Over on Huffington Post, Mark Green introduces Air America Radio v2.0:
Today my family formally purchases and takes over Air America Radio. Why? Because if progressive values were a stock, now is the time to buy.
That’s great and all — the Greens seem to have the resources and the passion to make Air America work, and I’m hopeful they have the know-how. I wish them the best of luck.
But it will take more than a turn-around at the network for Air America to thrive in the Seattle market. If local affiliate AM-1090 wants to build its local audience, it’s going to have to put a little money and effort into building some local programming.
Live and local, that’s what makes 710-KIRO so compelling, and such an integral part of the community. When I’m on the air weekends, 7-10PM, I’m the only live, local talk host on the dial. And when I got called in to do wall-to-wall storm coverage back in December, it may not have been my usual schtick, but I was proud to be able to provide such an important service to my neighbors.
Whatever its financial problems Air America helped change the landscape of talk radio, proving liberal talk could be a viable format in many markets, and creating opportunity for other liberal talkers on competing networks and stations. My total lack of prior radio experience aside, I’m not sure that 710-KIRO would have been quite as willing to take a chance on an unabashedly partisan, liberal talker like me, if Air America hadn’t already paved the way.
But as much as I’m rooting for Air America to succeed, I hardly ever listen to it anymore, and when I do, I usually stream the network feed rather than listen to AM-1090 over the air. That’s partially due to scheduling, and partially due to my allegiance to 710-KIRO. But it’s mostly because my passion is local politics, and on that subject AM-1090 is silent.
Even national issues have local angles — angles that are completely lost on a station that has no local presence. Two of the three biggest national news stories yesterday raised very local concerns for the Puget Sound Region: the growing scandal over out-patient care for Iraq War soldiers and veterans, and the congressional hearings over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. But local listeners who got their information from AM-1090’s national programming would have missed the relevant local coverage of the events.
So best of luck to the Greens and Air America Radio v2.0, but a little friendly advice to AM-1090 from your competition over at 710-KIRO: go local. And do it soon.
Come on Goldy, Air America is viable? That is a far reaching statement even for you.
Maybe this “business” will have a greater chance of success if private investors are actually putting their own money up, instead of cheating the Boys & Girls Club out of their money. And I see Al Franken is running for the U.S. Senate. Unless he is able to pull off a Dave Ross, he should have to be off the Air America payroll. If they aren’t paying $3 million a year for a position that can only tolerate $250,000 per year at most, maybe they can stay in business this time.
Hey Dick,
Al quit AA to run for office.
Air America might be more successful if it stopped trying to be Saturday Night Live on radio. The success of the right on talk radio came about by NOT trying to be comics with a smug and arrogant attitudes (like Al Franken). Also, dropping the negativity would help. People don’t want to hear, “America is evil and responsible for all the badness inthe world.”
If Air America continues with the current formula, Mr. Green and his money might disappear.
The really bad news for the righties is that their hopes, prayers and taunts that AA would be off the air in six months have just been deflated – again.
The right can’t stand it that we have our own network…albeit imperfect.
And in many markets, AA talent blows away the likes of Handjob Hannity or Limpdick Limbaugh.
While I agree that ANY radio station needs local content to thrive, I’d still rather have AM1090 to listen to over Publican controlled KVI, et al.
RightEquals says,
“And in many markets, AA talent blows away the likes of Handjob Hannity or Limpdick Limbaugh.”
====
Those are the kind of comments that Air America needs to avoid. Discussing politics and personalities with those kind of epithets generally turns people off.
RightEqualsStupid, you’d not make a good talk radio person for Air America. Just stick to posting comments on harmless blogs, and you’ll be OK.
Mr Stupid: I like having Scare Ameritards on the air. We should be fair to the comedy show!
I want to see if this “experiment” in libtard radio works. Your side keeps saying “give it time”, “give it more money”.
Kind of reminds me the standard libtard answer to any problem, more money and time. Yet nothign gets fixed!
Pudfucky @ 7
” . . .answer to any problem, more money and time.”
Sounds like the Bushites’ approach to Iraq–more money, more time–we’re in a hole, so let’s keep digging . . .
reasonable commentary there for a while anyway. Goldy is right about the local content, and Libertarian is right about the off-putting smug arrogance of the former quasi-comedy approach – it works for Jon Stewart becuase his jokes often include a visual component (and he’s funny to look at).
Not sure what to do about the America is evil message, though… there’s an awful lot of bad coming aout of America lately, and the righties’ approach to sweep it all under the rug and blame someone else may feel good, but it’s not exactly truth.
