Look at the guys behind Freespeech.org. Their problem is very simple: they tried to break into the "old legacy media" market, multiple times (Air America, Current TV, radio station carriage, etc.). They just had one issue: aside from MSNBC and NPR being more popular, they also had the issue of trying to break into a market run by Clear Channel.
Clear Channel historically leaned right, but more importantly they had this gig going where they would buy up all the radio stations in an area or many of them, and run the same slop content across the USA. Same music, same radio shows, etc. This was all thanks to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which lifted restrictions.
So the lefties had an uphill battle, trying to break into mainstream radio where the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannities ruled. Sure, you can have a radio station carrying your show given that even someone as disgraced as Hal Turner can have a station somewhere carrying him, but anyone could turn on a radio and listen to Rush at work.
To add to that, their radio hosts are literally "left wing Hannity" give or take. They post "safe" left wing opinions that might have been groundbreaking when Bush was in office and the Iraq War was the thing. But they're never going to have the exposure of the Joe Rogans of the world, let alone having something like his format. Especially not when the younger crowd prefers podcasts where they can say whatever thing edgy they want to without ending up in FCC scandals like "shock jocks" of the past did, and where they don't need to worry about having to live near a station carrying the program.
See pic related. They might have people in every position promoting Harris to the point of bad astroturf efforts, along with MSNBC and the like being pro Harris. But few give a single shit about Thom Hartmann, there's probably as many if not more people listening to the Alex Jones show or some random edgy racist podcast or Chapo Trap House.
b e a r d
Look at the guys behind Freespeech.org. Their problem is very simple: they tried to break into the "old legacy media" market, multiple times (Air America, Current TV, radio station carriage, etc.). They just had one issue: aside from MSNBC and NPR being more popular, they also had the issue of trying to break into a market run by Clear Channel.
Clear Channel historically leaned right, but more importantly they had this gig going where they would buy up all the radio stations in an area or many of them, and run the same slop content across the USA. Same music, same radio shows, etc. This was all thanks to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which lifted restrictions.
https://youtu.be/JZw7XplA8Cs
So the lefties had an uphill battle, trying to break into mainstream radio where the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannities ruled. Sure, you can have a radio station carrying your show given that even someone as disgraced as Hal Turner can have a station somewhere carrying him, but anyone could turn on a radio and listen to Rush at work.
To add to that, their radio hosts are literally "left wing Hannity" give or take. They post "safe" left wing opinions that might have been groundbreaking when Bush was in office and the Iraq War was the thing. But they're never going to have the exposure of the Joe Rogans of the world, let alone having something like his format. Especially not when the younger crowd prefers podcasts where they can say whatever thing edgy they want to without ending up in FCC scandals like "shock jocks" of the past did, and where they don't need to worry about having to live near a station carrying the program.
See pic related. They might have people in every position promoting Harris to the point of bad astroturf efforts, along with MSNBC and the like being pro Harris. But few give a single shit about Thom Hartmann, there's probably as many if not more people listening to the Alex Jones show or some random edgy racist podcast or Chapo Trap House.