BNM Writers
Thom Hartmann Still Enjoys Engaging In The Scrum
“Progressive radio has deep roots. It has been around a long time, but nobody had really done it nationally like [Rush] Limbaugh had.”
Published
2 years agoon
Thom Hartmann is one of the most recognized voices of progressive talk in the country and probably one of the most intelligent. His weekly show is syndicated by Pacifica and is heard on SiriusXM and terrestrial radio, including KPFK in Los Angeles, the largest FM in the U.S.
His noon-3 p.m. eastern eponymous program features Hartmann’s look at the news of the day from a progressive perspective.
The show was quick to adapt to the pandemic in 2020, having a live set-up for remotes, but Hartmann brought it into his home and upgraded to commercial-grade Internet.
Hartmann returned to the studio after a year, but adds “we’re being very careful.”
Even though his talk show started in 2003, it’s safe to say Hartmann is a radio lifer. He’s been on the air dating back to the late 1960s.
The seed was planted as a child.
“When I was 8 or 9 years old, I got really into electronics,” Hartmann told BNM.
It quickly became more than a hobby for the budding broadcaster, who got a 100-milliwatt transmitter kit. He hooked it up to a turntable in his parent’s living room.
“[I] created a radio station for the five houses nearby where three of my friends lived,” Hartmann said.
By the time he was 13, Hartmann had his ham radio license. Still a teenager, Hartmann’s first radio gig was as a weekend country music disc jockey at WITL in his hometown of Lansing, Michigan. He was just 16 years old, the same age he started college.
Hartmann also took to radio at Michigan State University.
There were a handful of stations in Lansing for Hartmann to “spin the hits.” Eventually, he returned to WITL, evolving to newscasting for the next seven years.
However, in 1978, he left the state and radio to concentrate on a co-owned small business.
“I’ve been a serial entrepreneur,” he said.
Other fields would follow, including founding an advertising firm and launching a travel agency.
Progressive Talk
Hartmann would find his legendary voice with an op-ed piece in 2003 indicating progressive talk radio was a viable business mode.
“That became the first business plan for Air America radio,” he said. “There were still a lot of skeptics out there and I wanted a proof of concept.”
Living in Vermont at the time, Hartmann got a radio station in Burlington to let him do a couple of hours on Saturdays to test his theory.
“America is 50-50, Democratic, Republican, and talk radio is not an intrinsically or inherently political medium,” he said. “It’s just a tool. It’s neutral.”
Within six months his show was picked up by a national network—now defunct I.E. America Radio—owned by the United Auto Workers in Detroit. More than two dozen stations formed the initial group of affiliates for Hartmann’s broadcast, and Sirius, where he remains to this day.
During his time away from radio, Hartmann started a community for abused children in New Hampshire. His wife Louise spearheaded the project that was “designed to blow up the big institutional model of how children were too badly damaged to foster care,” whose only options were “children’s jails or state mental hospitals,” he said.
That led to a 1978 school for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Hartmann wrote books about psychology, including best sellers on ADHD.
He got himself officially on the roster of psychotherapists in the state of Vermont.
“It was more like a professional credential than a way of making a living,” Hartmann recalled.
Although he supervised the clinical staff, Hartmann said he never practiced as a therapist.
The program lasted into the 21st century.
That love of electronics helped cut corners for Hartmann, who could assemble a studio in his living room for his show in Vermont.
When Air America began, the largest affiliate (KPOJ), located in Portland, Oregon, asked if he’d do the national show there and a local morning show specifically for them.
His youngest daughter had already moved to Oregon, so, Thom and Louise moved and were joined by all of their children. Hartmann still broadcasts from Portland.
While liberal radio is not the prevailing popular choice among the masses, some on the left side have broken through. Alan Berg was one Denver host, heard on KOA and across 29 stations. He was murdered in 1984 by a neo-Nazi, the basis for the film Talk Radio.
Michael Jackson, who died earlier this month, also found success with his liberal views.
“Progressive radio has deep roots,” Hartmann said. “It has been around a long time, but nobody had really done it nationally like [Rush] Limbaugh had.”
Time for TV
Although Hartmann would be part of the Air America lineup, “I never chose to be an employee. I always owned my own show.”
Hartmann hosted a daily, one-hour program, The Big Picture. He took it to Washington for the RT news network when Barack Obama went to the White House. The international broadcaster also hired Larry King and Ed Schultz to build a quality television network.
