As Philly talker Michael Smerconish has revealed, it certainly pays to tow your liberal employer's party line.
Just two weeks after the formerly conservative talk host revealed he would back Barack Obama for president, CBS has rewarded him with the previously-elusive program expansion he'd been long been desperately seeking.
At the time, Smerconish actually had the nerve to predict his career would take a hit for making this supposedly courageous decision.
Instead, his dividend is a bit like your local grocery store's rewards card, only the payoff is 1000 times greater!
According to industry website DCRTV and other trade sources, Smerconish is expected to lead a new "conservative" lineup on a Washington DC talker, to be modelled after his Philly station.
DCRTV says WPGC-1580 AM has a huge, 50,000-watt daytime signal, with a puny 270-watt nighttime output:
1580 To Become "Big Talker" - 11/3 - Confirming rumblings first reported on DCRTV last week, we're hearing more rumors that CBS Radio plans to flip WPGC-AM, 1580, to a right-leaning talk format with Michael Smerconish, who does mornings on CBS's Philadelphia talker, WPHT, blowtorch 1210 AM. The Morningside MD station, which now relays urban PGC-FM since dropping "inspirational talk" last month, will be branded "The Big Talker" (graphic, right, from a CBS webserver), like the co-owned Philly outlet. PGC-AM will also carry Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck - the latter two had been heard on recently-defunct Bonneville talker 3WT. CBS has registered bigtalker1580.com, dcbigtalk.com, and dcbigtalker.com, we're told. WPGC-AM has a strong 50,000-watt daytime signal, with a weak 270-watt night signal.....Already, a beta website for 1580 AM - The Big Talker has been created, complete with a CBS favicon. It shows a lineup with Smerconish, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Dr Laura Schlessinger. Though DCRTV calls this "right-leaning", with Smerconish in morning drive, that won't be an accurate description.
As we've pointed out, however, pleasing liberal CBS suits comes with a price, that of listener credibility:
Think about this: Smerconish works a CBS station in Philly. He'd like the company, a liberal outfit, to syndicate him nationally (despite ZERO industry interest in such a venture) and has threatened to leave WPHT if they won't.
In addition, his deal with fringe-leftist NBC outlet MSNBC is also running out and you know how they feel about conservatives. Could an Obama endorsement from someone in this situation be any more transparent?
Ouch! But Maloney's skewering of Smerconish gets even more intense:
But unlike the phonies your Radio Equalizer has known in the past who try keep their insincerity and dual roles quiet, Smerconish has compounded the sleaziness of his move by attempting to wrap it some sort of "principled" independence.
Sadly, that means he views the audience as too stupid to see through his moves. But they know they've been burned. He used them for years to earn a high salary in one of the nation's top radio markets. Now that bigger opportunities have become possible, however, he's flushed his listeners right down the toilet.
To those on the left who might be ready to welcome Smerconish with open arms, don't think for a moment that he won't burn you as well, should a profitable opportunity arise.
One might hope this stunt could backfire, but it's far more likely mainstream media execs will reward him for supporting their candidate. In terms of listener credibility, however, Michael Smerconish has lost it forever.
It's all part of the Faustian bargain. Selling your soul comes with a huge price tag as Smerconish will find out. According to Maloney, the self-serving betrayal by Smerconish will not be forgotten:
This is exactly why CBS is still struggling to figure out the talk radio format, decades after it took the nation by storm: to the network's corporate suits, it's about their own political views, not those of the audience.
As for Smerconish, this betrayal of his listenership should not be forgotten, particularly if he decides in the future that it is more profitable to switch back to the conservative camp.
