Julie Fanselow: Valley needs a choice; give Schultz another try

If you are alive and breathing in the Treasure Valley, you probably know that KBOI added Rush Limbaugh to its lineup on New Year's Day. The radio station spent a sack of money on ads making sure everyone got the news.

Now, did you know that the nation's top progressive radio talk show host, Ed Schultz, was on the air in southwestern Idaho until a few weeks before Election Day 2008? Hmmm, I didn't think so. In fact, when I recently mentioned this to a friend who actually works in local radio, he said he had no idea that Schultz had been on Boise's airwaves.

Schultz - a former Republican from Fargo, N.D. - has just the sort of common-sense, heartland insight that has turned so many Americans from the George W. Bush years' cynical "you're on your own" refrain toward Barack Obama's view that we're all in this together. I was a faithful "Ed Head" listener each day as I wound down from work and made dinner. I remember how last June, while talking about the Exxon-Valdez settlement, Schultz took a call from a small commercial fisherman who phoned from his boat in Alaska. Schultz grilled him on how the corporate-friendly settlement screwed over Northwestern fisherfolk, but you could tell his real glee was talking with the dude about what rigs he used to catch salmon.

When Schultz's show disappeared from KFXD in October after little more than a year on the air, I called the station (now KIDO) to ask why. An employee told me that Schultz lacked an audience and advertisers. I question the latter, since there always seemed to be plenty of national and local ads on the show. But I wouldn't be surprised if the show drew few listeners since Peak Broadcasting never put much effort into promoting it.

So as we enter 2009, Idaho's commercial airwaves are once again awash in regressive voices. Why won't a local station offer an Idaho-friendly antidote to the toxic talk now dominating our radio landscape? If Idahoans who spend their days listening to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage would give the Ed Schultz Show a try, they'd surely find they have more in common with this hunting, fishing, truck-driving guy with a dog named Buck than they do with his bloviating Republican brethren, never mind low-rent Idaho wanna-be's like Rupert's Zeb Bell.

I recently heard Bill Sali guest-hosting on KBOI. A caller asked about the Fairness Doctrine, which - at one time, before it was upended by the Reagan administration - required radio stations to air a range of political viewpoints. Sali dismissed the idea, saying there just aren't any liberal voices who can survive in the free market. Yet Ed Schultz ranked eighth among Talkers magazine's 2008 "Heavy Hundred" top hosts, three notches above the fast-fading Bill O'Reilly. He's heard on more than 100 affiliates (including KPTQ in Spokane, serving North Idaho), Armed Forces Radio and both major satellite networks. Don't tell me that, given decent promotion, he couldn't make it in the Boise market.

Treasure Valley radio executives: It's time to give your listeners a choice. Respect the fact that nearly a quarter-million people in Idaho voted for President Obama, including more than 100,000 of us in Ada and Canyon counties. We want alternatives to talk radio's tired, old haters.

In the meantime, I can hear Big Eddie's show on the Internet. But I'd rather support a local station and its advertisers, and I'd wager that many Valley businesses would rather air their messages on radio shows that neither turn listeners' stomachs nor insult our intelligence.

Julie Fanselow is communications director for the Idaho Democratic Party.