An Update on the Dr. Laura Program

 

The Dr. Laura Program got moved from SiriusXM 111 to 123.

That doesn’t mean anything to those who listen through paying for her specific subscription on her website, which then allows them to listen to the podcast of show directly from her website or through services like Apple Podcasts.

However, for casual listeners on SiriusXM, who might not have listened to her many reminders she was moving, it can mean they think she’s gone from SiriusXM.

So, she lost some listeners.

And it’s not the first time she was moved on that service.

What’s more, there are STILL people who listened to her on terrestrial radio who are unaware she’s been on SiriusXM since she left terrestrial radio and others who simply didn’t bother to listen via the service or pay for the podcast version of her show.

She’d already been struggling to get callers in recent years. The move hasn’t helped.

As a result, since the holiday break, there have been days she has changed the format for the last hour or so of her three hours. Instead of people calling her with their problems or dilemmas, she’ll announce a topic or a question and encourage people to call in with their response. This is more like traditional talk radio.

The problem with that is Dr. Laura isn’t used to traditional talk radio. She’s explicitly said many times that she doesn’t argue or debate. She makes the question or topic so narrow or specific that she gets callers she claims aren’t on-topic even though they are addressing many of the elements involved, and she puts them on hold or drops them without engaging. She usually has a specific narrative in her head she wants the callers to say, and of course many say something else, which might undermine the point she’s trying to make.

Her regular format consists of her giving a monologue about something, which casual listeners naturally assume is the topic for the hour or the day, which is incorrect. Because the rest of the time is taking calls on “anything other than politics,” with the first caller often having an issue that was addressed in the monologue (gee, what a surprise! Totally random, right? I mean it’s not like staff had that caller lined up already or anything). The callers are props; the point of the show is for Dr. Laura to pontificate, often using the caller as a negative example, and to occasionally slip in her political asides without allowing calls addressing those asides. When you realize the true point of her show, her constant interruptions of the callers and chastising them for not immediately stopping the moment she interrupts makes sense. Sometimes, the callers are helped. That’s a happy byproduct rather than the goal, most of the time.

With the lack of callers, it’s not hard for anyone to call and reach the screener. But you don’t even have to call. You can email the show and staff might call you to encourage you to come on the show as a caller.

While I now have a problems with her tactics, demeanor, hiding from her past, and some the advice she gives, I’m glad Dr. Laura is still teaching the people who are able to find her to:

-Take personal responsibility for their life in an honorable and ethical way

-Avoid misandry (in most cases) and treat good husbands well

-Not freak out about the existence or viewing of adult media

-Prioritize their minor children if they have them

-Not date parents of minor children or at least avoid the children knowing about them

-Not live together (unmarried)

-Not electively kill their child

-Not treat boys like defective girls

-Get their children out of public schools

…and probably many more things.