Without the right-wing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president next year and wouldn’t have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about to get a whole lot worse.
Comcast, which owns NBC and its subsidiaries CNBC and MSNBC (among other media outlets) announced this week that it’ll be spinning off MSNBC (among others) next year. And the consequences are already showing up. It was reported this week that Rachel Maddow just took a substantial annual pay cut because of the uncertain future of the network.
In part, this probably reflects a belt-tightening at Comcast, but it is also an indication of how legacy media—which now includes cable properties—is taking a hit from newer digital media, from social media to podcasts to web-based networks and programs.
The principal analyst and vice president of content for the market research company eMarketer, Paul Verna, told the AP: “The writing is on the wall that the cable TV business is a dwindling business” and, the AP noted, is “predicting future consolidation of the networks or acquisitions through private equity.”
Private equity (like Bain Capital) and large media operation acquisitions have a long history of gutting media properties to increase their profitability; often this includes what a study by Stanford University researchers described as a trend to “substitute coverage of local politics for coverage of national politics, and use more conservative framing.”
Air America radio (for which I wrote the original business plan and which carried my program) was on the air in virtually every major market in the United States, having leased over 50 major, high-powered radio stations from Clear Channel.
My program regularly beat Rush Limbaugh in the ratings: When I was invited to the Obama White House following the 2008 election, one person associated with the campaign noted to me privately that they believed Air America had played a meaningful role in Obama’s election.
That same year, Mitt Romney’s private equity company, Bain Capital, acquired Clear Channel and, in 2009, began reclaiming its stations, replacing Air America content with mostly sports. By coincidence, around that same time it appears Romney decided he’d run against Obama in the next election.
As Air America lost station after station, its ability to earn revenue through selling advertising collapsed. By 2010, the entire network was bankrupt just in time for Romney to run for president.
Will the same thing happen to MSNBC? Stay tuned.
Similarly, Republicans in Congress are salivating over Elon Musk’s rhetorical war with National Public Radio after the network stopped using Xitter when Musk labeled the news network as “state-affiliated” media.
As the headline on Fox Business notes: “Elon Musk renews calls to defund NPR after clip of CEO resurfaces on X: ‘Your tax dollars’ are paying for this.”
Musk, of course, will be in charge of identifying those parts of government or institutions funded by government which can be cut to help pay for Trump’s planned $4 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires.
While it won’t fit her proposed new role as U.N. ambassador, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a top member of Republican House leadership, was unambiguous, posting to Xitter: “I will DEFUND NPR.”
This is nothing new: Republicans in the House voted this past July to remove all federal funding for NPR by 2026; Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, working hand in glove with Marjorie Taylor Greene (who was just made chairperson of the new subcommittee charged with implementing their recommendations) could probably speed up that timeline.
While NPR goes to great lengths to avoid political bias in its news (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting even hired last month, “in response to right-wing criticism,” multiple editors specifically to spot and stamp out any progressive perspectives that may creep into its reporting), if the network were crippled, it’s safe to assume the roughly 1,500 right-wing hate radio stations in the country stand more than ready and willing to pick up its radio audience.
Right-wing billionaires brought us Fox “News,” Sinclair, two other web- and cable-based right-wing TV channels, nationwide networks of hate radio (now also in Spanish), tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to right-wing podcast hosts, and the destruction of about half the nation’s local newspapers.
Not to mention an entire network of billionaire-funded hard-right phony “pink slime” newspapers that pop up around the country every election year.
There’s no equivalent politically tilted media systems on the left; Democratic-leaning billionaires have stayed out of the media space ever since Romney’s company took down Air America.
The closest TV and radio counterparts we have are Free Speech TV (available on the web), Dish, Sling, Roku, AppleTV, and DirectTV, and the Progress Channel on SiriusXM (my daily program is carried on both).
In the print media space, Substack is growing (although it also carries hard-right content) and provides a solid community of progressive publications (like HartmannReport.com), but that’s a drop in a much larger ocean; even The Washington Post and The New York Times don’t come close to the strength of editorial bias found in the Murdoch family’s New York Post or The Wall Street Journal.
Publications like The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Nation, and The Guardian provide solid progressive content, but all have funding bases that are trivial compared to conservative publications supported by right-wing billionaire networks. Ditto for websites like Raw Story, Common Dreams, Alternet, LA Progressive, Democratic Underground, and Daily Kos.
As my old friend and the former CEO-founder of Air America, Jon Sinton, noted on his excellent “reluctant” Substack newsletter: “The left-wing silo is barren. A couple of old-line newspapers and magazines. MSNBC and a handful of smallish digital platforms and shows. Pod Save America stands nearly alone as a left-leaning podcast with a large audience.
“By contrast, the right-wing silo is vast and deep. It houses YouTubians, TikTokkers, broadcasters on Fox, Newsmax, Sinclair TV stations, and talk radio stations; posters on social media; and narrowcasters on myriad podcasts.”
All, I would add, heavily supported by right-wing billionaires. As Politico reported in 2014, the Heritage Foundation used to give $1 million a year to Sean Hannity and $2 million a year to Rush Limbaugh alone.
A close acquaintance who was, for years, a mid-level right-wing talk show host told me how a dozen or more times a year he’d give a speech at a random high school and would receive a check for $20,000–$30,000 from a right-wing foundation as a “speaking fee” each time. It was their way of supporting conservative talk radio.
Again, there is literally nothing like that on the left. Not even close.
I’ve repeatedly called for progressive billionaires to jump into the media space, and perhaps the Musk-Trump assaults that are coming will provoke some to act. It may be wishful thinking, but if it does happen it can’t come too soon.
In the meantime, we all must support (and share with our friends) those outlets where we find useful news and information; if we fail to, America’s media landscape may soon mirror Hungary’s and Russia’s with every station and publication praising Dear Leader 24/7/365.