by Jonathan Webb

Created on: December 12, 2008   Last Updated: December 09, 2010

Equal time to both sides is a very clever way of saying one side can't keep up with the other and needs its hand held to compete. The constitution affords all of us 'equal opportunity' not equality. There is a huge difference and some in our country today do not understand. Everyone has the same opportunity to be on the radio or t.v. broadcasting their points of view.

The reason conservative radio hosts do so well is because people listen to them. The reason things like Air America fail is because no one was listening. How hard is that to understand? If you force stations to air 3 hours of Al Franken alongside 3 hours of Rush Limbaugh there will be loss of profit for that station. Numbers will be lower and ad revenue will drop because no one will listen. There is a reason why Rush has been on the air for over 20 years. Love him or hate him, he is very good at what he does and is quite entertaining. Forcing equal time is forcing stations to air things the majority of listeners do not want to hear, and people will turn them off.

It goes both ways on this topic. People who lean to the left do not want their 3 hour slots followed by 3 hours of Hannity or Rush. Why can't we let people listen to what they want and let the markets decide? Why does the government always have to stick its nose in things? When did we stop trusting people to make their own decisions? The first amendment allows me to say and listen to what I choose and allows you to turn off stuff if you don't like it. What is wrong with that?

Whatever happened to good old fashioned competition? If you lose then you go away. We must stop this babysitting mentality and allow the markets to work. Change the product, make it more attractive, and do a better job if you want to gain listeners. How hard is that to understand? I am beginning to think a lot of us want the government to do everything so we can just sit back and relax. If you don't like Rush then change the channel. It takes about two seconds and not a lot of energy.

Freedom of speech is too sacred a thing to mess with in this manner. Give the people air time who earn it and have listeners. Forcing stations to have mandated shows or risk penalty is the best way to ruin an industry. The government does such a good job at managing all the other things it is involved in why not give them this as well? I hope you caught the sarcasm there. What a ridiculous idea and I hope it gets laughed out of town where it belongs.

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