OUT of America, that is…
When I want the opinion of a “Libertarian” you know, a guy who believes that getting .4% of the vote on a regular basis gives him some sort of platform, I’ll be sure to let you know ASSWIPE.
As for Puffybutt, didn’t you just get convicted in Florida for raping a little girl?
I didn’t know you did storm coverage, Goldy. Whenever I tuned in during the blackout it was always the Rum & Dumb Show. (Ron & Don: proof that local personalities aren’t always superior to national shows.)
I wonder whether KPTK, which gets a 2.0 rating as a robo-station, is actually more profitable than KVI, which gets a 2.6 and has to pay the salaries of Kirby Wilbur, Brian Suits, the Commentators, and others. I agree that it would be nice if KPTK were more local, but having an AAR station in town at all is better than not having an AAR station in town.
re 6: Maybe “libtard” radio hosts should mock the way Charles Krauthammer rolls around in his polio wheelchair — just like Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox.
And Krauthammers predicament is so unfortunate because his parents were concerned theSalk vaccine was a Communist Plot.
se-la-vie
“La Vie.”
@1 Show me what part of the Republican noise machine is NOT subsidized by massive financial gifts from the likes of Scaife, Moon, the Bradley Foundation, etc.?
It takes billions of dollars of private money from very rich (and very evil) individuals to keep GOP propaganda afloat. So why should liberal propaganda be expected to pay its own way?
Fucking hypocrite.
@2 I doubt it, Richard. Look at where the money that fuels Republican propaganda comes from. Over the last 20 years, Sun Myung Moon has spent at least $3 billion on rightwing propaganda, and most of that money has come from criminal enterprises — drug trafficking, illegal arms dealing, money laundering — and running “business” enterprises based on slave labor. The GOP noise machine is not funded with dirty money; it’s funded with filthy money.
Richard Scaife did not earn the hundreds of millions he has poured into rightwing propaganda, and worse — things like the Arkansas Project that smeared Bill Clinton with lies. Scaife did not even inherit that money. It doesn’t belong to him. The Scaife money was amassed by Andrew Mellon, one of the most noxious robber barons of the Gilded Age, and ended up in trusts. Scaife’s mother married into the Mellon family, and after her death, he seized control of the trusts, and used the assets owned by the trusts to underwrite his personal spending and personal political agenda. In the process, he alienated his sister and his child, neither of whom are on speaking terms with him. Scaife is a repulsive old man notorious for his alcoholism and abuse of his own family, whose political views are decidedly undemocratic.
The Republican Party should be ashamed for allying itself with such people, and taking their money. Shame on them.
3 Well, since Richard doesn’t listen to Air America, he wouldn’t know that Al Franken doesn’t work there anymore, would he?
That’s right, Richard — Franken quit his job with Air America when he announced for the Senate, and is off the payroll.
@4 “Libertarian says: Also, dropping the negativity would help. … People don’t want to hear, ‘America is evil and responsible for all the badness inthe world.'” 03/07/2007 at 11:45 am”
Bwaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaa
Like rightwing radio is all sunshine and upbeat, right? Fucking hypocrite.
Air America and liberals don’t say America is evil and responsible for all the badness in the world. We say Republicans are evil and responsible for all the badness in the world. Big difference. Republicans are not Americans. They’re traitors.
@6 Nice try, Lib, but no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig, you’ll never make Handjob Hannity and Limpdick Limbaugh respectable, and neither will they.
@9 “there’s an awful lot of bad coming aout of America lately”
Well, yeah, what can you expect with Republicans running the country?
This whole argument is intellectually dishonest. Republicans wrap themselves in the flag and try to say only they are “Americans” and anyone who disagrees with them is “anti-America.” They make a total fuckjob of everything they touch, then accuse anyone who criticizes their criminal incompetence of America-bashing.
Let’s be real clear here. We’re criticizing Republicans, not America, and Republicans don’t own the “America” label. America belongs to all of us, and we ARE going to repossess it from the troop-hating, worker-hating, American values-hating fascist pigfuckers who misappropriated the brand name to promote their own sick, twisted, un-American ends.
@13 I didn’t know that about Krauthammer — no doubt, because no liberal has ever mentioned, much less mocked his disability. I don’t like his smug partisanship, and his affliction doesn’t excuse it, but he has my heartfelt sympathy. Especially if it was inflicted upon him by the kind of ignorant, paranoid parents who would rather let their kids get sick and die than get vaccinated because they think vaccines are a “communist plot.” He should sue them, or better yet, prosecute them for criminal child neglect. But if the shoe were on the other foot, you can bet your sweet bippy the smug, mocking, rightwing assholes wouldn’t hesitate to make fun of a liberal’s disability.
