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Truthdig Podcast: Saving Air America

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Check out our new podcast page to download and listen to the latest from Truthdig.

This week: Mark Green, the new president of Air America, tells Truthdig why it didn’t work, what he’s going to do to fix it and what you can expect in the future from America’s largest progressive radio network. At right, Al Franken, who was an Air America host.

Correction: As some readers correctly noted, Air America is not the nation’s only progressive radio network. Pacifica has been around since 1949, and they do a fantastic job!

Transcript:

James Harris: This is Truthdig. James Harris on one side and Josh Scheer on the other, and on the phone, Mark Green. He’s been involved in several political races. He ran a recent mayoral race in ’01 against [New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg. He has been outspoken in his effort to smote racial profiling thus. And he has now taken a new job as the president of the Air America radio, the liberal talk network, and they’re calling it “Air America 2.0.” First of all, Mark Green, how are you doing today?

Mark Green: I couldn’t be better.

Harris: I want to start kind of on a somber note ... you lost [the] ’06 race for New York state attorney general and you released a comment saying, “I won’t be running for office again, but I’ll continue to advocate and teach.” I want to know, quite seriously, how has your work continued since the election, and has the acquisition of Air America helped you to effect change?

Green: Picking up from that, the day after I lost the primary, I was scheduled to and did teach my class in government, a freshman honors seminar at NYU. I love teaching, have been doing it four years at NYU, went back to running the New Democracy Project, a public policy progressive institute, and [have] done a ton of—I think—leading work on campaign finance reform, or what I call “democracy funding,” for example.

... What happened in December and January is that Air America radio, the first and only progressive radio talk network, founded in 2004 by, among others, Alan Franken—. Well, it had gone bankrupt in October. It was a big idea that often had misspending and mismanagement. And what happened is, my family bought it in January/February, and I’m now the president of it. It’s very important because, was it Lincoln who said, “You can’t do anything without public opinion and you can do anything with it”? Well, what’s public opinion? It’s the education system plus the media. And so I’ve written a lot of books, which I love doing, and now I have the opportunity to be running a radio network that has great progressive talent with two and half million people listening, streaming on satellite, for example. It’s a very important vehicle, especially in this ’07-08 political cycle. But before we can be influential, we have to be profitable, so we’re trying to stem the losses and make it grow.

Harris: What are some changes you’re going to make to address profit? The common doubts among liberal talk networks are that they don’t sound like Rush and they’re not upset like Rush and they’re pretty monotonous in their content. What programming will you change and what marketing will you adjust to try to turn this into a cash cow, or at least something that gives you money instead of taking money?

Green: Cash cow. That’s a nice dream. I’d be happy with stability. Look, the country is roughly split between B and R, blue and red states. It’s crazy to think that right-wing talk radio can make money but progressive talk radio can’t. That’s obviously a fallacy. The only one difference is—. Neither side is smarter than the other, although my wife would persuasively argue that liberals are smarter than conservatives. But let’s say intelligence is equally distributed. One of the problems is that businesses are owned, I would say, more by Republicans than Democrats. It’s just the way it goes. And they’re more likely to advertise on conservative talk radio than on progressive talk radio. With that built in, first, what we’re doing—. When you say it can be monotonous, boy, I don’t think you’ve listened to Al Franken, originally, and now Thom Hartmann, who broadcasts out of Oregon, is amazingly knowledgeable, interesting and popular. Randi Rhodes, who’s on from 3 to 6 on Air America. Very opinionated and entertaining. She’s followed by Rachel Maddow, who reads and comments on and makes fun of the news. I think we have a very strong lineup. We will be making changes, inevitably, because you never know who the next—. Well, take him: Rush Limbaugh was just a local guy who went national, not because of his beliefs but because of his skills.

