Air America has gone from a low point of three stations to their current status, being in 45 markets (with this week's additions of Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Cincinnati) and having gained support of Clear Channel Communications

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/0,,SB110616841893830479,00.html

I don't listen to talk radio.. so I don't care either way, but I still think it's funny to see the right wing proved wrong again.

Yeah, there was an article in my local paper about this today.  Just goes to show that as far as these corporations go, make a buck any way you can.  I guess that's something.

Yep, conservatives nationwide have been waiting with baited breath to jeer at the demise of
Air America.  There's no guarantee it won't ultimately fail, but the conservatives are definitely going to have to wait longer than I thought!
:)

Yep, conservatives nationwide have been waiting with baited breath to jeer at the demise of
Air America.  There's no guarantee it won't ultimately fail, but the conservatives are definitely going to have to wait longer than I thought!
:)


Yea, just over a year and a half.

AA filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on 13 October.  They declaired $4 million in assets, and $20 million in liabilities.

Among the creditors are Al Franken ($360k) and Rob Glaser ($9.8 million).

I guess people simply did not want to listen to a radio station where the message always seemed to be "how miserable you really are", and "how poor you really are".

Yep, conservatives nationwide have been waiting with baited breath to jeer at the demise of
Air America.  There's no guarantee it won't ultimately fail, but the conservatives are definitely going to have to wait longer than I thought!
:)


Something has to be uplifting to succeed. The left needs to figure out a way of being uplifting to get America back.

Something has to be uplifting to succeed. The left needs to figure out a way of being uplifting to get America back.


I do not blame the failure on "the left".  Instead, it is the message that the "spokesholes" were trying to cram down everybodies throats.  And it is the same thing I am hearing now.

"Oh, the economy is horrible."  "Your children are going to die."  "You will be eating Alpo because there will be no Social Security."  Things like that.  The problem is that:

1.  Most people do not believe it.
2.  Most people see something totally different.

Even my boss, who is a life-long Democrat, thinks the economy is doing great.  We are going to see another record profit this year.  He simply does not understand what people are thinking about, when they claim the economy stinks.  When the economy is bad, people do not buy computers at the rate they are.  And trust me, I know.  I remember what computer sales were like in 1992-1994.

Bad news may sell, but "bad talk" (as in gloomy depressing negative talk - not that the talkers are bad speakers or bad people) turns people off.  And I have listened to Air America.  I can't remember the last time I heard so much depression or anger.  To listen to them, everything from Hurricane Katrina to Uncle Bob running out of Toilet Paper is the fault of the Bush Administration.  That is 100% negative, and people simply refuse to listen to it for hours on end.

Plus according to most media people I have heard, they had no sellable business plan.  You had hosts that would spend hours talking about how evil and greedy corporations are.  Then they seriously expected to be able to turn around and sell these same corporations commercial time.  There was a report last year that they approached Wal-Mart for commercial blocks, and were flatly refused.  And who can blame them?  They burned a lot of their own bridges.

Even my boss, who is a life-long Democrat, thinks the economy is doing great.  We are going to see another record profit this year.  He simply does not understand what people are thinking about, when they claim the economy stinks.  When the economy is bad, people do not buy computers at the rate they are.  And trust me, I know.  I remember what computer sales were like in 1992-1994.




One must always look beyond themselves.  Your boss is seeing a record profit, but home foreclosures are up 20% nationwide.  Wages are down, job forecasts have never matched what was expected. 

I personally never enjoyed Air America's programming very much, especially Al Franken whom I respect but whose show I find interminably boring. The network sometimes seems like nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic party, which makes it no better than conservative tripe such as Limbaugh and Hannity. There was one show on there later at night that I did enjoy called the Mike Malloy show. I prefer Sirius Left liberal talk, namely Lynn Samuels. I rarely listen to it anymore though. In all honesty, if I listen to radio programming it's usually Stern. I'm just someone who prefers to laugh if I have the radio on. Although NPR and CBC/Radio-Canada have great intellectually stimulating programming that I also enjoy.