But when Donald Trump got elected, RT, formerly known as Russia Today, took an active role in supporting the new president.
“The summer of 2017 I exercised a 90-day early termination clause in my contract and went back home to Portland,” Hartmann said. “It was a great experience and I learned a lot about doing TV from it.”
His radio show does continue to simulcast on TV through Free Speech TV on Dish Network, DirectTV and numerous cable systems.
“Probably between one third and one half of my calls are coming from Free Speech TV and YouTube,” Hartmann said.
His show is not currently heard in New York City, although he was on WBAI in the past.
But with internal strife at WBAI, Hartmann said the station has “devolved into a disaster scenario.”
Conservative Nation
Despite being a leading progressive talker, the country’s airwaves are predominantly filled with right-wing narratives.
Hartmann pointed to President Bill Clinton signing the Telecommunications Act in 1996, lifting the cap of stations by an owner.
Clear Channel and Cumulus grew exponentially following the government’s ruling.
“Ownership of these stations was pretty overtly conservative,” Hartmann said.
Beyond that, the longtime progressive host has seen it firsthand: “Radio, as a whole, is a very conservative industry.”
He said that does not refer to politics, but the cautious nature within the business.
“No program director ever got fired for putting Rush Limbaugh on the air,” Hartmann said. “When something’s a winner, everybody wants to jump on it. But nobody wants to take chances, and nobody wants to be the outlier.”
Radio faces a challenge from online platforms and podcasting becomes a more accessible option for listeners to find their content.
But Hartmann isn’t worried about the future of his beloved business.
“Most radio is consumed in people’s cars,” he said. “Radio is still alive, well and strong in rural parts of America, and in cities where you have long commutes.”
However, in the smaller towns where people aren’t staying in vehicles for long stretches, “radio’s dying,” he said.
Not only does Hartmann welcome listeners and guests from the other side of the aisle, he
encourages it, but admitted it is getting harder to find conservatives to engage in debate.
“It’s damn near impossible,” he said.
As for right-wing-slanted callers, Hartmann doesn’t shy away from them either.
“If a conservative caller calls into the show, someone wants to disagree with me about something, they go to the front of the line,” he said.
As a ratings ploy, Hartmann said those interactions are the drama listeners enjoy.
“But people aren’t really fully informed about an issue until they’ve heard a couple of different sides of it,” Hartmann said.
Prior to the pandemic, Hartmann would make it a point to listen to his conservative brethren.
“I loved to listen to Michael Savage and Mark Levin. I listened to Limbaugh for years,” he said. “I’m a big fan of talk radio. I also learn from it. Not just politics; a lot of my radio technique I learned from listening to Limbaugh and Michael Savage, in particular, who, in terms of politics, he’s nuts, but in terms of radio he’s a genius.”
Thom Hartmann Program
Hartmann has used their template for creating his host-driven show, building a relationship with the listeners by sharing his opinions each day.
He typically highlights the top handful of topics and a 10–15-minute rant with as much information and his views will follow. Hartmann will then take as many calls as necessary on the given topic, usually resetting at the top or bottom of the hour.
“We keep the whole thing fairly tightly focused,” Hartmann said. “My show’s only as good as the host.”
Hartmann said liberal hosts need to move away from just doing interview radio, because host-driven is “the most popular medium,” and doing it effectively means “willing to be absolutely honest with your audience and yourself.”
It was Hartmann’s first mentor, Chuck Mefford, former owner at WITL, who told his protégé, “In radio, when you open that microphone there’s only one person on the other side.”
But on the same side, listeners will find Randy Rhodes and Stephanie Miller are among the other progressive stars. Still, Hartmann knows his competition comes from conservative talkers.
“Frankly, I think most people, if they listen to good talk radio, can really get into it,” Hartmann said. “It’s just there’s not that much good talk radio out there anymore. Now a lot of it is just screaming and yelling.”
Hartmann’s midday slot is also home to Buck Sexton and Clay Travis for Premiere Networks, and Dan Bongino on Westwood One.
“I used to debate [Bongino] almost every week when I was in D.C. But not anymore,” Hartmann laughed. “He’s a big deal now.”
He doesn’t think the loss of Limbaugh will make a difference in his audience. Instead, he’s certain the Trump presidency had a better impact. Show hosts historically perform better when an opposing party is in office, acting as the de facto foe.
