It’d also be very interesting to go back to the “big tent” era of network broadcasting to tease out some more of this explicitly conservative material. Michael Landon’s entire ouevre seems pretty important here; like your Waltons-only family, I knew of one family that was only allowed to watch Little House on the Prairie! Massive nostalgia for an imagined pre-60s America obviously going on with these texts, though it also shows up elsewhere at the time (e.g., Happy Days, though that was much more of a big tent show).

Simply put, obviously Rush has done this for a long time, but stocking the flames of victimization, marginalization, and seething anger is, well, big business. Ann Coulter certainly cashed in. Bernie Goldberg, Jonah Goldberg, and all the other Icebergs are doing just fine as well. I have been interested for years in this internetwork of right-wing commercialism in the political-religious vein. Richard Viguere’s book America’s Right Turn charts this out from an organizational-ideological perspective (though he is a cheerleader, not a critic or scholar). But it seems there is a book waiting to happen for someone who wants to chart the political economy of right-wing media production.

Also, let’s remember that Ailes produced Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated television program, which lasted on the air for about two years, I believe (I have videotape of that if you ever need it). Definitely warming up his chops with that as well.

RightNetwork–like NET and AT–does seem a complete product of the post-network era of niche marketing. So, no TV explicitly targeting right-wingers during the “mass” network era? Yes and no. On the one hand, much “mass” TV was very much targeted to a conservative constituency (there was a kid from an uber-conservative family in my 4th grade class who was ONLY allowed to watch The Waltons, and we were all so sad for him…but that’s a story for another day), and one could go on and on about the various kinds of conservative programming, before cable, peacefully or not so peacefully coexisting alongside Fred Silverman’s jiggle TV, Lear’s “relevant” shows, etc.

On the other hand, there were tons of explicitly right-wing radio shows, and a smaller number of right-wing TV shows, picked up locally throughout the US in the post-Goldwater years–all shows not even pretending to be for “everyone,” and really targeting a niche. Before cable this seemed particularly weird, but it did happen. Millions of people in the US watched anti-Civil Rights “public service” TV programs throughout almost the entire decade of the 1960s, produced in particular by the White Citizen’s Council (see Steve Classen’s fine book) and Dan Smoot (as per my forthcoming book on cold war right wing broadcasting).

As for Ailes and his “master plan” to draw in the “suckers,” as Derek so aptly puts it, it’s interesting to consider his pre-cable venture, The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. It’s got clear conservative intentions, but is restrained by two things. 1) Snyder has all the wit and intelligence of a very damp sock. 2) Anxious about being attacked for being UNfair and UNbalanced in the pre-deregulation days, Ailes programs people from the far right and far left (or, more precisely, from the far right and from the punk rock scene), so you end up with programs that open with Rev. Donald Wildmon, then show Wendy O’Williams blow up a car. It’s ultimately just plain weird and politically incoherent, and though Ailes wants to veer right, he can’t quite pull it off. In sum, even if there were shows that appealed in particular to the right in the pre-cable days, Ailes apparently needed cable and deregulation to make his master plan really work.

As I said, I don’t see it as left-right really issue and I’m not sure that blue state-red state is useful here. If I had to pick a large demographic most concerned with sex and marriage my guess (and yes, just a guess) would be Catholics, who are concentrated in blue states (NY, IL, MA, NJ) and vote bluer than average.

Absolutely, this is no reason to vilify Hollywood, but I think we do a disservice when we don’t consider things like this a real issue.

Third, when this was a hot-button issue after the 2004 elections (when so-called “values voters” were seen as being responsible for Bush getting reelected, and as a constituency that the media had been ignoring), Hollywood was keen to release Nielsen data that showed Desperate Housewives and other seriously sexed-up shows played really really well in red states, and not just in the bluer parts of those states. The porn industry followed up by noting their similar success in such areas. I’m always amused by American depictions of Brits as repressed, when the American capacity for sexual repression far eclipses England’s. Perhaps you’re right that people are hating Hollywood rather than (or in addition to) themselves while they’re watching all that sex, but for them to turn premarital sex on TV into a sign of The Great Liberal Evil is therefore yet another act of profound misdirection.

More than anything it’s about much less controversial sex. There are very few characters (I can’t think of one…) on network television who I can say, with certainty, believe that one shouldn’t be have sex outside of marriage (I realize that statement has a funny ontology, but you understand). There are, however, lots of perfectly reasonable Americans who hold such an opinion, even if they’re not much inclined to blog about it or bother people outside their families about it etc.

Personally I don’t see this as a left-right issue, but I think it’s the kind of thing they’re playing off of. The problem is that you get bigger headlines further to the margins where, indeed as Jonathan notes, you’re not enlightening anybody.

It’s sort of Dutch Pillar Systemish and I suppose at least you ostensibly know where the people stand when you watch their shows. My greatest fear is that it gains a big presence and people who make their money narrowcasting gain even further control over a key political concept like conservativism.

Thus, Ailes’ master plan is basically to keep fanning the flames of resentment towards the “liberal media” enough to keep the suckers rolling in to his media venture. If it helps elect politicians who’ll help him get even richer, even better. Sure, in the very long run it’ll have diminishing returns as their most loyal audience literally dies off (Fox News has the oldest audience of any basic cable channel, by a pretty wide margin), but what does Ailes care? He’ll have cashed it in for some kick-ass Costa Rican beach villa by that point.