WI/AHC: Left Leaning Talk Radio Culture in the US?

So since I had brought up a left leaning talk radio culture in the Pol Chat, I wanted to revive my own thread by asking a question.

Assuming that the culture began in the 60s or 70s, who would have been good radio personalities for it?

Keith Olbermann?
Michael Moore?
What about earlier than them?
 
Politically charged radio editorials might have trouble before the fairness doctrine was officially repealed in 1987.
 
twinpeaksjacobyradio.jpg


"Shovel yourself out of the shit!"

There's a growing left-wing podcast community today, but I assume you want an earlier, terrestrial-radio equivalent.

Liberal pundits like Moore, Franken, Maddow, and Jon Stewart generally rely on a kind of sarcastic humor that's popular with their core viewership but comes off as smug and condescending to a lot of Americans. (IMO the worst offender in this regard is John Oliver, who I find too self-righteous to watch for more than a minute.) As mentioned by others, that style of liberal humor has been tried on talk radio and didn't really gain a following. Maybe a different style of political punditry could help them find a wider audience on radio?

Genuine (or genuine-seeming) outrage is the order of things from right-wing commentators - think of Rush Limbaugh pouring out bile or Alex Jones working himself into a spitting fury. A real-life version of Dr. Amp (pictured above) or something like Chapo Trap House's "dirtbag leftism" could compete with the red-faced red-staters for the talk radio market. Maybe a more partisan-political Richard Pryor or George Carlin, if you're going for the 70s and 80s?
 
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That determines the success or failure of a radio show as much as Nielsen Audio Ratings report how many are listening
 
Actually...we did have (economically) leftist/populist talk radio - Father Charles Coughlin comes to mind.

If George Wallace had stayed liberal, he could easily have been a populist radio personality on the center-left.

I thought that Coughlin leaned racist and fascist--is that not the case?
 
Think Strasserism for Coughlin. Fascism could have easily gone to be a leftist, racist and nationalistic (rather than internationalistic) alternative to Communism.
 
A real possibility might have been the guy who worked with micro-radio around 1990 in Springfield, Illinois. He worked out of a housing project!

One magazine article in a leftie publication was entitled, He's black, broke, blind, and on the verge of a media revolution.

The authorities pretty much left him alone, until he started broadcasting interviews with fellow citizens who had been the victims of police brutality. Micro-radio was supposed to be available through the FCC, but so many bureaucratic details, not really.

* The man's name is Mbanna Kantako.
 
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Wallet

Banned
The civil rights movement and anti war protests relied on TV to spread their message and actions. If you add more radio...

Imagine MLK giving national radio broadcasts. In the 70s you can have college campus group communicate with each other with radio.
 
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That determines the success or failure of a radio show as much as Nielsen Audio Ratings report how many are listening
I agree 100%. But at least two openings:

1) Middle managers are sometimes more worried about corporate fallout than are the people at the top. Look at the sarcasm on the David Letterman Show, including occasionally mentioning corporations by name. Look at Mad Magazine, including sometimes spoofing trademarks. So, one possibility is that middle managers loosen up, at least at the outfits which go leftie and liberal.

2) Another opening is that unions, a couple of quirky rich persons, microradio as above, offshore pirate radio a la the UK, an expanded Pacifica network (more than five thank you!) out-and-out own a lot more stations.
 
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