SPRINGER ON (MY) RADIO: I have a dirty little secret. For years, I've had a button on my car radio pre-set to 1100 AM. And it's not for basketball games (IMHO, listening to a ball game is like smelling an art exhibit).

No, the truth is that many times in the last decade or so I've driven around listening to Trivosonno. And to Rush. And to the endless roster of second-string dimbulbs that Clear Channel keeps parading across its local bandwidth to pontificate on sports and politics -- apparently aimed solely at a demographic of Republican insurance salesmen driving to suburban sports bars.

Who knows why do I do this to myself? I used to think of it as political anthropology, or a brave scouting trip into enemy territory. More recently I'm facing the fact that I have personal issues -- issues with silence, with almost all of what passes for music radio, with the general attitude of NPR, with the price of tapes. So I occasionally hit the WTAM button just to get some stupid noise.

As disfunctional as this habit may be (I still think it's less damaging than watching cable news), it has given me a perspective on the talk radio phenomenon. So here's a big, obvious, absolutely unsurprising insight: If you believe in market economics, it's really weird that for fifteen years all the commercial, non-morning-drive radio talkers in the Cleveland market have been outspoken conservatives.

(Yeah, I know Trivosonno used to say good things about unions occasionally, and I actually heard his brilliant rant against seat licenses when the Browns Stadium deal was announced. But that doesn't change the fact that WTAM's afternoon-evening politics is basically all Bush, all the time.)

Folks, every precinct in the city of Cleveland voted for Kerry in the last election. Cuyahoga County went for Kerry two to one, and for Tim Hagan in the last governor's race, 60%-40%. In the whole "Cleveland-Akron area" (Cuyahoga, Lorain, Lake, Medina, Geauga, Ashtabula, Summit, Portage), the liberal Democratic candidates won those two elections with 59% and 52% of the votes, respectively. Democrats dominate local elections in most of this territory. Like it or not, northeast Ohio is a bastion of liberal Democratic voters.

It's awful hard to believe there's no commercial niche for talk radio aimed at these voters as listeners. And isn't that what commercial media is supposedly all about -- competing for listeners based on our own interests, preferences and prejudices?

So, finally, Clear Channel has decided to give it a try, and we've got Springer on the Radio.

Jerry Springer is, of course, an extremely successful media guy. Like or hate the TV show, you have to admit it's a winner. It's made him rich enough to give a lot of money away, and fund his own campaigns (which makes him a viable candidate for Governor). And it isn't a fluke; Springer was a popular television figure in Cincinnati before he went national, and his new radio show reportedly leads its station's lineup after a couple of months of airtime.

But Springer's also a real, "progressive" Democratic politician. And he's more attuned to the rising Internet wing of the party than most. Take a look back at his show's homepage. Notice that it's mostly a blog. Notice that it has a real blogroll with lots of Ohio links, including one to Cleveland Diary. Notice that one of the show's "simul-bloggers" is Jesse Taylor of Pandagon, a top-ranked member of the Democrat blogocracy based in Cincinnati.

Even if you hate talk radio this is interesting, because it apparently reflects a big new turn in Clear Channel's programming strategy. WCKY, Springer's home base in Cincinnati, is a Clear Channel property that's now been shifted entirely to "liberal talk", mostly through the nationwide Air America network. And Springer himself has just joined Air America's lineup.

Will we have Air America on the air in Cleveland soon? Who knows? But since Monday, we've got Jerry, and he's certainly different from anything we've been hearing. Even if you don't have a radio button pre-set to 1100 AM, I suggest giving Springer on the Radio a listen.
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