LiveWire

I spoke with Paul Bond of the Hollywood Reporter a few weeks ago about his story regarding the state of Talk Radio and now it has landed. While I’ve segmented the element on Tammy Radio here, do read the whole thing. In his wide-ranging assessment, he takes time to look at the expansion and potential of New Media.

Talk radio scrambles for new talent

Talk recently overtook country music as the nation’s most popular radio format. But with the genre losing Dr. Laura Schlessinger and possibly Howard Stern at year’s end, it could be a short-term victory given the dearth of top talent that could fill such large voids…

The number of Americans who listen to radio online each week has doubled in five years to 43 million — or 17% of those more than age 12 — be it the Web-only variety or an online stream of a traditional station, according to a study this year from Arbitron/Edison Research.

Tammy Bruce is another host who ditched terrestrial radio, in her case after 16 years, so she could “go commando,” her term for online radio.

Bruce, though, shuns advertising and charges $5 a month for premium subscriptions. The first two hours of her show are free and the third is for subscribers, who also get access to an on-demand archive.

With no advertisers, “there’s no Gestapo to smother you,” she said, invoking the N-word controversy that engulfed Dr. Laura recently. “I’m free to talk about politics in a framework where I can’t be threatened.”

Bruce said her “aha moment” came shortly after Barack Obama was elected president. She played the theme song from the movie “Shaft” as she expressed her opinion that the country had been shafted, and an executive with her syndicator, Talk Radio Network, told her to knock it off.

“They thought it was racist,” she recalled. “Radio is a medium that requires bluntness. If I’m supposed to adjust my opinion, then I want to find a new venue.”

Bruce says she turns a profit “large enough to stay committed and to expand,” though she declined to say how many paying subscribers she has. That people pay to hear her is a testament to her perspective: She’s a gun-toting lesbian who describes herself as “a pro-choice feminist, independent conservative who strongly identifies with Tea Party patriots.”