The Immaturity of Salem Communications

Last week, it was announced that Salem would dump the Laura Ingraham show from its stations in favor of their own Mike Gallagher. With Laura's show being the most popular on most of the staions, this proved that Salem's talk stations are all about Salem's talk lineup (an awful way to run talk radio stations, btw).

Now the immaturity of a Salem website manager for the site of 1280 The Patriot, WWTC in the Twin Cities has made Salem lose all their credibility. Check out the web address for the page about Mike Gallagher: NoMoreLaura[/b]]http://am1280thepatriot.townhall.com/pages/NoMoreLaura. This is a slap in the face to the many Laura Ingraham show listeners who listen to Salem stations just to hear her show. I find it disgusting that Salem would stoop to this low by introducing its replacement for Ingraham as "No More Ingraham" instead of creating a web address like http://am1280thepatriot.townhall.com/pages/welcomemike or something along those lines.

I recall reading something on the internet about this topic. You might want to check this out:

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,109126.0.html

I find that move quite interesting, and will be interested to see how the ratings and such fair out...

I always considered, and was given the "I second that" by people inside some Salem stations, that their News/Talk format was swinging to attract a more female audience, something Ingraham could obviously help.

Bill Bennett with his Saturday Morning in America ladies' group, Dennis Prager with the male/female hour, and even Hugh Hewitt for a long time recently only accepting female callers "until we run out."

Mike Gallagher would fair well, IMO obviously, on a hot talk station such as 97.1 Free FM in L.A., or the "9-5-0" in Houston - a station with Carolla, Leykis, Mancow, etc.

...really curious to see how this will fair out in the long-run.

MorningTFXdude said:

Mike Gallagher would fair well, IMO obviously, on a hot talk station such as 97.1 Free FM in L.A.... - a station with Carolla, Leykis

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...a dozen years ago, when Gallagher was PD at WGY Schenectady, I asked him if he felt his show's success at the time depended in large part in his being sandwiched between Limbaugh and Leykis. He replied, indeed, it was...

Following Rush can also work against you; I speak from first-hand experience. Yes, you have a built-in lead in, but if you're offering something different from what the dittoheads want and expect, that lead will disappear in a half-hour or so. Woe to the personality who follows Rush, who isn't a clone thereof, and isn't given the time to develop his/her own listener base.* (That could help explain why there are so many Rush-clones...well, along with the fact that so many hosts - and programmers - are terrified of originality)...

* In deference to Mr. Gallagher, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and place him in the latter category. Sort of... ;D

Ultimajock said:

...a dozen years ago, when Gallagher was PD at WGY Schenectady, I asked him if he felt his show's success at the time depended in large part in his being sandwiched between Limbaugh and Leykis. He replied, indeed, it was...

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jimwalsh2001 said:

...if you're offering something different from what the dittoheads want and expect, that lead will disappear in a half-hour or so.

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1. Rush Limbaugh
2. Mike Gallagher.

1. loud and brash
2. loud and brash

1. provoking and firing-up-ingness
2. ditto.

Kidding...kidding.

You have a great point. If, say, Randi Rhodes went on right after Rush Limbaugh...yeah, that lead-in would be not such a great idea. But I think that the similarities were there. And it worked for this listener - yours truly - who still listens to Limbaugh and Gallagher.

And I give woe to all the Limbaugh-wannabes who popped up in the 90s and tanked fast. 8)