Air America Bottoms Out

October 25th, 2006 · 11 Comments · Main, Media

Well, it’s happened. As I all but predicted in a column three and half years ago, Air America, the liberal talk radio network, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

While I was on what I kindly refer to as my sabbatical from The Lakeville Journal Company from 2001 to 2005, I continued to write a semi-monthly column for the paper’s op-ed page. When I heard a group of investors was considering starting a “progressive” talk radio network to counter the success of conservative hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, I wrote that the project was doomed to failure.

But before I pat myself on the back too heartily, it should be noted that it didn’t take an M.B.A or a marketing expert to figure out that both the business model and the format would be a tough sell.

Since its modern inception in the 1970s, talk radio has always been a reactionary medium providing an answer to the mostly left-leaning fare that dominated the network news divisions, NPR, the glossy news magazines and the big-city papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

There was no need for liberal talk radio to develop since run-of-the-mill lefties were getting most of what they wanted from the mainstream media already. After all, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the press had helped end a dreadful war in southeast Asia and had run a corrupt Republican president out of office. The only people on the left that I can recall complaining about a “right-wing” media were on the liberal fringe, along with leftist media watchdog groups like FAIR.

Since I wrote that column, however, something called the Iraq war happened. In the run-up to the war, reporters like Judith Miller of The Times were breathlessly reporting the existence of weapons of mass destruction that were never found but which propelled us into one of the worst foreign policy disasters in the last 60 or 70 years. Now, who really trusts the big media? No one I know.

Still, liberals had the deck stacked against them in their quest to establish a ubiquitous presence on talk radio:

An around-the-clock network was simply too ambitious and costly. Better to offer some syndicated shows for sale to individual stations or their parent companies.
Too few radio personalities were hired as hosts and it showed. Successful talk radio hosts have been sweating it out for years behind a microphone before hitting it big.
The proliferation of the Internet and (especially) blogging gave the left the voice it had been looking for, making Air America seem irrelevant.
Liberals tend not to make very good radio hosts, particularly those hired by Air America.

Of course, that last bullet requires further explanation. Say what you want about Rush Limbaugh. He is highly partisan, over-the-top and always looking for an opportunity to make the other side look bad. But not only was he able to tap into a vein of resentment, the guy is really good at radio. Love him or hate him (and I hate him), but he has mastered the medium to an extent few in the business ever have. And he is often quite funny.

Meanwhile, Air America hired comedian and writer Al Franken (funny), Janeane Garafolo (also funny) and humorless drone Robert F. Kennedy Jr. None turned out to be good radio hosts. Franken could churn out the one-liners but never really settled into the medium. Garafolo exhibited little humor and Kennedy was Kennedy. With the notable exception of Franken, there was little humor coming from the other hosts I heard either (Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, Sam Seder).

I’m not sure I know why that is, but I have a theory. Too many lefties either have no sense of humor or are so filled with righteous indignation at what they see going on around them that the comedic touch is subdued. To a talk radio audience accustomed to being entertained, that’s boring. Even George Soros’s cash can’t change that [see below].

P.S. Air America is heard locally on WKZE-AM 1020, at least for the time being. Rumor has it a group headed by a local radio personality has reached an agreement to buy the station. As they say in the radio business, stay tuned …

P.P.S Now there is word that billionaire Bush hater George Soros is considering bailing out Air America after being asked to do so by former President Clinton.

P.P.P.S. Colin McEnroe on WTIC is an example of a successful liberal talk show host who has a great sense of humor. This is what he had to say about Rush’s comments on Michael J. Fox, Air America and the left’s attitudes about talk radio in general.

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11 responses so far ↓

1 Marshall Miles // Oct 25, 2006 at 9:01 pm

Terry…break it on your blog… WKZE AM 1020 owners Willpower Radio and Tri-State Public Communications, Inc, a local non-profit broadcasting corporation, operators of CATV 6 and robinhoodradio.com have come to an agreement where WKZE AM 1020 becomes AM 1020 WHDD/real hometown radio on November 1. Tri-State has signed a LMA agreement with Willpower to lease the station! The call sign change is already approved, and the paperwork was filed with the FCC today. If all the equipment, computers, etc., come in, we should be operating by sign-on on November 1! I am sure there will be more in the papers but I wanted you and your readers to get the info first!!
2 Yankee // Oct 26, 2006 at 8:59 am

Air America may have crashed, but we still have NPR!
3 terry mccarthy // Oct 27, 2006 at 9:16 am

Read your comment on Colin’s blog re having one’s finger on the pulse of both the left and right arms of the radio talk show culture. I love NPR, and was a commentator for awhile back in the 90s ( WFCR, Amherst, MA ) but I also try to listen to Laura Ingraham, Hannity and, of course, the egregious Rush as much as possible. In short, I couldn’t agree with you more. Good luck with your blog. I’ll add you to my list of things to read.
4 fred // Oct 27, 2006 at 12:33 pm

i never got into Air America… I was always a fan of Franken, and have a couple books (Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot… and LIES and the lying liars who tell them) on Audio Tape.

