The problem is that a lot of the progressive shows that gained ground nationally, like a show hosted by Ed Schultz, were funded privately.

That was actually the go-to source of funding for a lot of progressive media. If you wanted to compete with the commercial success of conservative talk, you needed to raise money from private donors. The problem was, those shows were not commercially successful, and the money behind them dried up.

The question is, however, why those shows were not smash hits like Limbaugh’s. He was able to accumulate as many as 650 affiliates over the course of his career. Schultz, one of the most successful in progressive talk, did not get far beyond 100 stations before his show folded, and of all the progressive talk shows out there, his was the most listenable.

The problem with progressive talk, and progressive media as a whole, is that they do not build relationships with their audiences like conservative media does. Limbaugh famously took callers and had personal conversations with them on the air, read and responded to a ton of fan emails, and made it a point of knowing his audience and talking to them. Progressive talk radio, and (by extension) all progressive media, focuses so much on scolding Americans that there is never an opportunity to build that relationship. //

Conservative talk radio thrives because they have a relationship with their audiences. Those who can’t maintain that relationship with their audience fall by the wayside as quickly as progressive hosts do.