The second thing we’ll be doing is being very smart about new media, digital media, Internet media because, while it costs X dollars to have good hosts on a box called radio, we’ve got to think outside the radio box and distribute that same content—it already exists—on the Internet by people streaming, download it onto iPods, satellite it around, videocast it so it’s on cable or your cell phone next. So we’re going to be working very aggressively to distribute our wonderful programming in a way that can make money in these other platforms. We have, now, new capital, new owner, new management, a new group selling it and getting affiliates. In a political season where, obviously, I think progressives are on the rise and Republicans are on the defensive.

Josh Scheer: This is Josh, Mark. Are you going to try to reach out to them or are you going to try to find other advertising? How are you going to turn this into something that makes money?

Green: There are some advertisers who are liberal or who are controversy-averse. And they don’t want to advertise on Rush Limbaugh. And you know what? Under the First Amendment they have the right to speech or not advertise, and they can do that. The First Amendment about impinging on speech applies to government, and not business. And on the other side, as I indicated, there are some conservative businesses—. I haven’t gotten a lot of Halliburton advertising yet on Air America. We don’t know. We’ll see. What we’re going to try to do is grow the audience, because, ultimately, because a lot of our affiliates are owned by Clear Channel. They have over a thousand stations around the country. They are GM, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler combined. But some of them are Air America affiliates because they can make money. The color that counts to them is green—no pun intended. And so we will be going to businesses and saying, “You can make money by advertising with us because we have two and a half million listeners.” We’ve got to be creative. We’ll go into a community and ask, “Gee, who are the Democratic donors? Are they businessmen? Oh, are you a businessman who gives money to candidates who are a little more liberal? How about advertising on Air America? You can help the progressive platform at the same time as selling products.” There’s no easy answer. It’s what’s called blocking and tackling. And we’re going to beef up our sales force, because without advertising, commercial radio can’t exist.

Scheer: My partner here said it was a little bit monotonous, and I’ve heard that elsewhere, but conservative radio can be—is—more monotonous, more angry. Why is conservative radio so successful and liberal radio—? I know we talked about this a little bit, but I want to hark on this a little bit. Even with the liberal community, why is liberal radio considered [to have] a distant, not really good, future?

Green: That’s a good question. First of all, often “first in” initially wins. For example, Time magazine preceded Newsweek. People developed a habit for Time and—you know what?—over the next 50 years Time always sold a third more than Newsweek. Well, talk radio itself is somewhat new. Radio is 70 years old, talk radio maybe 15 years old. And the first were people who are—. Give him his due. Rush Limbaugh is very entertaining. He’s unconstrained by the facts. He slanders people left and right. He makes fun of people all the time. ... Air America Radio is three years old. You know, when Fox cable news—I use news in quotations—was three years old, they were massively losing money until [Rupert] Murdoch kept subsidizing them and then they found their audience or their audience found them. Well, a liberal talk radio is a start-up business and Air America Radio reflects that. The first new radio network in 30 years, but the virtue is that everybody knows its name. I don’t know if for good or bad reasons. And so we now have this great brand that everybody knows, and our job is to better program it, convince advertisers to get on it, cut expenses—which we’ve done by half. And I’m telling you we’re going to start making a profit in 2008.

Scheer: How long will your family stick with Air America? Are you going to wait until it makes a profit? You said [that] in 2008 you’re pretty sure it’s going to make a profit.

Green: Yeah, the goal is to stabilize in 2007, start earning a profit in 2008. Look, we’re devoted to this; we want to make it work. But we’re not a charity. We don’t intend to spend hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing it. We don’t have that kind of money like Rupert Murdoch did and does, to the New York Post, for example. I’m a public Democrat. As you said, I lost the mayoral to Mike Bloomberg by a couple of points in 2001. I’ve spent half my life writing or editing a couple of dozen books, and I’ve held public office in New York City. So I’m devoted to public policy and reform. My brother is a very skilled businessman. And then Scott Elberg is a radio expert who’s there. And the three of us will be overseeing Air America. I think it’s a very strong combination, and when you put together new capital, new management and better programming in this time where I think, speaking metaphorically, if progressive values are a stock, now’s the time to buy. I once asked Bernard Baruch, “Gee, how’d you get so rich?” And he said, “When everyone else was buying, I was selling. When everyone else was selling, I was buying.” So we bought Air America because it was in distress. And I think it’s now the view, right, left and center, that we’ve given it new life, and now it has the chance to survive and thrive.

