It's That Time Again: Matt Drudge Is Foaming At The Mouth.

Source: The Drudge Report

Drudge seems to be having some sort of brain orgasm at the thought of failure for the "Progressive Media".

Left-leaning new media has hit turbulence at the marketplace, newly released stats show.

A book hyped by major media as documenting a progressive revolution of "blogs" and political power, DAILY KOS 'CRASHING THE GATE,' has sold only 3,630 copies since its release last month, according to NIELSEN's BOOKSCAN.

[NIELSEN claims only 2,062 copies of DAILY KOS have been purchased at the retail level; the rest coming through 'discount' outlets.]

Meanwhile, the just released radio Winter Book [Jan-Mar 2006] from ARBITRON shows AIR AMERICA in New York City losing more than a third of its audience -- in the past year!

Among all listeners 12+, it was a race to the bottom for AIR AMERICA and WLIB as mid-days went from a 1.6 share during winter 2005 to a 1.0 share winter 2006.

During PM drive, host Randi Rhodes plunged to 27,900 listeners every quarter hour, finishing 25th place in her time slot, down from 60,900 listeners every quarter hour in the fall.

A network source says the radio ratings released today do not reflect the overall growth of the broadcast.

"The demos are better, and listeners trust AIR AMERICA to give them the real truth on issues and the Bush presidency," says the insider.

Developing...

OK, I'm not sure how realistic his stats are about the Daily Kos book; if anyone would like to prove him right or wrong on that one, feel free to leave a comment or send an email--I'll credit you.

As far as the Air America/WLIB thing goes, he's not telling the whole truth there. Yes, Air America is losing stations, and WLIB's ratings are tanking, but Drudge forgets to point out that a lot of radio stations are dumping Air America because the stations themselves are either 1.) losing money overall and/or 2.) getting complaints about Air America from tons of neo-conservatives and fundamentalists (even if they don't happen to listen to that exact station where it's airing, but radio station managers will just pull something to appease listeners without researching the complaint). WLIB is also losing money. It takes a lot of money to run a radio station these days, and with more stations wanting to make money by switching to Pop/Hip-Hop formats to attract youth, station owners will dump politics in favor of cash. Sadly, most of today's new generation prefer Pop radio over politics (you kids make me sad...I'm not that old, myself, and I've always loved a good political debate), and even the older generations are getting sick of the constant mud-slinging, so they'd rather turn the radio off.

So thanks, Matt, for forgetting that bit of information.

Tags: [Matt Drudge], [The Drudge Report], [Progressive Media], [are the days of progressive media over?], [Daily Kos], [Crashing the Gate], [Air America], [WLIB]