Mike Malloy Loses Top Spot:

Yesterday, Thursday evening in San Francisco, Friday morning in Oulu, was a unique day in the arena of Talk Radio.

KGO, the station broadcasting from north to south in California, held a special KGO All Stars live debate where both liberal and conservative Talk Show Hosts that appear regularly on KGO went against each other.


Participants of the KGO All Stars Broadcast on 10th November 2005

It was one of the finest programmes that I have heard in a long while, full of emotion and issues, egged on by a diverse yet partisan audience, as the hosts tackled local and international issues.

The Liberal Talk Show Hosts, led by an absolutely superb Bernie Ward and emotional Ray Taliaferro, came out completely on top, despite the disingenuous effort by Dr. Bill Wattenburg to deflect the discussions away from the issues by using his standard technique of focusing on the messenger rather than the message. Karel, with his sniping, was not much appreciated but made the best interjection of the evening. When Bernie was talking about torture being illegal in the US and how it was being carried out in the 8 East European countries along with the rendition of prisoners, Karel quipped "That is why we outsource it!"

Dr. Wattenburg's argument about the war was that Kerry spoke and voted for the war, so that meant that Bush was not the one to be judged in carrying out this terrible death and destruction! He even made many ridiculous and false statements, such as that France vetoed the proposed invasion of Iraq! His suggestion for getting an exit strategy was even more outrageous as he said that it would be up to the Opposition to make a suggestion to the pResident as to the exit strategy!

Is the pResident so bankrupt of brainpower and the Republican party in control of both the House and the Senate so stupid that they cannot work out their own exit strategy which is good for America as a country? They are the ones who got America into this mess so they should make the effort to get them out of it. If not, they should hand over power to the Opposition to solve this mess.

In the light of this performance, this week's top rated Talk Show is this one-off KGO All Stars.

From the feedback, which could be heard immediately after the show, when John Rothmann was standing in for Bernie, this event may now become a quarterly or half-yearly event. In this instance, it was held after a period of 4 years.

Mike Malloy holds 2nd spot this week. Peter Werbe holds on to 3rd spot. Even though Thom Hartmann's Friday guest, Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders was exceptionally good this week, and the reports from White House correspondents on Thom's programme were interesting and first hand, Thom has dropped two places behind Peter to 4th.

Now that Bernie Ward is back on the online air, he has moved up sharply to 5th place. Guy James had a time mix up which meant several listeners did not hear his new programme from the new radio station. Guy is introducing a new call-in function. Although I called in, this did not work as yet. Let us hope we can try it out tomorrow night, as this could lead to a sharp improvement in Guy's present rating of 6th.

Ray Taliaferro jumps back up 7th place. Laura Flanders holds 8th place. Mark Levine's interview of Joe Wilson helped him jump to 9th spot. Mike Webb dropped down to 10th.
'
As can be seen from the above, the battle for each place seems to be really hotting up. This applies for spots from 11th to 20th as well.

Ring of Fire (11th), Morning Sedition (12th) and The Rachel Maddow Show (13th) are standard and good programmes. They out-rate the two popular and lively ladies, Randi Rhodes (14th) and Stephanie Miller (15th). Though good, these shows tend to be superficial and largely egoistic. Nate Clay has moved down to 16th position.

The chopping and changing of hosts in The Majority Report has led to its going down to 17th. There was a short interview of Janeane Garofalo on the Randi Rhodes Show where she did not appear on time and had to leave early. That did not help her own programme rating. Lizz Brown, who is still struggling to get her programme live on-air on the internet, is in 18th place. John Rothmann is now at the 19th spot. He raised some good questions during last week which evoked quite lively listener comment. The unpredictable Young Turks occupy the 20th spot this week.

If you want me to investigate and rate any more shows, please send me complete details for online listening, for my further perusal. Please email the names of the hosts and the times they are available on the internet for me to check them out.

Ratings for the week ended 11th November 2005:

1. KGO All Stars Show *****


2. Mike Malloy *****


3. Peter Werbe *****


4. Thom Hartmann *****


5. Bernie Ward *****


6. Guy James *****


7. Ray Taliferro ****


8. Laura Flanders *****


9. Radio Inside Scoop (Mark Levine) ****


10. Mike Webb ****


11. Ring of Fire (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio) ****


12. Morning Sedition (Marc Maron, Mark Riley) ****


13. The Rachel Maddow Show ****


14. The Randi Rhodes Show ***


15. The Stephanie Miller Show ***


16. Nate Clay ***


17. The Majority Report (Janeane Garofalo, Sam Seder) ****


18. Revolution in the Air (Lizz Brown) ***


19. John Rothmann ***


20. The Young Turks (Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz and Jill Pike) **

Unrated this week:

Springer on the Radio (Jerry Springer) *
Politically Direct *
Ecotalk *
The Al Franken Show, Al Franken
Ed Schultz

I am sure that all the Talk Show Hosts are now be competing for top spot in what is becoming the best and only independent rating system on the internet for Online Liberal Talk Shows. The methodology which I use will become evident as I write my short analysis of each of these Talk Show Hosts over the next few weeks.