The MSM cocoon

I can't get past this line: "Radio is essentially dead aside from NPR." Talk radio is thriving. 8 in 10 Americans listen to the radio. But because the vast majority of talk radio is conservative and its audience is working class, it simply does not exist to leftist journalists. https://t.co/io9nBGpSAa

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) January 25, 2024

Some years ago, when he was still alive, I looked at NPRs audience size and that of Rush Limbaugh.  I forget the metrics, but they were within spitting distance of one another - a huge government funded enterprise only about as effective as a one man shop.  Astonishing.

Of course, Limbaugh wasn't a one man shop.   But he wasn't pretty tiny compared to NPR.  

That line is a pretty striking testimonial at the urban insularity of the mainstream media.  

Radio is essentially dead aside from NPR.

Which is really just another way of saying, "I, Taylor Lorenz, only listen to NPR on the radio."  True, perhaps but certainly not true that there is nothing else to listen to.  

A simplistic search suggests that NPR's global revenue in 2022 was $317 million.  It is difficult to get to an apples to apples comparison as all radio stations have a different mix of talk shows, news, music, entertainment, etc.  The cleanest comparison is NPRs revenue of $317 to the total radio sector revenue for 2022 of $15.5 billion.  NPR is about 2% of the industry.  Supposedly about 10% of a radio station's revenues are from news programs (not necessarily including talk shows).  If we say all of NPRs revenues are news and only 10% of radio stations revenues are news (not counting talk and opinion shows), then NPR is $317 million of a $1.5 billion market.  20% of it.  That grossly exaggerates but it supports that there is a lot more news choice out there (80%) than Lorenz is listening to.

So, radio is not dead.  In fact most of it is occurring beyond the environs of NPR.