It has been mentioned on www.chicagolandradioandmedia.com that 560 WIND (Chicago's Salem-Owned) Conservative Talk station may pick up Glenn Beck's radio show.
Thats cool right? Conservative talk station running a Conservative loud mouth? Not really.
Isn't Salem Communications a Christian organization? Clearly they aren't as Christian as they used to be. The only reason they have 560 WIND running conservative talk is because of their 2004 trade with Univision Radio. Univision got 106.7 WZFS (Then CCM "106.7 The Fish") in return Salem got the 5kw AM outlet at 560 which was running Spanish AC and Talk, which can currently be heard on 1200 WRTO (Also owned by Univision)
They launched 560 WIND's conservative talk programming at the time of the 2004 election, in which George W. Bush was going for re election against Democrat John Kerry.
You may also notice that a lot of Liberal talkers came to life during this election period, including several Clear Channel owned Air America affiliates such as 92.1 WXXM Madison, with WCPT-AM (owned by a local Democrat) beginning its simmulcast on its sister FM frequencies just before the 2008 election.
The problem I have with WIND adding Glenn Beck is the fact that he is a Mormon convert and the station is owned by a Christian radio group. In most cases, Christian radio group's don't take too kindly to Mormonism, especially when it comes to their radio stations.
Its clear this is "Bashing Obama and the left wingers means more to Salem then their Christianity."
You may also notice that several advertisers were pulled from Glenn Beck's TV show, among them Wisconsin's Sargento Cheese which is a Christian business.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I checked them out on Wikipedia and found out they're for-profit, and that their founder is a staunch Republican. It could be that they want to ensure they have the money to keep the christian broadcasting on the air, or expand into other teritories, by using a high profile show that will give them cash. While they wouldn't admit it, a lot of Americans seem to be identify as republicans or right wingers first and as Christians a distant second, bonding better with pro-death penalty anti-gay right wing Jews than with liberal Christians. He may be genuinely responsible for mistakenly conflating Christian belief and right wing political opinions; I know Christians and irreligious people alike who make that mistake, so it is at least possible that he thinks being pro-guns, war, death penalty and anti-gay marage anti-helping poor people (and whatever other policies the reps happen to have up their butts at the time) makes you a stronger christian than believing in Jesus does. The guy in charge of FOX News is actually pretty liberal from what little I hear, and is only in it for the money; even if a lot of senior members are not in Salem for the money, the people they make deals with and who have at least a little power over what goes on air may be. They may be There is a (slim) possibility the station owner considers Mormonism a branch of Christianity; the number of Evangelicals who seem to not consider Catholics in the same religion make me doubt that possibility though. Looking it up, the Sargento Cheese co pulled out due to his recent behavior and rants not because he's a Mormon now, at least officially. Wonder how long the liberal talk stations will stay afloat...
ReplyDeleteIt's a bad sign for the network, but you could always find a smaller, less for profit christian radio network, at least to listen to while Beck's on. I bet all this recent controversy has been good publicity for Beck.