The Right Stuff from a Lefty Trio

The Young Turks and their talk show could be blazing a new career path: Start on the Internet, build a following, then move into mainstream radio and TV

The world of TV news and talk radio is changing. Need proof? Look no further than a smallish third-floor office along a slightly faded section of Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard -- not exactly the center of the media universe. That cramped office serves as home to the Young Turks, a trio of left-leaning talk-show commentators. The Turks are opinionated, articulate, and bred on the freedom of the Internet, which can bring fame with the click of a mouse.

The Turks, all under 40 and with an infectious zeal for lampooning the right-wing Establishment, are fun to watch and listen to. "Liar," the head Turk, 35-year-old Cenk Uygur, spits into his microphone throughout President Bush's Saturday morning radio show. "Bastard," says 25-year-old Jill Pike of another offending right-wing pol. The Turks recently televised a 99-hour "filibuster" online to encourage Senate Democrats to mount their own talkathon to block the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.

SMALL COMMUNITIES. But the Turks are more than just entertaining. They represent what could constitute traditional media's worst nightmare: the ability to bypass gatekeepers and bring a message directly to a niche audience tired of the same old stuff they're getting elsewhere. "It's the democratization of the media," says Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Internet media consultants Forrester Research.

In contrast to traditional radio and TV, the Internet allows for the creation of communities, often based on niche interests. The Turks' audience isn't large: maybe 100,000 a week. But that amounts to enough to get advertisers for their Web-cast TV show and contracts with Sirius Satellite (SIRI ) radio and three local radio stations.

If Big Media isn't paying attention, it ought to. The Internet has a way of producing overnight sensations (anyone hear of MySpace two years ago?). And while it probably won't be The Young Turks, it wouldn't surprise me if some Web-based show breaks out soon. Besides, ratings for traditional news have been dropping. The Big Three newscasts draw 18% fewer viewers than they did a decade ago, according to Nielsen Media numbers. Even the cable networks are seeing their audiences fall: Fox News (FOX ) dropped by 14% in the most recent quarter, and CNN (TWX ) decreased by 5%, says Nielsen.

BARE MINIMUM. That a show like The Young Turks can come to life at all attests to the ease of entry into the news business. Launched by Uygur, a Wharton grad and onetime lawyer, it received financing mostly from his father and some investment-banker types he met along the way. Pike joined up instead of making TV pilots. The third member, 38-year-old Ben Mankiewicz, is a Columbia Journalism School graduate and the son of Frank Mankiewicz, who served as a press secretary for Robert Kennedy.

The Turks started out making radio shows streamed to their Web site, and only recently jumped into video when they couldn't get a pilot picked up by MSNBC (GE ) or CNN (TWX ). Their studio isn't fancy. It has three digital camcorders trained on the Turks, while three twentysomething technicians work at computers on the other side of a glass wall. An intern handles the phones.

What makes these newbies so intriguing is how they've strung together a distribution network and acquired enough eyeballs (and ears) to get their message out. The show draws decent enough ratings on the three local radio stations that carry it on weekends, in Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Wichita. It's turned into a popular iPod (AAPL ) download, and soon (EBAY ) will offer podcasts for $1 a pop. Talks are underway as well with Al Gore's Current TV liberal cable channel.

MARATHON VENTING. No, it ain't CNN. It's DNN -- Digital News Network. The Turks make for the perfect marriage of message and medium, offering alternatives in both content and delivery. In their rush to create an online presence that looks and sounds very much like traditional TV, the large networks have lost sight of what made the Internet unique in the first place: that an infinite variety of offerings can create intimate relationships between a site and its visitors.

The Young Turks get it, and they're only too happy to share it -- for 99 hours straight if need be.

READER COMMENTS

Grover is BusinessWeek's Los Angeles bureau chief
Edited by Patricia O'Connell

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