Scheer: Why did management do so poorly in the previous incarnation, before you bought it? What was it like? Can you pinpoint one major reason why it was such an un-success?

Green: Mistakes were made. [Laughs.]

Harris: [Laughs.] What kind of mistakes?

Green: You know, I’m making fun of Alberto Gonzales. Air America first was afflicted by—to quote Alan Greenspan—irrational exuberance. It was, like, “If we thought of it, it will work.” Well, it doesn’t work like that in the real world. You know how people say no military plan survives its first battle? So they had a concept, started strong. A: One of the initial investors was a fraud. He said he’d give 30 million and he gave zero million, which is a lot less than 30. So there was a stumble at the start just due to individual malfeasance. Second, they didn’t know the market and they overpaid people in the beginning. There were six executives running around, running into each other, each thinking they were the CEO. And so, like anybody, from a stumbling marriage to a stumbling restaurant, you have trial and error, you learn from your mistakes, and you get better. We now are the beneficiaries of all the mistakes in the past, so we’ve cut expenses and we’ve got a very clean management structure. Scott Elberg and I run it. So, we’ll make mistakes, but it won’t be the same mistakes as the people over the last three years. And, finally, you kind of know who the best talents are, so we’re building a lineup that is really going to be strong from morning to late night. And I think affiliates, when they see that the bankruptcy is over, we’re approaching profitability, we have a very, very strong lineup—. Here’s what I mean by strong: It has to have three elements or else it can’t work. It has to be informative, so you learn something when you listen. It has to be opinionated: You want news and views. And it has to be entertaining, it has to be fun to listen to. I could ask someone to read you the dictionary. That’s informational, but—.

Harris: [Chuckles.] There is some competition out there. What do you think about networks like the Nova M?

Green: Sure, there’s competition. My goodness.

Harris: What’s your strategy going to be?

Green: If there’s room for Hannity and Limbaugh, and O’Reilly and Savage—what a perfect name—and others, Laura Ingraham, of course there’s room on the other side. They don’t hate each other; they’re just robust rivals. Think Army/Navy. And there’s other liberal talk that’s not on Air America Radio. In fact, on some of our affiliates where you cannot force a distributor, an affiliate, to run all your programs, they may have a competitive liberal program on. This is a real bottom-line business. [Unintelligible] doesn’t win all the tournaments because he cheats; he’s just better. And if you have ratings—. These stations, whether they’re owned by Clear Channel or by Barbra Streisand, they’ll put on that programming which gets the biggest audience.

Scheer: Are you guys going to get back on Sirius or are you guys sticking with XM right now?

Green: We have a contract with XM. Of course everyone knows that XM and Sirius are trying to merge. That’s outside my pay grade. We’ll know within a year. But of course we want as good a deal as we can for satellite. That’s a new way of distributing radio content. There’re barely Arbitron ratings yet for satellite. We know numbers on terrestrial radio, but, boy, we have to think outside that. I would guess that 10 percent of our audience now stream it live. My son has no habit of listening to radio unless we force him to—he’s 22—in the car. But of course he goes online, is digitally sophisticated and streams. I bet you in five years—and no one can know this—half the audience will be on computers, probably a significant percentage on cell phones and television when a lot of these technologies merge. Of course there’s mobile. You’ve heard of podcasting, I think? Which is what we’re doing. So we have to be alert to all of that. We’re going to have a very substantial new media strategy to complement what is called “old media strategy.”