They are good and funny books.. I just figured that I would hear the same material on his radio show that I alrady heard in the audio book.. so i never tuned in.

my SIRIUS radio offers NPR talk, Sirius Left (with Alex Bennet).. it has both Liberal and Conservative stations, CNN, Fox News, etc…. I see no need to listen to any terrestrial radio anymore, other than local WQQQ while I have my coffee.
5 Steve Barlow // Oct 28, 2006 at 4:06 pm

Considering that everyone admits that NPR is targeted at liberals, why on earth are taxpayers subsidizing the listening habits of one of the wealthiest, best-educated segments of our population? Imagine how outraged liberals would be if the egregious Rush was the beneficiary of public funding!
6 Paul Bartomioli // Oct 29, 2006 at 11:28 am

NPR survives only because the majority of its budget comes from the taxpayer. IF National Propaganda Radio had to survive in the market place, its fate would mirror that of Air America.

BTW, did Air America ever repay the money that was embezzled from the Boys and Girls Clubs of New York to help get it off the ground? Funny how that never made it to the MSM, sick funny, that is.
7 jake // Oct 30, 2006 at 11:48 am

@ Steve…

Not unlike the government sponsored gambling parlors in the UK where the punters are mostly lower income types and the beneficiaries are operas, classical music organizations and art museums. A luscious irony, no?

(Of course the BBC would have you think there’s some equity in this. But they are known for seeing things, well, in their own particular way.)
8 Fred Baumgarten // Oct 31, 2006 at 10:41 am

Listened to NPR this morning. News about a Pakistani “raid” on a mosque. (Reality check: A missile blew up the mosque and killed at least 80 people.) News about the resumption of “six-party talks” with North Korea. Tony Snow gets air time to say that this is a triumph of Bush foreign policy. Feature story about how Karl Rove is confident that the Dems will not win Congress. We’re told that Rove is privvy to data “almost down to the house level,” so he must know what he’s talking about. Feature story with generous clips of Bush speaking at rallies. We’re told how the Republicans are being “very smart” about how and where to use him, and Laura, too. (Reality check: We are reminded that Bush’s “approval rating” is “low”; I guess that’s balance for you.) Feature piece with generous clips of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld telling us why they’re not “staying the course,” just “adjusting tactics,” but anything else is, of course, “cut and run.” Feature piece about troops from Fort Hood shipping out to Iraq. Generous interviews with these good, good soldiers and their families. The NPR host is rendered speechless and can only wish them a safe trip. She doesn’t bother to ask why they would want to fight in immoral, illegal, stupid war. Garrison Keillor. Thank God for him! An authentic liberal, though he’s here for “Writer’s Almanac” to tell us all about the pagan history of Halloween.

So, I ask you, where’s the liberal bias? Can you identify a single “liberal voice” (GK excepted) in this whole hour of wholesome radio? OK, I’ll make it easier: Can you identify even a slight note of dissent? Does anyone who thinks it might be a good thing to bring the troops home and not “cut and run” get to be heard?

If NPR is liberal, I’m friggin Rush Limbaugh.

–Fred–
9 Fred Baumgarten // Oct 31, 2006 at 11:19 am

I’m not sure what the options are for someone who wants to listen to news of the day. Of course, the price I pay is having my blood pressure rise at coverage such as the kind I’ve just mentioned (and that’s far from the worst of it). But what else is there except some loudmouth from the right yelling in my ear? Sometimes I cruise around the dial to WKZE or some country station, and when I get close to Red Hook I tune into the WMHT, the classical station. But WAMC is good for local news, if nothing else — I’ve even heard Janet on the Roundtable once or twice!

The point is, though, that when people complain about NPR being lefty, it shows how skewed the playing field has become. Sure, if you’re comparing it to FOX or CNN, but the point is that most of what you hear on NPR is indistinguishable from what you’d see and hear on most mainstream media outlets (like the NYT). What’s missing is not “right” or “left” but any real voice of DISSENT — of even questioning the accepted, mainstream version of things.

Whatever else one thinks of NPR, it does often have interesting stories about interesting topics you won’t hear elsewhere, particularly in science and culture (much like the NYT). That’s the main reason I listen. As for “news,” it’s just same ol’, same ol’.

–Fred–
10 Terry // Oct 31, 2006 at 11:28 am

I must admit, Fred, I have not listened to NPR regularly in quite some time, so they may have changed their ways.

Several years I stopped listening to NPR regularly for the same reason I cannot watch Fox News — too much agenda packaged as objective news content.

I have a feeling, however, that I could find a lot of instances of bias at NPR going the other way, too. Still, a quick search does indicate complaints about NPR from the left have died down in the blogosphere, so maybe you are right.

Perhaps NPR has lurched rightward, but as far as I can tell, it’s still a favorite of lefties and the bete noir of righties (present company excepted, of course).
I’ll listen to All Things Considered or Morning Edition in the next few days and report back.
11 Paul Bartomioli // Nov 3, 2006 at 5:31 am

My point is:

WHY do TAX DOLLARS support NPR? I would prefer the money flow elsewhere, like my pocket. I do not listen to NPR, unless it is an accident. I object to the fact that I am forced to pay for it, regardless of my political leaning. Do Rush, Hannity, Buchaanan get public tax money for their businesses?? Are they included as a line item in the federal budget?

Cut it loose and see if it flies in the marketplace. Even the new Rush on this blog should be able to agree with that position.

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