I knew talk radio in this country skewed heavily to the far-right, but I had no idea it was this bad.

While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, right-wing talk reigns supreme on America’s airwaves. Some key findings:

* In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.

* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk — 10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

* 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive.

That’s astounding. America embraces progressive ideas on almost every issue of national significance, but according to this report (.pdf), prepared by the Center for American Progress and Free Press, progressive ideas have practically been wiped from the radio dials.