I do think it would be a great loss to the left to lose a public mouthpiece such as AA though. It seems that when you flip throught the AM stations it's nothing but one conservative meathead after another. I'm sure it was nice for terrestrial radio listeners of the left to have been able to hear something different on free radio for a change.

I do think it would be a great loss to the left to lose a public mouthpiece such as AA though. It seems that when you flip throught the AM stations it's nothing but on conservative meathead after another. I'm sure it was nice for terrestrial radio listeners of the left to have been able to hear something different on free radio for a change.


I used to listen to hours of talk radio every day when I lived in LA.  That is because that is where the best traffic updates were.  And I have found all viewpoints on it.

KFI in Los Angeles is the West Coast flagship for Rush Limbaugh.  In fact, when his flight was grounded on 9/11, KFI host Bill Handel took over on Rush's national broadcast.

And long before they became famous nationwide, April Winchell, Stephanie Miller, and Phil Hendrie all got their starts on KFI hosting long-running shows.  And before she became Persona Non Grata, Tammy Bruce ran a long-running show in the early 1990's.  This was before her split with the "Left Wing", when she was President of the LA chapter of NOW, and a spokesman for GLAAD and opponant of Laura Schlessinger.

What a lot of people do not realize is that radio is a business.  And to be successful, you have to both be entertaining, and make a profit.  And most radio celebrities have to go through a long series of starting positions to hone their craft.  Rush struggled for years at various radio and DJ jobs before he cound a nitch that suited him.  April Winchell, Stephanie Miller, and Tammy Bruce were all fired from KFI when their shows got repetitive, and listenership dropped.  However, both of them continued to work in radio, and improved their craft.  Now they are popular hosts again, having improved their ability to carry a long-term show.

Part of the problem with AA is that most of the hosts had little or no radio experience.  They thought that by going on the air saying the same thing over and over again, they would keep viewers.  And they never understood the economics of sponsorship.  There was a very obvious "anti-corporate" slant to almost all of their stories about "Big Business".  It never occured to them that "Big Business" was how they paid their bills.  This was not NPR, which was a Non-Profit organization, with college interns running most of the stations at no charge.

They never once made a profit, and with the exception of this year, they lost more money every year.  Oh they lost money this year also, but not as much as last year.  And combined with some of the questionable ways they made money, a lot of people simply turned them off.  Al Franken may be a creat comedian.  I actually enjoyed his early work on Saturday Night Live.  But he is not a good radio personality.  I listened to his show off and on for almost a month, and it seemed like every show was just a repeat of the show before.  After enough of that, people get bored and turn him off.

Plus the network largely was based around Franken.  He was the most prominant host, and was seen as the driving force.  On top of that, there was little variety.  Most AM stations carry a wide variety of programming.  KFI has run everything from "The Cigar Afficianados" show, to Rush Limbaugh, Art Bell, Bill Handel On The Law, Kevin Mitnick, Karel and Andrew (the first "openly gay couple" to host a radio show), and former LAPD chief Daryl Gates.  Topics were wide-spread, and hosts covered all areas of the spectrum.

Demographics are key.  You have to cover as many of them as possible.  And if a show is not popular, you replace it with something else.  Often, you replace it with something totally different from what was on before.  However, AA only had one demographic in mind: the politically far left.  That is a recipie for failure.

Overall, the country is pretty evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.  Each side has about 40% of the population.  It is the 20% in the middle that really decides elections.  But when you start with only 40% as potentional listeners, you are cutting out 60% of the population.  Out of those, 40% will never realliy listen, and half of the remaining 20% might listen.

When you combine that with a poor business model, it spells disaster.  The network has lost over $30 million in 3 years, and did not appear to be pulling out of the hole any time soon.  They simply alienated to many sponsors and listeners.  And their affiliates were required to carry only their programming.  Even Rush Limbaugh does not require that.  Any station that carries his show is free to carry whatever else they want for the other 21 hours of the day.  And most of them do carry a wide variety of programming.

