Political Radio in D.C.: Is It As Popular As We Think?

Political news is everywhere: in newspapers, magazines, on television broadcasts, and on the radio. Political talk radio is vast in the U.S., and can be found in various places including on AM stations, online, satellite radio stations, and iTunes radio stations and podcasts. Washington D.C. has a few popular AM talk radio stations, as well as a variety of online and satellite stations.Two popular AM stations that serve the Washington D.C. area are WFED and WMAL. WFED was originally founded as an online-only radio station in 2000 as a sister station to WTOP, D.C.’s all news FM station. In 2004, WFED hit the airwaves. At first it was aired on 1050 AM, and currently it can be found on 1500 AM. WFED is also an all news station but it focuses on topics involving federal agencies. WMAL, today owned and operated by Citadel Broadcasting Company, has been around since 1925, and features one of the most famous talk show hosts of today, Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is a popular conservative radio host whose show is the most listened to radio talk show in America. He receives plenty of criticism for his extreme views and opinions, but has a large enough audience to keep his program successful, unlike that of many other conservative talk radio hosts.

A 2007 Washington Post article stated that conservative radio programs in D.C. have been rather unsuccessful, with the exception of Limbaugh’s show. Many conservative stations have struggled to find a wide audience in the D.C. area, according to the Post. One example of this conservative downfall in D.C. talk radio occurred when Bill O’Reilly’s show was taken off of WJFK’s station in 2007. Though he is an independent, O’Reilly shared many conservative opinions on his show, and was removed from the station to be replaced by a sports talk program.

One would think that since conservative radio shows are so unpopular in the D.C., maybe liberal shows are more successful. However, despite the city being the nation's capital and center of politics, political talk radio in general is surprisingly unpopular in D.C. Some of the country’s most well-known political radio hosts, such as Glenn Beck and Stephanie Miller, have almost no popularity on D.C. AM radio stations because the stations they broadcast on have weak signal here. President of WMAL, Chris Berry claims that the reason political talk radio is not a large facet of D.C. culture is because “people in D.C. are smarter” and “really know the issues,” so they don’t care as much about talk radio opinions (Post).

But besides AM political radio, there are other ways people in D.C. can collect their political news, such as with stations on satellite radio and on iTunes. One of the political stations that Sirius offers, POTUS, features talk shows hosted by various reporters in D.C. including FOX News’ Chris Wallace and ABC’s Christiane Amanpour. Their shows include interviews with politicians and top news in politics. iTunes offers a variety of political radio shows that can be conveniently listened to when listeners tune in on their computers, tablets, iPhones and iPods. There are also podcasts listeners can download, such as Good Politics, that offer political news and talk. Good Politics in particular offers podcasts that are specific to your state, so there is a Good Politics podcast specifically for D.C. The portability of these podcasts and radio stations allows listeners to tune in wherever and whenever they want, which is definitely a plus for today’s hustling and bustling society.

other sources:
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2007/07/06/14552/oreilly-dropped-from-wjfk/
http://www.wmal.com/article.asp?ID=192395