America's most outspoken voice for populist values has some very serious reservations about the tenuous relationship between big business and freedom of the press in this country. "I wonder whether a radio show that stands up to the corporate powers and invites its listeners to fight back against those big-moneyed interests can find a home on America's airwaves. It really takes a lot of guts for a syndicator to get behind something that is truly anti-establishment." If there is anyone who could speak to the validity of these charges, it's Jim Hightower, the former State Agricultural Commissioner who is now also a former commentator for the ABC Radio Network. In early September, he was notified that ABC would be dropping his Hightower Radio weekend call-in show effective November 11. Three weeks later, he learned that the termination was effective immediately. Yes, you can still hear assorted liberal and left-wing voices on the nation's airwaves, but for now at least, the plug has been pulled on the biting satire and witty yarns of this Austin-based personality.
According to Hightower, things began to deteriorate in early August, shortly after the mega-deal in which ABC was acquired by Disney came to pass. "I had been real happy with the development of the show. We had several markets like Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Nashville where the program was booming. Other markets were gaining popularity at a more steady pace, and ABC seemed committed to letting the audience build over time. They seemed very comfortable with the ratings numbers the show was posting. But things began to change after the merger. After that, it became apparent that they were not making any efforts to sign up new stations. I was very surprised by the abruptness of change in corporate attitude."
Relations between the two sides certainly did not improve after the Disney/ABC deal became a prime target of Hightower Radio's August 5 edition. Responding to a caller's question about the merger, the host cheerfully replied that he was now employed by "a rodent."
Continuing this line of thought, he explained what he saw as the implications of these various mergers, as well as the pending communications bill that would centralize power to a few major players: "We're going to have the same thing in radio newscasts and television newscasts, for example, as you now have in Top 40 hit music, whether it's country format or rock & roll or whatever. It's going to be the Top 40 news brought to you by Disney! And it's going to be fed from one central source; your local stories aren't even going to be covered. Let's put a little Elmer's Glue into Bill Clinton's backbone on this one. Again, he's just having the hell lobbied out of him by guess who? By Mickey Mouse, by Westinghouse, by General Electric, by the phone companies, by the utilities, by the cable systems, by the broadcasting industry and all the forces of industry arraying to come down and get him to let this little nasty piece of legislation come down and come through. It's up to us to fight against this kind of monopolization of our democracy and that's what it comes down to."
Apart from the various problems created by his program's somewhat risqué content, Hightower stresses that ABC never had a firm grasp on how to market the show. He argued with network executives that they should purchase advertising in alternative publications around the nation in order to attract the kind of listeners most sympathetic to his message. In lieu of this kind of marketing, Hightower contends there were thousands and thousands of progressives who had no idea his show even existed. Hightower contends these same kinds of mistakes and misjudgments marked ABC's attempts at finding liberal-friendly advertisers to sponsor the program. As evidence of this last claim, he points out that the network rejected a $250,000 advertising contract from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters because the spots were deemed to be "advocacy ads." ABC also used this same line of reasoning to force Mother Jones magazine to alter a series of ads it had purchased on the show.
Predictably, the brass at ABC vehemently disagree with many of these assessments of this program's demise. "Hightower Radio was marketed very aggressively," says Frank Raphael, vice president for network programming at ABC Radio. "Unfortunately, even the best marketing plans won't overcome station defection." Asked to characterize the kind of audience Hightower Radio was attracting, Raphael describes it as "shrinking." While the show eventually reached about 150 cities, he says it was never able to penetrate several key regions. "We never got affiliates in Boston, Chicago, or Washington D.C.," Raphael explains. "The station we had in Los Angeles canceled. Our New York City affiliate moved it to late night, where it combined both the Saturday and Sunday shows into one time block. These kinds of things are crippling."
Raphael also takes strong exception to the notion that ABC was scared away by the host's anti-corporate politics. "Hightower was hired because he is controversial. I knew exactly what he was like when I made the decision to bring him to ABC. It's not like I went out into the pumpkin patch and brought in this completely unknown quantity. I've known Jim and the things he stands for for 15 years, so hearing him address the issues he did was in no way surprising.
"Jim Hightower is a terrific guy with an important message," he continues. "We all tried very hard to make his program work. Unfortunately the radio stations didn't respond as we had hoped they would. I hope someone else picks it up. He's a terrific person and I wish him the best of luck."
Indeed, with a little luck there may be a happy ending to this sad episode. Michael Harrison, who edits the monthly talk radio magazine Talkers, feels that Hightower's absence from the airwaves is only temporary. "I am sure that his people will be able to find a new distributor. They produced a good show and a credible show. Moreover, there is significant value to a program that had pulled in 150 stations around the country." To this end, Harrison thinks that the Hightower/ABC pairing was probably doomed from day one. "The expectations in this business are always very high. And big networks like ABC are always looking for a quick success. But shows such as this one take a lot of time and patience to build an audience." While acknowledging that "the new ABC has different goals than the old ABC," Harrison is nonetheless very skeptical of the assertion that Hightower Radio is too politically charged for the mainstream airwaves: "I don't agree with that line of thinking. My opinion is that Jim Hightower's message is not all that controversial. And I personally think that corporate American will put up with just about anything on the air, as long as the ratings are there.
"The Hightower people don't need to make excuses," he adds. "They should just recognize the fact that this is not what ABC wants. It's not a personal rejection - it's just business. They should simply take their production to someone who really wants it, someone who will put more time and attention into marketing the show. There is nothing wrong with their program, it was just not the right fit for ABC. Moving somewhere else isn't the end of the world - it happens all the time in this business." n