We don’t need Liberal Talk Radio nor for that matter, nauseatingly dishonest arch-conservative Talk Radio, as much as we need Moderate Talk Radio. Both sides of political issues need to be addressed; not one side pitted against the other in a furtive rage behind plastic shields of self-righteousness.
The undefined rants of some Air America hosts put me off. But, there’s not a rightwinger on the airwaves that’s respectable, no matter how ingratiating. Sleeze is the rightwing resume.
Roger Rabbit @ 16
You have a point. I don’t listen to Air America. And I did think Dave Ross was gaming the system quite a bit by staying on at KIRO, but he did “announce” (sorta, kinda, maybe, maybe not) pretty close to the filing deadline anyway. I don’t think Bonneville (KIRO’s new owners) would let ANYONE stay on the payroll if there was any credible indication they were running for public office, regardless of their politics. Unlike the “wee wee” contest Entercom that ran the show back in 2004 up until recently.
Wells @ 22
That is precisely why I prefer to listen to folks like Dave Ross and Dori Monson, who are each fairly moderate in their views. And precisely why I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh or Air America. Not sure what you mean by “rightwinger”, but most of them aren’t like Michael Savage or Ann Coulter.
RR,
You know for a supposed lawyer, you sure as hell can’t read worth a damn.
“Come on Goldy, Air America is viable? That is a far reaching statement even for you.”
My comment was based on the fact that the people running Air America, since it’s inception, have had the worst business plan anyone could ever think of. They got evicted from their Flagship office, hired comedians as their headliners on a Political Radio program, and expected America to take them seriously, they went bankrupt, after claiming for months that they weren’t etc etc etc.
BAD BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get financial backers (You libs have all of Hollywood) and put together a business model that works. Then, don’t rely on bashing Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity for your primary source of air time. Actually come up with legitimate stories and make insightful comments that the majority of your listening audience wants to hear. Hell, even Goldy figured this one out.
I am an avid listener to AM1090 – Thom Hartmann!
Yes I would like to see some local but I don’t want to hear about the crap dori talks about.. by the way.. he is crap.
I don’t want turkey frying, nuns and nonsense.
What AM1090 needs to do is ADVERTISE! A friggn billboard, bus, something! Geeez!
And just think firewoman, with all the things you listed going against them, Al Franken and company managed to clean Limpdick Limbaugh’s clock in eight major markets. HE HE!
RES,
8 Markets out of how many? Tell you what, if they are doing so good, then why do they owe Al a sizable amount of money and why did they go bankrupt? Let me see if I can explain this at a level even a libtard can understand…
The reason why Limbaugh and those neocons have done so well, isn’t because of the money put into them, it’s because they have a market that wants to hear what they have to say. Say what you want, but Rush was popping pills and the center of a major investigation, and Al only beat him in 8 markets? A blind chicken gets a kernel of corn every now and again.
How about someone disclosing the finaces of KIRO or 1090? What are the incomes? The costs of operation should nt be much.
Libertarian says:
RightEquals says,
“And in many markets, AA talent blows away the likes of Handjob Hannity or Limpdick Limbaugh.”
====
Those are the kind of comments that Air America needs to avoid. Discussing politics and personalities with those kind of epithets generally turns people off.
RightEqualsStupid, you’d not make a good talk radio person for Air America. Just stick to posting comments on harmless blogs, and you’ll be OK.
———————
Why we call Rush Limpdick, and Handjob names, is the fact that they openly lie on the air. I heard Franken say one day on the air that he had been doing his show for 1 1/2 years, and had never been accused of lying.
That is the main difference between the hate filled slimebags that are right wing talk radio, and Air America, and Miller, and Schultz. The fact that the lefties only need to tell us what the Republican Controlled Government was doing to us, and the world, and we had the hate.
Is is left wing to say Bush, and Cheney lied us into a war? Cooked intelligence? Outed an undercover CIA Noc, and destroyed Brewster Jennings in the process? Ran up the national debt 4 trillion more dollars since 2000, with nothing to show for it, and tarnished America’s image worldwide to a degree no one would think possible?
I don’t have to hate the Republicons to tell you what they have done to my country.
Anyone still calling themselves a Republicon these days could not possibly be a “moderate” though. Only the Kool-Aid junkie sheep are still with the GOP. The rest of us (I used to call myself a Republicon) have left that party of lying, traitor, scum in the dust.
What was real funny was the O’Riley interview I watched the other day. He said Rush should not be used as a source for information, that he was an entertainer. Ok Billo, that truly says it all.
