It’s good news for lefties because local talk radio is now dominated by conservative voices. WLS-AM 890 has gradually sloughed off or muted its liberal hosts, while WIND-AM 560 is now a full-time outlet for syndicated right-wing programming.
It will be refreshing to hear steady chatter from Bush administration critics for a change, instead of the defenders and apologists who now dominate the dial. Even though my listening tastes run toward balanced debate and an illuminating clash of ideas and philosophies, I’ll take our side’s agitprop over theirs any day.
But it’s bad news for lefties because AM 850–now oldies rock station WAIT–is a weak, daytime-only station based in Crystal Lake. It sends out a 2,500-watt signal (compared with WIND’s 5,000 watts and WLS’ 50,000 watts) that reaches the west and northwest Cook County suburbs and into downtown, but is weak in much of Lake and DuPage Counties and southwest Cook County.
Eric Zorn is pessimistic because he things the weak signal of the station won’t be heard in downtown Chicago, which is pretty much a bastion of liberal politicos. I’m ecstatic because I live in the northwest suburbs and I’ll at least be able to listen to the show during the day. It’ll be broadcast in an area where people need to hear an alternative to Righteous talk radio.
Sure, I can listen on my computer during the day, but that sort of thing is frowned on at work due to bandwidth problems. So, my verdict is “yay.”