Hartmann, though, has no problem criticizing a Democrat, including the 46th president.
“I will criticize Joe Biden when I think he’s doing something wrong or stupid,” he said.
Like Biden, Hartmann is a septuagenarian, but has no plans of retiring.
“I enjoy what I’m doing. I’m not that old yet. My brain still works really well,” he said. “I think engaging in the scrum on a daily basis is one of the things that keeps it working.”
Jerry Barmash has been a fixture in New York radio for decades with anchor stints on WABC Radio and Bloomberg News. Jerry was also heard on WINS, WCBS and Wall Street Journal Radio. As a media writer, Jerry’s pieces were featured in Broadcasting & Cable, NY Daily News and Watercooler HQ. Jerry also hosts the interview podcast Here Now the News. He’s on Twitter @JerryBarmash and can be reached at [email protected].
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BNM Writers
A Message to News/Talk Radio Professionals: Go to the Sales Meeting
Having open lines of communication with sales can only help.
Published
16 hours agoon
April 17, 2024It isn’t often that you can make a news/talk radio analogy by using a popular movie, but here we go. In the Judd Apatow classic, Knocked Up, Katherine Heigl’s character goes into labor, and Jay Baruchel’s character walks in to see how things are going. Well, the scene is absolutely chaotic, and after blood-curdling screams from Heigl for him to get out, he scrambles out of the room.
Rattled, Baruchel’s character returns to the waiting room, saying, “I shouldn’t have gone in there. Don’t go in there.
“Promise me you won’t go in there.”
Kinda like your experience going to a sales meeting?
Funny, right?
In media, it’s always seemed to be a cliché thing: On-air talent doesn’t quite get sales, and sales doesn’t quite get the on-air side.
On-air folks, almost to a person, can never understand why everything isn’t sold all the time.
“This is such a good segment, it should be so easy to sponsor.”
“Sports, everybody sponsors sports.”
“We should get (Insert local business) to sponsor us. They’re a perfect fit. I don’t get it.”
Guilty as charged on at least two of those exact statements.
After breaking down the wall this week and going to a sales meeting, I am here to urge everyone in production or on the air — go to a meeting.
It will do a few things. First, it will confirm that you belong right where you are. It also will confirm that the sales job is far from an easy job.
The reason for my visit was to update the crew on what we were up to, and then, the head of the station group presented us with a refresh of all the sales material.
I recommend you give it a try.
In all seriousness, having open lines of communication with sales can only help. Back when I was an actual journalist, I would refuse this kind of contact, as if it would somehow jeopardize my integrity.
Now?
Well, clearly, that’s been out the door for quite some time. Oh yeah, be serious. It’s obvious that in order to what I call “survive with the chance to thrive”, we need to work together.
They succeed, we stay on the air doing the most fun job we’ve ever had.
A few things will humble you from the experience, while the language of discourse will absolutely confound you.
Here’s how, starting with humble.
I am notorious for taking certain things personally. You can rip me, rip the show, even make fun of my hair! No problem. But if you don’t call me back? After a second call? That’s personal.
I may write you off forever.
It’s a blind spot, I know … but it’s pretty true. I’ve grown to the point where I can overcome it, especially if the person eventually calls me back, yet it really irks me to the core when people can’t return a call.
In the sales meeting, I expressed some frustration over not being able to contact a potential guest, and one sales rep came back with (paraphrase): “It can take 17 calls to make a connection.”
17? 17!
If you doubt it, all I will say is that the collective response to that statement felt like “Praise Be!”
I could never eat that kind of humble pie.
Then, there was the language, oh, the language. Not F-Bombs but acronyms. For everything.
NTR. CNA. KPI. DOMO. IQP. DJT. Ok, DJT is Donald J. Trump, but the rest are real, I promise.
I was the only person there who had no idea what was being said. It was dizzying.
After all the lingo and humble pie that needed to be eaten to sell stuff, I realized how positive the whole thing was for both sides.
I got the chance to talk to the crew beyond the flippant “Hello” while walking past their offices. I also learned how they felt about the show. About the station. About me.
That was both validating, sobering, and ultimately energizing.
Yes, it lasted almost three times the length of my one required regular weekly meeting. Yes, there were times that I thought I was in a foreign land. And yes, there were moments when my only glimmer of hope was the sunshine coming through the window.
But I have to tell you, I will definitely do it again because it was worth it … just perhaps not every week worth it.
