2024 Q2: KLIF Wheels Show
Opening Mostly Abandons Partisan Snark
2024 April 30
A second quarter has completed since Don Grantham and John Ingram became the hosts of Wheels. As such, it is time to take another measure of the partisan balance of the show’s opening. Other than the continued on-air absence of Ed Wallace, the declining partisan content of the show’s opening remains the most conspicuous of the almost imperceptible changes apparent since Don Grantham and John Ingram’s takeover.
As with the first quarter, the format of the show’s open remains unchanged with the same theme music and monologue consisting of three “jokes”. The first “joke’ of the monologue is now largely a barbless musing about being a live show aired from Dallas. The third “joke” of the monologue is almost always an innocuous allusion to being the automotive radio incarnation of some celebrity pairing. For example, Grantham might announce that they are the “Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire of radio”.
As for the second “joke” of the monologue, Grantham continues to call out a specific entity for ridicule. And just as in Q1, the targets of Q2 differ from those lampooned by show openings authored by Wallace.
The following table shows the raw data that was used for the analysis.
As calculated from the above table, the Q2 (February 1, 2024 to April 30, 2024) distribution of partisan snark is equally balanced between Republicans/Right and Democrats/Left. Q2 contained only two instances of partisan snark, one surprisingly presented during the third part of the opening monologue.
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Wheels with David El Attrache and John Ingram Don Grantham |
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Wheels with David El Attrache and John Ingram Don Grantham |
As with 2024 Q1, the 2024 Q2 show opening snark was overwhelmingly nonpartisan.
For what is likely in the first quarter in the history of Wheels, the show opening’s derogatory partisan snark was evenly distributed between targets of the right and left. Instead, Grantham avoided such partisanship. As to why, perhaps the slowly dwindling of sponsors finally became intolerable. Just as likely, Grantham lacks the miniscule work ethic required to write a unique two-minute show opening for every week. With only six months into the show without Wallace putting words into Grantham’s mouth, Grantham is already repeating material.
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Dates |
Show Open -
Duplicative Material |
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2024APR27
|
“Now much more than a wide spot in the
Trinity River.” “From a wide in the Trinity River to
this. And they call that progress.” |
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2024MAR16 |
“And now the Bogey and Bacall of
automotive talk radio” “And now the Bogart and Bacall of
automotive talk radio” |
No matter the reason for this retreat from
airing show openings for Wheels that almost exclusively attacked conservatives,
small victories like this are progress. But the struggle against the fake
news and false narratives that spew from Ed Wallace during the Second Hand News and Backside of American History segments
continues.
-- Related Posts –-
2024 January 30 – 2024 Q1: KLIF Wheels Show Opening's Partisan Snark Tilts at 100% Against Republicans, But With 71% Less Quantity
2023 September 23 – Reruns of KLIF Wheels Never Air, But It Still Has All Been Heard Before
2023 August 3 – 2023 Q4: KLIF
Wheels Show Opening's Partisan Snark Tilts at 100% Against Republicans