Rish is an afternoon show in most areas, running between 9am-3pm, depending on time zone.  This is not even the peak listening times.  Most shows that run on talk radio from 6am-9am and 4pm-6pm are much more diverse.  This is the peak listenership, and local stations air whatever is the most popular.  It may be something like Howard Stern, or something more libertarian like John & Ken.  Most smaller markets often have local shows that air at that time.  And on a local show, the politics will often be determined by location.  KGO in San Francisco is noticeably Liberal, while WJNC in North Carolina is more conservative.  This is simply regional demographics.

Frankly, I almost never listen to AM radio anymore.  The only time I turn it on is Saturday, to listen to Handel On The Law, and the Kim Komando computer show.  I do not listen to Rush, AA, or anything else.  Our local Talk Radio is almost all local issues.  Frankly, I have no interest in knowing that the dog catcher has a drinking problem, or that a Doctor that owns half of downtown refuses to use or sell his vacant property downtown.  I have very little interest in the local politics, since I know that when it is all said and done, nothing will ever change.  The Democrat will win the local office, and he is the son and grandson of office holders before him.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

--George Orwell

Limbaugh and the limboids and FOX News LIE all the f**king time!!!!

Air America scared the bejesus out of the Right because they would talk about the real results of tax cuts for the rich, the Iraq war for oil, the fascist police state disguised as "the War on Terror," and the FACT that the last two Presidential elections and numerous other elected offices were stolen by Republicans and will continue to be stolen if the Republicans are not stopped. 

The mainstream media isn't "liberal."  Big time azzwhole journalists are actually to the RIGHT of the American public, especially on economic issues.

If you take your frame of reference about what is "Right" and what is "Left" from the mainstream media (whether it's FOX News or NPR), then Air America is "far left."    I just take it issue by issue.  It is not the "far left" that has destroyed American Democracy.  George W. Bush signed away the write of habeas corpus this week.  Then he invited the evangelical and the right-wing pundits to the White House so he could personally give them their talking points.  If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Reagan, or Laura Ingraham tomorrow, you are literally hearing what the federal government has told them to say.  That isn't f**king conservative!  That is fascism and nothing less.

When the Right is as far Right as Benito Mussolini, of course everything else looks "liberal" and "far left." 

Is Air America going to die a slow death over the next few years.  Probably.  But so much bad sh*t is going to go down in the next couple of years, I'll forget about them pretty fast!

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

--George Orwell

Limbaugh and the limboids and FOX News LIE all the f**king time!!!!

Air America scared the bejesus out of the Right because they would talk about the real results of tax cuts for the rich, the Iraq war for oil, the fascist police state disguised as "the War on Terror," and the FACT that the last two Presidential elections and numerous other elected offices were stolen by Republicans and will continue to be stolen if the Republicans are not stopped. 

The mainstream media isn't "liberal."  Big time azzwhole journalists are actually to the RIGHT of the American public, especially on economic issues.

If you take your frame of reference about what is "Right" and what is "Left" from the mainstream media (whether it's FOX News or NPR), then Air America is "far left."    I just take it issue by issue.  It is not the "far left" that has destroyed American Democracy.  George W. Bush signed away the write of habeas corpus this week.  Then he invited the evangelical and the right-wing pundits to the White House so he could personally give them their talking points.  If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Reagan, or Laura Ingraham tomorrow, you are literally hearing what the federal government has told them to say.  That isn't f**king conservative!  That is fascism and nothing less.

When the Right is as far Right as Benito Mussolini, of course everything else looks "liberal" and "far left." 

Is Air America going to die a slow death over the next few years.  Probably.  But so much bad sh*t is going to go down in the next couple of years, I'll forget about them pretty fast!



Word.

I agree with you, Max. However, I'm seeing the media (CNN at least, since I don't get any other American 24-hour network) start to reflect what the majority of the American people are thinking. I saw a statistic on the cover of Actualit