Brian Shactman is a weekly columnist for Barrett News Radio. In addition to writing for BNM, Brian can be heard weekday mornings in Hartford, CT on 1080 WTIC hosting the popular morning program ‘Brian & Company’. During his career, Brian has worked for ESPN, CNBC, MSNBC, and local TV channels in Connecticut and Massachusetts. You can find him on Twitter @bshactman.
BNM Writers
AI is Coming for More Than Just Your Jobs, And the Media Landscape is Changing for the Worse
More important than the loss of more jobs to AI in our industry, we need to take a closer look at the technology’s effect on the media.
Published
16 hours agoon
April 17, 2024While the world is entranced in President Trump’s jury selection in New York, Artificial Intelligence is stealing your look. AI is stealing your voice and most distressing, AI is becoming more human. It has advanced faster than any other technology known to man.
At the NAB Show, Futuri’s ‘groundbreaking’ AI was applauded. They showed how an AI robot was able to conduct two studies on the media industry. Meaning this AI robot has replaced the job of those in research and development. More important than the loss of more jobs to AI in our industry, we need to take a closer look at the technology’s effect on the media, especially the human toll of AI Beauty Pageants and Deep Fake Pornography.
Announced this week, the first Miss AI Beauty Pageant is coming to a computer near you with $20,000 up for grabs. Now I know what you are thinking: “Krystina, this has nothing to do with media.” Oh, but friends, it does.
Miss Universe and Miss USA combined are industries worth several billion dollars. From paid commercials to designer dresses, hair, and makeup, it is a cash cow. Now, Maybelline can cut out paying advertisers and models by going straight to the programmers. Maybe she’s programmed with it. Maybe its Maybelline? It would cut costs significantly.
Additionally, since the Miss AI beauty pageant also judges its contestant on how many followers she has (can we call a robot she?), you have a significantly cheaper influencer because you don’t have to send the product to her (because again she’s AI).
Revenue from the health, wellness, and beauty industries could now be transitioned to big tech. Yeah, sure, a 12-year-old programmer living out of their mother’s basement might make enough to pay for one semester of college this way, but is that really the route we want to go here? Not to mention this will give people a significantly distorted sense of reality and beauty.
This brings us to AI porn, which has affected Taylor Swift, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and 30 female teens at a New Jersey high school. Let me repeat that for those who missed the story this past fall, a high school boy took the photos of 30 classmates and turned them into porn. These girls are 14. Not only will they likely spend the rest of their lives taking down the AI porn made of them, but to quote AOC, “It has real, real effects not just on the people that are victimized by it, but on the people who see it and consume it. And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.”
I’m not a fan of AOC, but she has a point. The comments made by conservatives about AI porn made using her image are nasty (and senseless). This should be a bipartisan issue. AOC is also not the only well-known person this has happened to. Twitter had to block #TaylorSwift because of AI-generated porn photos. While this prompted the United States Congress to draft a civil law that would allow victims to sue the makers of these AI images, it falls just short of criminalizing the behavior.
Yes, Rep. Neil Hays (R-OK) proposed legislation last year that would criminalize the creation of deep fakes but it has stalled in the halls of Congress.
As for those nasty comments made by conservatives about AOC, they don’t realize this could happen to them. It could happen to their spouses and children. It’s not just celebrities. Those photos you’ve posted of your children from the time they were born, can now be accessed by the pedophiles of the world and turned into porn. A report, published yesterday by Forbes, shows there is already an increase of AI-made child sex abuse images across the web. Are you concerned yet? You should be.
The European Union and the United Kingdom are working on legislation to make it a criminal act. While the proposals are designed to aid those affected by AI porn, they lack targeting AI which is made to subvert or skew political messaging. It’s not just the videos you watch it’s also the articles you read.
While AI videos still have a long way to go before they are truly believable, we’ve extensively reported on media outlets replacing their writers with AI. A December 2023 study by Science Direct found people were able to positively identify AI writing samples only 38.9% of the time. There are now recruiters on Linkedin asking writers (like myself) to teach AI how to write. Sounds interesting until you realize AI would replace my career as a writer.
While Black Rock’s Larry Fink believes AI will “boost wages and productivity,” he needs to recognize there is already an abundance of jobs in sectors outside of finance that are being eliminated by AI. Business Insider, CNET, and CNBC have used ChatGPT to write stories. BuzzFeed is using ChatGPT to personalize content, a job once held by a person. Law offices are now using services to Casetext to research case law or Lawgeex to read contracts. Another job once held by a legal assistant, or law school intern.
