Inside Angertainment: The Creative Process

Imagine you are a clever, media-savvy entrepreneur. You thought about getting into television journalism but you never went to J-school. You’re a good writer—perhaps you’ll write a screenplay or look for work in television. But as you look around, you see and read about people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham. They have become wildly successful and seem to be extremely influential. The thought strikes you—maybe you could get into that provocative, self-promoting, profitable angertainment business. Where would you go? What would it take?

The Media

In the early days of angertainment, you needed some experience in radio. You had to compete with DJs, shock jocks, and other talent looking for work in AM radio. Or, if you had money or rich relatives, maybe you could buy yourself a radio station. Of course you needed to develop a line of conservative, libertarian, or post-apocalyptic patter. Middle-of-the-road? Boring. Thats for the nerds on NPR. Liberal? You could look into that. The Libs tried it with the Air America experiment. It didn’t work. And looking for work at the so-called liberal or establishment media—you needed that J-school degree and experience.

When Fox News went on the air, the range of opportunities expanded. There were lots more opportunities—at least to get in on the ground floor. If you didn’t have enough money to buy a radio station, then television was out of the question—or was it? Cable systems were providing local access channels. That was a possibility. Overall, if you wanted to be an angertainer, you still needed a portfolio and you had to get past gatekeepers.

The Internet changed everything.

In the era of Angertainment 3.0, the cost of getting into the angertainment industry dropped to “negligible.” Email, blogging, social media, podcasts, Internet TV—the options simply kept expanding. Tools for monetizing your content were developed and expanded. If you could get attention and gain followers, that would provide you with the portfolio you needed to get a gig at a larger, more established business. You had a career path.

Perhaps as a guest expert. A panelist. Maybe someday it would turn into a multimillion-dollar hosting job.

Content Creator/Presenter

As a wannabe in the angertainment 3.0 era there is no barrier to getting access to media. You just have to come up with content. You could go old school. Do research. Interview sources. Write hard-hitting, factual reports on issues. Or not.

Producers and content creators in the angertainment industry wake up in the morning with one thought on their minds. What can we say or “put out there” that will engage or enrage our audience? What can we do to keep people listening, viewing, and clicking?

While anger is the most important emotional hook they use, they will also be looking for humor—especially parody and ridicule—that they can apply to the people they have set up as enemies.

As a producer, you are always in need of subjects for a good rant. Listening to the beginning of any major angertainment hosts program—the first 10 to 15 minutes will typically be a monologue. The host will identify the subject and then begin riffing on it like a jazz soloist. These monologues are effectively a kind of theme and variations. Pick a subject: something in the news or some unfortunate person. Describe how awful, stupid, foolish, and un-American the subject is. Then repeat using different words. Repeat again, with new examples of the subjects awfulness. Make jokes about the subject. Repeat. Repeat.

Perhaps it’s something in today’s news. But if it’s a slow news day you can always go back to timeless topics. Hillary Clinton, woke-ness, the liberal bias of the lamestream media—these are some of the golden oldies. Angertainment audiences will never tire of hearing them thoroughly and completely beaten down.

The Look and Feel of Journalism

One manufacturing effective angertainment content is creating a sense of verisimilitude. No matter what the host/author/contributor is saying or writing, it has to be believable. That poses a challenge because a great deal of angertainment content, is rumor, innuendo, unfounded conspiracy theory, misrepresentation of facts, and at times, provable falsehoods.

This is where angertainment piggybacks on its adversaries in the “lamestream” media. Angertainment borrows the look and feel of journalism. The angertainer assumes the role. Angertainment producers create panel discussions that mimic news programs like Face the Nation. Radio hosts present with the authority of journalists, web content providers create written material that fits inside the AP Stylebook guidelines, and throughout the day audiences are exposed to realistically produced news-like content. Angertainment provides “stuff” that looks and sounds like journalism without taking the time or going to the expense of actual reporting.

Journalism Versus Content Creation

Where angertainment lives, there are no journalistic standards. When real news organizations—notably those like The New York Times—make a mistake, they print a correction. When angertainers make a mistake they double down on it as long as it sounds good. On a slow news day, the angertainment producer will try anything to see if it sticks—if it provokes their audiences.

