Air America: RIP

You think age demographics contributed as well? You would think that Rush et al are targeting older white people who actually listen to talk radio. Younger folks who AA seems to be targeting don't tune into nationally broadcast talk radio.
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I think you've got something there. I'm an unapologetic liberal, and retired, and I listen to AM radio because that's what I grew up with (and the only non-music FM radio around here are NPR affiliates, which tend to annoy me).

Did anyone in the Bay Area carry Air America? I've listened to it on trips when I could find it, while I pretty much agreed with the content it seemed to always be canned. I listen to KGO during the day because it is mostly live call-in, with a wide range of interviewees, some interesting, some not so much. But Air American never interested me enough to seek it out.

In addition, it had a short repeat cycle - like NPR at its worst. For all I know Limbaugh et al do the same, but they're bad for my blood pressure.
 
dudalb said:
This. For every good host AA managed to find, they had three or four bad ones.
The problem was not that AA was liberal..some liberal talk show hosts have been quite sucessful despite the demos being against them..but it was badly ran by people who had little understanding of radio.
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Yup, ideology wasn't the problem. Bad business practice was the problem... that and some people couldn't just learn from their mistakes.

I'm not convinced that "liberal radio" is dead. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw it come back in the future. Hopefully whoever endeavored to do so is willing to learn from the errors that the folks at AA made.
 
Towlie said:
It's the medium of AM radio, plain and simple. It's the sewer of commercial broadcasting, where time is equally split between advertising and programming, and the advertising is aimed chiefly at the conservative lowbrow masses. Talented liberal commentators just don't belong there, and soon move on to their own prime time television shows or to the U.S. Senate.
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This is one of the problems... the assumption that liberals cannot have their views aired and heard in a commercial format. "Business" isn't a dirty word, folks. One can embrace many liberal aspects of politics and still be pro-business, and I'm not sure why it is that some folks insist on making the issue one of black-and-white, good-vs-evil, where "business" is evil.

Please note, I tend to lean left on many issues, but I've got no problem with capitalism. Corrupt, power-hungry, plutocratic, out-of-control-let's-make-our-money-while-screwing-everyone-else monopalistic capitalism I have a serious problem with... but responsible, well-balanced & regulated capitalism is a good thing, imo.

Personally, I think talented liberal commentators belong anywhere they can air their views, be it on TV, the radio, the Internet, or the soapbox. To cut oneself off from an avenue of communication based upon some twisted sense of ideology is to cut one's nose off to spite their face.

Smart liberals will figure this out. I think liberal radio will be in our future.
 
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Perhaps this is a moment for liberals to pat themselves on the back: They aren't as interested in trash ideological talk radio as their conservative counterparts. Liberal talk radio is just as uncompelling to me as conservative talk radio.
Journalism has depth, something talk radio lacks. There are plenty of more worthwhile alternatives, such as NPR. No need for liberals to mourn the loss of Air America.
 
MattusMaximus said:
This is one of the problems... the assumption that liberals cannot have their views aired and heard in a commercial format. "Business" isn't a dirty word, folks. One can embrace many liberal aspects of politics and still be pro-business, and I'm not sure why it is that some folks insist on making the issue one of black-and-white, good-vs-evil, where "business" is evil.
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I don't understand why this comment of yours followed that quote from me because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I said. I was talking about the type of advertising that AM talk radio draws. It just doesn't target the same folks who would listen to liberal talk radio. The ads seem aimed at people with low intelligence and high gullibility.

I can think of two examples, both from the Thom Hartmann Show. (Note: Talk show hosts generally don't have any idea what sort of commercials are being played during their breaks. Often it's because the program is nationally syndicated but the commercials are inserted by local stations.)

The first was a few years ago when Hartmann was talking about economics and giving good reasons why it was an especially bad time to buy gold. He then stopped for a commercial break, and, coincidentally, a commercial came on from one of those gold-selling scammers saying that it was the perfect time to buy gold and they were there to sell it to you.

The second time was when he was talking about the need to impose tariffs on imported goods because businesses like WalMart were destroying our economy with their imported Chinese junk. Guess what commercial came on immediately after that...

You guessed it! And yes, they talked about how wonderful they were for local communities because of all the jobs they created.
 
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I do not think the advertising needs to be high brow. Plenty of liberal television carries low brow advertisement and does excellent. The advertising needs to be relevant to the demographic and obviously some match ups are poor such as the examples cited by Towlie.

Radio and especially AM radio is at a crossroads. It is shrinking and likely not to disappear but needs to find a new economic equillibrium. It will take smart and lucky endeavors to get liberal talk radio going again. A big thing would be to advertise and draw us in. I do not consider the Daily Show and Colbert Report to be actual news sources, more entertainment, but they have led me to look into a person or subject quite often. I found Rachel Maddow through one of them. I might have been willing to listen to her show if it was on when I drove. Even though I do not listen to talk radio I did look up the time it was on out of curiosity. Such radio shows need to be made appealling. Radio would not be a primary news source for me. As a supplementary news source it needs a level of entertainment that I find bothersome in my primary news sources.
 
portlandatheist said:
Perhaps this is a moment for liberals to pat themselves on the back: They aren't as interested in trash ideological talk radio as their conservative counterparts.
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As a conservative, I have a little devil on my shoulder telling me "tell portlandatheist you agree with him!"

