The Mitch Henck Maneuver

Mitch Henck has been a voice in Madison for quite some time. I do not know Mitch Henck personally, but have listened to him off and on for many years now. I have even called his show a few times. When I was in my car I liked listening to him on occasion on WIBA-AM(although I felt as time went on he moved further and further right from his original moderate stances).

Then this happened:

Some 18 months after he battled back from a stroke to return to the airwaves, Mitch Henck on Monday hosted his last “Outside the Box” talk show for WIBA-AM radio.

Henck, 52, said he was laid off Monday, ending a career of more than a dozen years as an independent local voice for Madison radio listeners on 1310 AM. The only break came when he missed fewer than 100 days recuperating from a stroke suffered in his home in October 2012.

Henck said Monday he was told the decision was budget-related, not a matter of declining ratings.

“It’s a corporate thing,” he said. “The ratings were good. It was a matter of cutbacks.”

So right wing talk radio(which by all accounts is flourishing nationwide, and we know is well funded) had to lay Henck off because of budget reasons. I believe they replaced him with nationally syndicated Jesus Budgeter Dave Ramsey.

In Madison, WI, one of the most liberal cities in the country, Clear Channel(same owners of WIBA), decided to start a Progressive talk station (FM 92.1) with the rise of the (since bankrupted) Air America. Once Air America went bankrupt, for numerous reasons, mostly because founder Evan Cohen(full disclosure – Cohen was a classmate of mine and Vicky Pyzinski’s at Beloit College) had some problems with bad loans.

While Air America closed their doors, progressive talk has done fairly well when given the opportunity. They have won their market share and beaten many of the righty talkers when all things were equal. In Madison, just as you would expect they have done fairly well, considering they have been treated like the red headed step child by their right wing owners.

Then Tim Scott, their AM operations manager, had a brilliant idea. Instead of allowing progressive talk to be heard on one station in progressive Madison, WI, he would rearrange the deck so that the morning drive time could be filled with right wing talk and the progressive talk, that Madison had grown to really enjoy(Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann) would be tape delayed thus limiting their effectiveness.

Scott, brought Mitch Henck back to his employ and put his same WIBA show on The Mic 92.1. The last thing that we need in this city/state is the ability to hear anything other than far right wing talk droning in our ears all day. Hence the Henck Maneuver.

Now Mitch Henck has taken over he airwaves on Madison’s “progressive talk” with such “progressives” as Phil Kerpen from Koch funded Americans for Prosperity(the group that was found to be lying about every single Anti Obamacare ad they put out), Nesbusters.org to decry the “liberal media” and tell us what an amazing news source Fox News is, a low level WI Republican Senate staffer to ell us God knows what of value, and David Blaska to discuss the Madison Schools despite having no ties or information about the Madison Schools.

I have no problem with these people, no matter how crazy or sold out they are, having a voice on the radio but I believe there seems to be plenty of other outlets for them besides the one Progressive talk station around? Is Progressive talk outperforming far right wing talk so much that they can afford the budget of Mitch Henck that WIBA -AM can not? Thom Hartmann has right wingers on his show all the time, which he uses the time to peacefully challenge their ideas. Mitch Henck, has these far right wingers on his show to give the uncredible – credibility.

It is very unfortunate.