the
thoughts of their peers.2 Listeners weren't just being talked at,
but were now a part of the discussion and participating in the nation's political
discourse like never before.
Personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus as well as National Public Radio
appealed to Americans who found the nightly news too sensationalistic. People
rallied around their messages and listeners once again “felt they could do something
- they were, in fact, optimistic about the possibilities for change.”3
This new found power could not have been achieved without re-envisioning radio's
potential as a means of one-way communication from station to individual listeners,
to one of moderating discussions between listeners across the entire country.
Americans who felt they had lost the arena for community discussion, found a
new one in the airwaves, thanks to mobile forms of communication.
Studies in 1993 estimated that 17 percent of Americans listened to these shows
on a regular basis, while 11 percent “had tried to call in to one of these shows.”4
In 1995, NPR was attracting around 11 million listeners, while Rush Limbaugh,
at the peak of his popularity, was pulling in 12 to 20 million listeners.56
In that same year, less people were reading the The New York Times than listening
to Limbaugh.7 TV ratings were also dropping, because people believed
that “network news has been so co-opted by corporate America that it [couldn't]
possibly tell the truth.”8 People wanted news, and they trusted the
radio more than other mediums.
Both NPR and hosts of popular talk radio programming filled a void that most
Americans felt had been ignored by other mediums. NPR and talk shows created
“new forms of dialogue through which people could build imagined communities
on the air.”9 Talk shows and NPR were “about using the airwaves to
reinvigorate democracy,” even if they spoke to different political crowds.10
Radio's transformation could hardly have been achieved so successfully without
the help of cell phones.
1 Susan J. Douglas, Listening In (New York: Times, 1999) 313.
2Douglas 287.
3Douglas 311.
4Douglas 309.
5Douglas 319.
6Douglas 314.
7Douglas 323.
8Douglas 312-13.
9Douglas 285.
10Douglas 327.