Heh - the invisible hand in the marketplace

Missoula, MT may be a bastion of liberals but the rest of Montana is not. This has a cause and effect on business decisions -- sometimes fun ones. From New West Politics:

Missoula�s Progressive Talk Radio Hijacked, Again�
Turning the radio dial from NPR news over to AM 930 this morning revealed an unfamiliar voice. Instead to the comical antics of The Stephanie Miller Show, there was a local show, Voices of Montana with Aaron Flint.

Great I thought a local show. But they sure talk about Bush a lot, I pondered. Then I went to the KMPT website to see how the new lineup looked. �A new attitude and a great line-up or some of the best conservative talk!� a tag line read. The best conservative talk!

Yes, Missoula, it�s happened again. Our local progressive talk radio has be replaced with conservative talk.

I called the local station to ask about the change. The receptionist that answered said it was a corporate decision passed down from high up. She also said she had gotten 21 calls so far this Tuesday morning.

I called the headquarters of GapWest Broadcasting in Scottsdale, AZ. The answering reception said I was the first to call and had no information as to what sparked the change.

So here we go again Zootown, another progressive voice outlet smothered by big HQ decisions.

If you all remember our old FM 105.9 station that featured an Air America line up was shut down by new owners Simmons Media Group of Salt Lake City, UT.

So now once again an out of state owner of our air waves has shut down a progressive voice.

These big, out of town corporations are not run by fools. They know to within a few percent what their demographics are and they provide the content that satisfies the largest number of people. There is a reason Air America tanked and it had to file for bankruptcy back in 2006 and has sunk from several hundred stations down to 66. Their audience simply is not that large... And a tip o' the hat to reader Geran for the link