Angertainment 3.0 has provided content creators with a huge advantage compared to the early days of angertainment 1.0: website statistics. Using click rates, sharing data, and other tools producers have nearly instant feedback about what is working to excite their audiences. They can react quickly, drop weak content, and increase their emphasis on the content that fully engages.

The angertainment producer can scour the Internet and any other sources for content no matter how unlikely or inflammatory with all-purpose, libel-proof lines such as: “We have heard...,” “We have seen reports...,” and “[source name] said...” These kinds of attributions insulate the angertainer. They are telling the truth, at least in the sense that the producers actually heard or read whatever is being reported. The other unspoken truth is that they have made little or no effort to verify the facts they are reporting. They don’t have to. They are not journalists.

Angertainment offers other regular approaches to content. “Whataboutism” is a favorite. The angertainer opens the segment with a statement about something in the news. Perhaps something critical or embarrassing to someone supported by the angertainer. Then comes the pivot. “So, what about...?” The host continues, going on the attack.

Angertainers also like to play their greatest hits. In a time when engagement slows down, the experienced host can draw on any number of favorite targets from the past. Rush Limbaugh, for example, could fill a segment just saying the words “Hillary Clinton” in a variety of derisive tones. Obamacare? Any angertainer worth their salt can fill 15 minutes to half an hour with angry rhetoric.

Political Content

Angertainers have a close, visceral relationship with their audiences. They understand exactly how to engage and enrage them. Conservative think tanks spend weeks and months crafting reports and policy papers. They are tuned into the issues their funders care about; they’re crafting the policies, rules, and deregulation required to help the funders get their way. An angertainer, on the other hand, can read the top line of the report and start riffing. The angertainment producer will know in minutes if the audience cares. If yes, it’s a hit. It could go on to be a greatest hit. And the think tank funders investment will pay off. But if there is no angertainment value, then it’s on to the next topic, and the funders will have to go the long way around to achieve their goals: lobbying and financially supporting influential politicians.

Republican politicians face a special challenge when they champion an issue. If their press releases or appearances generate audience outrage and engagement, the politician has instant “focus group” feedback. They know how their position will play within 24 hours. In angertainment, engagement is everything. How does the content impact, affect, engage, enrage, and otherwise engage the audience.

One of the cardinal rules of angertainment: this ain’t journalism. Don’t bore audiences with facts—just give us a good story.

The Real Business: Selling Audiences

Angertainment content is important. It’s what gets all the attention.

First the content seizes the attention of the viewers, listeners, and clickers. Content is everything to them, as they seek explanations, certainty, and amusement in an uncertain world. Beyond its audience, angertainment content seizes the attention of politicians all along the political spectrum. Those favored by the angertainers want to know what battle lines are currently being drawn.

Opponents look for strategic intelligence—where the battle lines are today and hints about upcoming attacks. Journalists and pundits need to know what’s going on in the angertainment world so they can provide informed reports, analysis, and opinions. Political scientists and pollsters use angertainment content to theorize about the electorate, set up research studies, and parse polling data.

Angertainment content demands the attention of a vast number of people. Yet, as big a role as it plays in the human information universe, it is not “the product” of the angertainment industry.

The product—the stuff that angertainers are actually selling—are the eyes, ears, and wallets of their audiences. In the most accurate terminology that covers all the channels of communication; angertainment is selling audience “engagement.” The more engagement an angertainment source can create, the more money it can produce.

Revenue Streams

Advertising is the king—the biggest and most important revenue stream. Angertainment ads keep AM radio alive, earn over $1 billion a year for Fox, and underwrite the clicks, shares, and posts of Internet-based angertainment. Overall, advertising is a multibillion-dollar revenue stream.

Direct marketing adds more millions and possibly billions. Efforts to underwrite right-wing content via direct marketing date back to the pre-angertainment era. Direct marketing began with books and subscriptions; they still provide a lot of revenue, especially for angertainment stars. The books, especially those written under the names of major angertainment hosts, occupy high spots on the bestseller lists. As you move down the angertainment pecking order, you’ll find more books and lots of products as well. As a result of the lawsuits brought against him, we know that Alex Jones earned as much as $64 million selling supplements to his listeners/viewers while engaging their attention with lies about the murders of children at Sandy Hook.

Live Shows. While advertising and direct marketing make up the bulk of the business, angertainment has other revenue streams. Angertainers earn millions with personal appearances. They sell tickets, pack the halls, and sell more merchandise. Rush Limbaugh pioneered the personal appearance tour to help build the audience for his radio show. As in so many things, the rest of the angertainment crowd has followed in his footsteps.

