The Turnaround Continues

In keeping with the declining ratings and readership of right-wing media nationwide, it gives me great pleasure to report that KTNF at 950 AM is the only local talk-radio station to have gone up in the Arbitrons over the past year, going from 1.0 to 1.7 of the local listening audience from the fall of 2005 to the fall of 2006. KTNF is the local Air America affiliate. The biggest losers: -- KSTP 1500 AM, the oldest hate-radio station, which used to carry Limbaugh and still carries plenty of right-wing squawkers, went from 4.6 to 3.2; -- KTLK 100.3 FM, which went from smooth jazz to a right-wing hate-radio format with Limbaugh and various other talkers, and whose ratings tanked from 2.8 to 1.9 despite (or maybe because of) a hugely expensive yearlong publicity campaign that has the faces of said talkers plastered on billboards all over town; -- WWTC 1280 AM, aka "The Patriot" and the home station of right-wing nutjobs too hateful for KSTP or even KTLK, went from 1.4 to 1.0. That's right: Little non-hater station KTNF, with a miniscule budget, is currently beating the most vicious haters in town, is about to overtake the most-expensively-promoted haters, and is on a path to overtake the oldest group of radio haters by this time next year. Makes me smile to type that.