Rush lies like a fu*king pig. I heard him calling Joe Wilson a liar today, and defending Scooter Libby. I wonder what kind of mentality it takes to trash heroes, and defend fu*king traitors……..
It is now official. The Bushies, Cheney for sure attacked the CIA (Wilson’s wife). No way around it. I only wonder how many people died because they had to shut Wilson up for trying to force them to come clean and tell the truth.
I will tell you something else about hate. When I drove my rental car to camp casey from the Dallas Airport, and slowed down to start reading the names on those rows of crosses, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I hated George Bush far more than Winston loved Big Brother.
All those heroes slaughtered so Bush could build the “political capitol” he always wanted, and talked about!
Bastard.
Any of you that still support that treasonous liar Bush should be required to go enlist immediately, and replace the over 50% of the troops that know that Iraq is a disaster, and know the reasons why.
Puddybud says:
Mr Stupid: I like having Scare Ameritards on the air. We should be fair to the comedy show!
I want to see if this “experiment” in libtard radio works. Your side keeps saying “give it time”, “give it more money”.
Kind of reminds me the standard libtard answer to any problem, more money and time. Yet nothign gets fixed!
————
Experiment? The number one show in Seattle 6 months ago was Ed Schultz, and he was later replaced by Thom Hartman. Progressive talk will annihilate the retarded right wing liars sooner rather than later. Rush would not let any stations play his radio show at the same time as Randi Rhodes, because she beat him in the ratings too many times.
Wells says:
We don’t need Liberal Talk Radio nor for that matter, nauseatingly dishonest arch-conservative Talk Radio, as much as we need Moderate Talk Radio. Both sides of political issues need to be addressed; not one side pitted against the other in a furtive rage behind plastic shields of self-righteousness.
The undefined rants of some Air America hosts put me off. But, there’s not a rightwinger on the airwaves that’s respectable, no matter how ingratiating. Sleeze is the rightwing resume.
——————-
Wells, turn on AM1090 at 9:00 AM and listen to Hartmann. No hate speech there. Just facts, and too many facts for many. Thom is brilliant, and his “rants” are 100% reality based.
Union Fireman says:
RR,
You know for a supposed lawyer, you sure as hell can’t read worth a damn.
“Come on Goldy, Air America is viable? That is a far reaching statement even for you.”
My comment was based on the fact that the people running Air America, since it’s inception, have had the worst business plan anyone could ever think of. They got evicted from their Flagship office, hired comedians as their headliners on a Political Radio program, and expected America to take them seriously, they went bankrupt, after claiming for months that they weren’t etc etc etc.
BAD BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get financial backers (You libs have all of Hollywood) and put together a business model that works. Then, don’t rely on bashing Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity for your primary source of air time. Actually come up with legitimate stories and make insightful comments that the majority of your listening audience wants to hear. Hell, even Goldy figured this one out.
—————-
Hi Union Firedude. Air America did not attempt to make a profit. They wanted to make a difference, and that they did. Thank God.
Folks complain about their business model, but don’t know squat about Air America. They are here, and progressive talk is growing. Their talent is awesome, and KPTK with Schultz, and Miller to go along with Air America’s hosts makes it by far the most entertaining lineup, not counting politics.
Something funny is the fact that the progressive hosts always let wingnuts come on their shows, and give their right wing insane opinions, but there is no way in hell I would ever get on the Rush, or Hannity show, and ask the hard questions…… Hartmann even boasts that the people that disagree with him go to the front of the line. They rarely make much sense though….
By the way Rush lost butloads of money for years. He was heavily bankrolled to keep afloat, and then became profitable after 3 or 4 years from what I have heard. Hannity actually pays some stations to run his show, and I don’t know if he makes any money. The righties have had 20 years to build their listener base, and progressive talk has had only 2. My money is on the reality based radio, and I would give odds….
Besides most of Rush’s audience is over 60, and they stopped being affected by reality decades ago….. They would support Bush if he killed their grandchildren right in front of them….
Does anybody happen to know if this is the same Mark Green who lost the NYC mayoral election to Bloomberg?
I think the problem with 1090 in the past is that some of their shows had the same level of screechiness as their right wing counterparts.
I liked Morning Sedition( standup comic Marc Maron) before it got cancelled. At least it was funny. I also like Hartmann and Stephanie Miller.
But yes…if they do a few more local shows it would attract a much wider audience.
Live and local isn’t a positive selling point when it means Ron & Don and Turi Ryder.
Goldy, I’ll give you a B- effort but you’ll never be Mike Malloy or Randi Rhodes. KIRO’s been circling the drain for months.