After all, it isn’t that liberal talk radio is suppressed – it is that it isn’t commercially viable.

Al Franken, Randi Rhodes and Sam Seeder — articulate liberal pundits — don't sell well, even in Santa Cruz.

The trio are part of the nationally syndicated Air America, which was dropped from Santa Cruz radio station KOMY 1340 AM on Thursday and replaced with music from the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

The left-leaning radio network, aimed at taking on Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk shows, debuted on Central Coast airwaves in July 2005, but local advertisers never bought in, station owner Michael Zwerling said.

"We didn't sell a single ad in a year and a half," Zwerling said Thursday. "I thought liberal radio would work as a viable advertising business in the most liberal town in America. I was wrong"

Santa Cruz isn't the only place Air America has problems. The network is struggling nationwide and filed for bankruptcy four months ago.

Zwerling put Air America on the air as an alternative to the Limbaugh program, which plays on KOMY's sister station KSCO 1080 AM every morning.

Limbaugh is a major moneymaker for the station, Zwerling said, and his show pulls the highest ratings of any program on KSCO or KOMY.

So let’s look at this. You’ve got a station owner offering both points of view, using different stations to do so. One format flops, while the other is hugely successful. Does it make any sort of sense to require that the station owner continue to broadcast what no one wants to listen to? And notice, please, that this is a very blue part of a blue state where liberal talk has failed – if they can’t make it there, can they make it anywhere?

What this shows is that the reason for the lack of diversity on talk radio is not that stations won’t book the format for political reasons – it is because they cannot find an audience for the format. Any attempt to require that viewpoint be aired is nothing short of suppression of the speech that people want to hear in favor of that they reject. How is that in the public interest?

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