Cable Network Fees. Fox News earns additional revenue by selling the right to carry its content to cable systems. A lot of money. Fox gets approximately two dollars a month from every cable subscriber whether the subscriber watches Fox or not. This added up to $1.8 billion annually in revenue in 2022.

Subscriptions, etc. Popular angertainers can engage with followers and provide exclusive, paywall-protected content. As in any other field, loyal followers are prepared to subscribe and pay for the privilege. Podcasts are another source of revenue.

The world of “content creation” is packed with ways for people to “monetize” whatever they are saying/writing/producing. The Angertainment Industry uses every one of them. After all, they are simply a subset of the “content creator” world.

The Bottom Line

Angertainment content is valuable. It’s well done, slick, and sophisticated. Angertainers understand their audiences need for validation, vindication, and simple answers to complicated questions. Above all, it is entertaining. The production values are slick and the presentations can be very funny (to the angertainment audiences).

Angertainment is addictive. People who tune into various media get hooked. It is cheap to produce and generates billions of dollars in revenues annually. And today, as it has evolved, it has become a huge cash cow for some big businesses and a tremendous opportunity for enterprising anger-preneurs.

So You Want to Be a Star?

Show business is a tough racket. It takes a lot more than talent to become a star. It takes context, luck, and persistence. Journalism, with all the recent contraction of the newspaper industry, is a similarly daunting place to earn big-time success. Opportunities for anchors and hosts in television journalism are rare. Even getting a gig as a reporter or a contributor—those are big breaks and not easy to obtain.

So what are smart, talented, well-trained college media major graduates to do? Will they take the time required to work their way through the ranks, compete with hundreds of equally talented and competitive people, and hope to break through into a big job at a major news organization? Or might it be worth considering alternative paths to a starring role and financial success?

This is another instance where Rush Limbaugh paved the way. In the space of four years Limbaugh arose from the ranks of the unemployed to regional success to national phenomenon. His income grew exponentially.

If you want to be a star quickly, the angertainment industry offers more opportunities and less competition than any branch of serious journalism.

Job Qualifications

The job qualifications for an angertainer are minimal: be smart, clever, quick on your feet. If hosting is your goal, you need to be able to take a subject and rant on it—deliver an entertaining monologue that amuses a likeminded audience and skewers the opposition. The most prominent angertainers appear on television perhaps as their primary job or at least as a way to expand their audience and their brand. Looking good on television and being quick with a quip, and being good at delivering soundbites will be very helpful.

Good interviewing skills are needed. The angertainment host needs to be ready to ask leading questions to get the carefully vetted guest to stay on topic and reinforce todays message. When dealing with the occasional guest who offers an opposing view, the host needs to be ready to cut off, talk over, and quash contradictory opinions and facts.

Overall, a career in angertainment requires moral, philosophical, and ethical flexibility. The angertainer must be impervious to hypocrisy, and prepared to celebrate right-wing victories and “owning the libs.”

The Career Ladder

As in any other branch of the entertainment industry, newcomers may need to work their way up through the ranks. The hierarchy reaches its apex at Fox News, where primetime superstars abide. But angertainment requires content 24/7 and so there are hundreds of next-level jobs—lead performers in opinion and infotainment programs on cable TV, web TV talk shows.

The Three Ps make up the next tier of angertainment stalwarts: politicians, pundits, and pollsters.

The politicians seek constant exposure so they are always willing to fill airtime. And since the angertainment audience wants controversy and things to be upset about, the politicians who go on angertainment shows learn to lean into controversies. They attack and work to embarrass the libs. In a sense, they learn how to mug for the cameras and microphones. Their behavior appeals to the audiences, it helps them further develop their on-stage personas, and the experience may help prepare them for a future, well-paid career in angertainment—an alternative to a future well-paid career as a lobbyist.

Pundits provide a steady stream of content. For the most part they will be people who support, in some way, the theme of the moment. They may even be individuals who create the theme: outrage at some government program, an attack on some liberal politician, an inside scoop on some left-wing conspiracy.

Pollsters are self-interested. They want people to pay attention to their polls so exposure in the media—even angertainment media—is a good thing. The polling industry, like the rest of the nation, has become polarized, though. Some pollsters are more likely to produce surveys whose results fit angertainment narratives better. They are the pollsters most likely to get airtime.

