On its face, quantifying the conservative domination of talk-radio is about as valuable as studying the leftward lean in women's studies departments at American universities. The conventional wisdom is that during the 1980s, talk-radio tapped into a substantial group of angry, white and mostly male listeners who blamed their perceived loss of influence on what they believed were real powers in American society: feminists, gays, black kids applying for affirmative action programs and potty-mouthed Hollywood screenwriters. It was a niche market -- AM radio was a dying format waiting for an infusion of energy -- and the Limbaughs and Hannitys gave the people what they wanted.

But if that were all there was to the phenomenon, a new report by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press on right-wing talk's domination of the airwaves wouldn't be causing as much chagrin among conservative commentators as it has. The report, (PDF), "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," is stirring up the right-wing squawkers because its analysis flies in the face of conventional wisdom; Right-wing talk doesn't dominate AM radio because of the magical hand of a functional free market, it dominates thanks to multiple market failures. Even worse, those failures represent a strong case for better regulation of what goes out on the public's airwaves.

The report contrasts the amount of right-wing talk -- nine out of every ten hours broadcast on talk-radio is exclusively conservative -- with a talk-radio audience that, according to Pew Research, identifies itself as follows: forty-three percent of regular talk radio listeners are conservative, while "23 percent identify as liberal and 30 percent as moderate." In other words, fewer than half of those listening to some of the most feverish voices on the right are themselves self-identified conservatives.

The report also shows that in markets where progressive and liberal talk has proven itself to be competitive, conservative programming still dominates the airwaves. The authors note: "[A]lthough there is a clear demand and proven success of progressive talk" in these markets, "station owners still elect to stack the airwaves with one-sided broadcasting." In radio, the "market" simply isn't meeting consumers' tastes.

That observation is what has so many on the right up in arms about the report (the Center for American Progress reports that they have never received such "vitriol" following the publication of previous studies). The report found evidence to support what critics of media concentration have long maintained: that for some media owners, advancing a series of political narratives can be just as much in their interest as a healthy bottom line ever was.

An analysis of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations found that stations "owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows." In contrast, "stations controlled by group owners--those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market--were statistically more likely to air conservative talk." Markets that aired both conservative and progressive programming were "less concentrated than the markets that aired only one type of programming and were more likely to be the markets that had female- and minority-owned stations."

Meanwhile, the national trend is towards ever more concentrated media companies -- local ownership is becoming harder and harder to find in many American markets. Advocates of deregulation have long insisted that it would lead to more rather than less diverse viewpoints on the airwaves, but the opposite has occurred.

Ultimately, that speaks to one of the key issues in media reform -- and one that most observers on the right refuse to acknowledge: Radio broadcasts are only possible using tens of billions of dollars worth of public airwaves. The promises of self-regulation have proven ineffective when it comes to the public's airwaves. That's dues as much to cultural changes in the industry as anything else; those airwaves once came with a sense of responsibility -- an understanding that broadcasters were in some way holding up their end of a public trust -- that is increasingly hard to find in corporate America today. Combined with three decades of almost obsessive deregulation, that cultural shift, ultimately, is the issue that the report's authors argue is among the most important in understanding talk radio's structural imbalance:

[T]he gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.
Conservatives like Jonah Goldberg and Michelle Malkin have argued -- falsely -- that the report calls for the enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine. The authors, in fact, are very clear about the fact that the Fairness Doctrine would not address the issue, and never called for its enforcement (contrary to popular belief, it was never repealed).

What the report does call for is restoring local and national caps on media ownership -- limits on how many stations can be owned by one large firm -- more local input into licensing decisions and a renewed commitment to enforceable and fair public interest rules.

Those things shouldn't be left versus right; there are certainly an abundance of issues that concern the grass-roots of the conservative movement that the media won't cover.

But that's only true if one begins with the premise that the media has an important role in keeping the electorate informed. At the end of the day, that's the antithesis of right-wing talk.