This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

If you've ever flipped through the radio dial, not satellite, not podcasts, but good old-fashioned AM and FM radio, you may have noticed something. First of all, don't stop believing,

it still gets a shocking amount of airtime. It's a great song, but maybe culture should evolve. But also, when it comes to talk radio a lot of it sounds kind of the same

I just be on this highway for a while so figure it's a good time to see what's on the radio.

That is Katie Thornton, reporter in front of the show, and total radio nerd. She started working behind the scenes at radio stations when she was just a teenager. Whenever I go on road trips like this one earlier this year from Minneapolis down to

Memphis or even just sitting around at home I always let the radio be my companion. But for the years I've spent surfing

the radio dial, it's always been clear that on talk radio, one style and one political

perspective tends to dominate.

I'm going to keep surfing now.

Hello and welcome to the Glenbeck program.

This hour we have Mickey Haley on.

Right wing talk radio is everywhere.

Across the US, it's not uncommon for talk radio

in cities and small towns alike to sound like this.

Racial profiling is good for your health.

With the COVID pandemic, gender confusion is being driven by societal mania.

Drill, build a Keystone pipeline, deport illegals, build the wall, defy the federal government.

As of this fall, 17 of the country's 20 biggest radio talk hosts were conservative. Only one was

progressive and that matters because broadcast radio is still a really

important medium. It has a higher reach than television. It's nearly neck and neck with

social media for how Americans get their news. And in studies it often ranks as

the media format that Americans trust the most.

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