Following the Three Ps you find the starlets and wannabes. They can break into angertainment as part of the layer of supporting cast. This includes current and former politicians, retired military officers, thought leaders from think tanks, talented commentators from anywhere. If you go on the Internet in some way and get the attention of an angertainment producer—that could be your big break.

Now, in the angertainment 3.0 era, entrepreneurship will allow anyone to have a place in the industry. All it takes is a smartphone. It may be helpful to have exposure and some kind of experience, but it’s not necessary.

The Business Case for Angertainment

This is where angertainment shines. Profitability.

Real journalism is expensive. Serious reporters, producers, writers, and hosts/anchors must be paid. Real journalism takes time. Weeks may go by and a reporting team won’t produce any content. There are incidental expenses such as fact checking.

Real journalism exists in a highly competitive environment. Although the Internet has played havoc with the economics of journalism, there are still major newspapers and major networks competing for the services of proven professional journalists. Magazines, physical and online, have the advantage of relying on less costly freelance writing, but many still employ full-time professionals as well.

Local and regional journalism has been devastated by the Internet. Many cities and towns have become news deserts. Still, serious journalism has a heartbeat and alternative news media are evolving. The challenge for real reporters everywhere: money.

Angertainment is cheap to produce. The hosts/stars are handsomely paid and it may require an investment in studio sets, lighting, and the other trappings of journalism. But once you have a cast, set, and people to run the show, there are not many additional expenses. From a corporate perspective, angertainment is a way to print money, as Fox News has demonstrated. Since its founding, it has steadily shed the expense and pretense of doing serious journalism. It has focused on prime-time angertainment. Profits have soared.

Angertainment talk radio has kept the AM radio business alive. Consolidations turned a few businesses that now run most AM stations into extremely profitable enterprises with angertainment as their primary content.

The promise of profits has led many smaller businesses into angertainment. The One American News Network, Newsmax, and others are examples.

The profit potential of angertainment carries over to the personal level as well. There’s big money out there for those individuals who become angertainment celebrities and political influencers. Individuals can monetize their celebrity by landing high-paying jobs as hosts. They can earn big personal appearance fees. They can sell books. And as live angertainers leverage their celebrity, they create more opportunities in a profitable, virtuous circle.

For individuals, angertainment also offers the ideal bootstrap entrepreneur opportunity. The Internet allows people to be paid per click. All an enterprising, would-be angertainer has to do is find a forum and share some effective angertainment content. If angertainment entrepreneurs gain followers, they can rise to the level of influencer and be paid to promote products and services (and themselves). Add a few more followers and mix in some notoriety and blossoming angertainers will receive invitations to radio and video shows. Then they are on their way to becoming supporting cast members and, with a little luck, possibly highly paid angertainment stars.

They can achieve all of this without investing the time and effort required to learn how to do serious journalism.

The Industry—It’s All About Engagement

The power of angertainment lies in the engagement of its audiences. The IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) defines engagement as “a spectrum of consumer advertising activities and experiences—cognitive, emotional, and physical—that will have a positive impact on a brand.”

In the realm of tabloid print journalism and local television news, there’s an old saying: if it bleeds, it leads. As a result, readers and viewers enter a world where murders, assaults, fires, and car wrecks are commonplace daily and nightly occurrences. People who rely on this kind of news coverage routinely overestimate the amount of murder and mayhem that actually occurs in their communities.

Angertainment carries this philosophy into the political world. In many instances it combines real-world blood and trauma with standard angertainment themes, placing blame for real-world disasters and mayhem. If something bad happens, angertainers are adept at finding Democrats, liberals, tree huggers, feminists, and others to blame.

Engagement is the key that unlocks the profits for businesses and individuals.

Think back to the glory days of the Roman Empire—the games—violence, blood on the arena floor. It’s visceral. Primal. Then look at angertainment today. Injustice. We were wronged. A nation on the brink.

The same powerful emotional forces are at work. Only today, the production is slicker, the edges are sharper, and more powerful. The engagement is stronger. And that is what makes angertainment so powerful and profitable.

Angertainment has a proven track record. Whether you are selling gold, silver, vitamin supplements, survivalist gear, prepper supplies, or premium bed sheets and pillows, angertainment advertising works. It moves products.