These are all entry-level jobs that are being eliminated. How are people going to gain experience if AI is replacing the entry-level? So, while I congratulate Futuri on their AI research robot, can we put the brakes on the in-your-face AI capabilities and just keep it in the background? We are clearly not prepared, nor do we understand, the full scope of damage this technology can and is doing. (Does anyone remember Terminator, Robocop, Blade Runner, or Ex Machina? This does not end well for us.)
This is a very serious bipartisan issue that is being swept under the rug. So, while everyone is worried about what media outlets each one of Trump’s jurors watches, you should be more concerned with how the media is reporting (or lack thereof) on AI. It is more than just our jobs at risk, it’s our dignity and livelihood which is already being negatively impacted by the technology.
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a columnist and features writer for Barrett News Media.She currently freelances at WPIX in New York, and has previously worked on live, streamed, and syndicated TV programs. Her prior employers have included NY1, Fox News Digital, Law & Crime Network, and Newsmax. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
BNM Writers
ABC Draws Biggest Solar Eclipse Coverage Audience
ABC News’ Eclipse Across America was also simulcast on the Disney-owned cable networks National Geographic Channel.
Published
16 hours agoon
April 17, 2024The solar eclipse that captivated our nation on Apr. 8, for better or for worse, was extensively covered by the major networks. They had broadcast from the key areas where complete totality of the moon directly aligning in front of the sun was observed, from Dallas to Indianapolis to Niagara Falls to Vermont.
ABC, with David Muir and Linsey Davis anchoring from Burlington, Vermont, was the most-watched outlet in eclipse coverage among all key figures, according to Nielsen Media Research. From 2-4 PM ET on Apr. 8, ABC delivered 4.448 million total viewers including 920,000 within the key 25-54 demographic as well as 744,000 adults 18-49.
ABC News’ Eclipse Across America was also simulcast on the Disney-owned cable networks National Geographic Channel (271,000 Total Viewers, 76,000 Adults 25-54 and 69,000 Adults 18-49) and Nat Geo Wild (63,000 Total Viewers, 19,000 Adults 25-54 and 17,000 Adults 18-49).
The eclipse coverage helped National Geographic Channel more than doubled its own weekday performances of 2-4 PM ET from Apr. 1-5: Total Viewers +139%, Adults 25-54 +192%, and Adults 18-49 +237%.
CBS, with Norah O’Donnell and Tony Dokoupil anchoring from Indianapolis, was runner-up among total viewers (2.705 million) while NBC (2.406 million total viewers) – with Lester Holt also in Indianapolis, as well as Al Roker in Dallas – was runner-up among key demos (483,000 adults 25-54; 368,000 adults 18-49).
CBS posted 447,000 adults 25-54 and 339,000 adults 18-49.
On cable news, Fox News Channel was the total viewer leader for the solar eclipse and CNN led in all key demos. As indicated in the network breakdown below, CNN attracted the most added raw viewership and demos (nearly quadrupling its 25-54 and 18-49) compared to the aforementioned Monday through Friday 2-4 p.m. period from Apr. 1-5:
Fox News Channel
- Total Viewers: 2.264 million (+829,000; +58%)
- Adults 25-54: 230,000 (+73,000; +47%)
- Adults 18-49: 155,000 (+54,000; +54%)
CNN
- Total Viewers: 1.643 million (+1,046,000; +175%)
- Adults 25-54: 332,000 (+246,000; +286%)
- Adults 18-49: 221,000 (+163,000; +283%)
MSNBC (compared to Apr. 1-5 @ 1-4 p.m.)
- Total Viewers: 0.916 million (+120,000; +15%)
- Adults 25-54: 121,000 (+41,000; +51%)
- Adults 18-49: 81,000 (+31,000; +62%)
Douglas Pucci is a Bronx native and NYU graduate analyzing news television ratings for Barrett News Media. He did an internship at VH1’s “Pop Up Video” in 1997. After college, Pucci went on to design, build and maintain websites for various non-profit organizations in his hometown of New York City. He has worked alongside media industry observer Marc Berman for over a decade reporting on all things television, first at Cross MediaWorks from 2011-15 then at Programming Insider since 2016. Pucci also contributed to the sports website Awful Announcing. Read more: https://programminginsider.com/author/douglas/