As long as the liberals' conclusion from failure in the market (or the opinion polls, or the elections) is that the real reason for it is their inherent superiority to the knuckle-dragging masses who for some inexplicable reason buy / vote / listen / watch something else, this practically guarantees their next failure.
 
MattusMaximus said:
This is one of the problems... the assumption that liberals cannot have their views aired and heard in a commercial format. "Business" isn't a dirty word, folks.
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It is, however, for a large section of liberal decision makers who spent their entire lives in government jobs or academia. There is a very strong "money is dirty, we are here for higher things" bias in liberal thought, which naturally contributes mightily to marketplace failure.

But I agree 100% with you that this is not a necessity and not true for all liberals. Some know business very well, and if you get them to run the liberal news station, it at least would have a much greater chance of success -- if liberal decision makers reach the correct ("our business plan sucked") and not the incorrect ("AM radio is for knuckle-dragging morons, we're better than that") conclusion.
 
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Skeptic said:
It is, however, for a large section of liberal decision makers who spent their entire lives in government jobs or academia. There is a very strong "money is dirty, we are here for higher things" bias in liberal thought, which naturally contributes mightily to marketplace failure.
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Where are you getting this from?

I ask because what with my being an actor and going through school a of the arts (and teaching in it) which is (truly) run by liberals, business is a major part of our game.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Please note, I tend to lean left on many issues, but I've got no problem with capitalism. Corrupt, power-hungry, plutocratic, out-of-control-let's-make-our-money-while-screwing-everyone-else monopalistic capitalism I have a serious problem with... but responsible, well-balanced & regulated capitalism is a good thing, imo.
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Ahhh ... and there's the rub (and neatly packaged, I might add).

First, you say you have no problem with capitalism, yet the first thing you do is find demeaning slander you can hurl at what you believe is wrong with it specifically --- well, truth be told, corrupt, screw everybody-else behavior (to me) seems to be much more prevalent in non-capitalism economies. So I think the issues you are upset about stems more from the person, not the economic structure. Most people working in a capitalistic system are not problems to capitalism.

Second is your comment on having the system well regulated. A very easy thought to initially agree on until one tries to decide just what it means to be well regulated (and "balanced" --- whatever that's suppose to imply). True capitalism is in a way "self-regulating" ... allowing good ideas, services and products to succeed and let the poor ones fall off, or try to do better. Regulation (and heavy taxation) from outside ideologies can weaken good progress if it defies what the regulators have decreed, or may allow inferior results and behavior to continue beyond their benefit. Either way, that's not good capitalism --- yet you argue that you favor capitalism.

Yes, we do need rules ... but we must also steer clear of bad behavior, be it in the form of those exploiting the system of capitalism or those regulating it in ways that reduce its growth and benefits.
 
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Redtail said:
Where are you getting this from?

I ask because what with my being an actor and going through school a of the arts (and teaching in it) which is (truly) run by liberals, business is a major part of our game.
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OK, then ... if I may ... let me ask you this. Just how far along (career-wise) can an outspoken conservative go, on average, in the arts business such as yours compared to one who is equally outspoken as a liberal?
 
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Number Six said:
I notice that on one hand talk radio works much better for conservatives but on the other hand irreverent, smart-alecky, smart, political comedy shows a la The Daily Show and The Colbert Report work much better for liberals.
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Doesn't it have something to do with punishment and control vs personal freedom and diversity?

But, as always,the first rule of making incorrect inferences from evidence and holding contradictory ideas that result from compartmentalized thinking is you don't talk about making incorrect inferences from evidence and holding contradictory ideas that result from compartmentalized thinking.
 
dudalb said:
They would not have rolled out the station with a bunch of rookies who had never hosted a radio talk show before,for one thing.
I am not saying it would have suceeded, but it would have had a better chance if it had come off like a amateur level station during the vital first months of operation.
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Don't forget the ridiculous salaries of Al Franken and his producer.
 
Another thing, most talk radio syndicates have that flagship show. that one guy you can you will see on all their publications. the one they trot out for advertisers. Imus, Rush, Stern etc etc

Who was that for AA?
 
Donal said:
Another thing, most talk radio syndicates have that flagship show. that one guy you can you will see on all their publications. the one they trot out for advertisers. Imus, Rush, Stern etc etc

Who was that for AA?
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Al Franken was the nearest they had, but he never came close to the above mentioned.
 
Towlie said:
I don't understand why this comment of yours followed that quote from me because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I said. I was talking about the type of advertising that AM talk radio draws. It just doesn't target the same folks who would listen to liberal talk radio. The ads seem aimed at people with low intelligence and high gullibility.

I can think of two examples, both from the Thom Hartmann Show. (Note: Talk show hosts generally don't have any idea what sort of commercials are being played during their breaks. Often it's because the program is nationally syndicated but the commercials are inserted by local stations.)

The first was a few years ago when Hartmann was talking about economics and giving good reasons why it was an especially bad time to buy gold. He then stopped for a commercial break, and, coincidentally, a commercial came on from one of those gold-selling scammers saying that it was the perfect time to buy gold and they were there to sell it to you.

The second time was when he was talking about the need to impose tariffs on imported goods because businesses like WalMart were destroying our economy with their imported Chinese junk. Guess what commercial came on immediately after that...

You guessed it! And yes, they talked about how wonderful they were for local communities because of all the jobs they created.
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ALl conservatives have low intelligence and high gullibility.Right.
 
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