Harris: And you raise a very valid issue. I’m one that always says, In 10 years terrestrial radio will probably depend only on AM. Nobody will listen to FM. And Internet is definitely the way of the world. At least in my mind. You seem to agree with that idea. But you’ve bought a network that caters to terrestrial form. There’s a bit of irony in that.

Green: No. The technology is just starting. We bought it because we bought a content company. We’re going to be called Air America Media because it’s not going to be just radio. If we can’t, as they say, monetize this over these other ... if we can’t be a multimedia company across these many platforms, I don’t think we’ll exist. This technology is blossoming now. Look at even the campaigns. From 2000 to 2008 is just two election cycles, and someone running in 2000 would not recognize—. When Obama reports his fundraising, I bet you half of it will be online fundraising at 25 bucks a piece. In 2000 George Bush raised 100 percent of his $26 million in the first quarter of ’99 just from fat cats and bundlers. Well, politics is changing, communications is changing, and radio is changing, and if you don’t become multimedia, you just won’t exist as terrestrial radio.

Harris: Let me twist pages a little bit. There was a lot of talk about the Democratic debate appearing on Fox, and you came back with what I thought was a funny reply. You offered the Republicans a chance to air their debates and carry out their debates on Air America Radio. First of all, how funny was that? Have you heard any response from any Republicans, and why do you think the media matters so much, seeing it on Fox or hearing it on Air America?

Green: You’re asking me how funny it was. You can’t ask Jon Stewart how funny his sarcastic jokes are; you let the audience—. So was I deadpan and/or tongue-in-cheek when I wrote the Republican chairs of the four earliest primary and caucus states to have Air America host and air their debate in the same fair and balanced way that Fox wanted to and almost did air the Nevada debate? I think it was pretty funny. They didn’t respond. Here’s my point. Fox can exist. God bless them. But they should be honest. And I believe in truth in advertising. When they say they’re fair and balanced, of course everyone understands the inside joke. Air America is fair but unbalanced. We’re factual. Most of the people who listen to Fox still think Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and ... was behind 9/11. They intentionally mislead their listeners to cater to their clientele and profit from it. And when Nevada Democrats asked Fox to host their debate, I don’t know what the hell they were thinking. Because Fox has a built-in bias and cannot cover Democrats with a straight face. Since Fox complained when Nevada Democrats dropped them, eventually, that it was—I’m quoting—Stalinist and anti-speech for the Nevada Democrats to drop them, I said, “OK, Republicans, have Air America host your debate, and you can be pro-speech and anti-Stalin in one swoop. And I haven’t heard back.

Harris: [Laughs.] Well that’s one way. I certainly enjoy your humor, Mark Green, and look forward to the changes, the coming changes in Air America.

Green: Thank you.

Harris: And, definitely, we are of the same fabric, talking about Truthdig and Air America, so there’s definitely opportunity for partnership in the future because, after all, we are just trying to tell the truth, right?

Green: Well, the three of us believe in truth, justice and the Air American way. And Air America 2.0 wants to convey that we’re not your father’s Oldsmobile, and watch us. I think people will be happy with what we come out with.

Harris: There you have it from Mark Green, the new president of Air America Media. For Josh Scheer, for Mark Green, this is James Harris, and this is Truthdig.

TAGS: air america al franken journalism mark green media network podcast politics radio

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By Bukko in Australia, April 8, 2007 at 9:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

You people were right about Sam Seder. Mike Malloy mentioned his demise on his Friday show, and I find confirmation and further details on Sam’s blog (finally.) Bummer. Now the only reason I have for downloading AAR shows is Randi Rhodes. She encapsulates my outrage. Sad thing is, Mrs. Bukko tells me she re-upped as an AAR premium member just days before we learned that Sam was sacked, so I can’t even withhold my money from Air America. Until next year…

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By Alejandro, April 6, 2007 at 8:28 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Al Franken as a comedian; “Ok” but marginal. Liberal; to be sure. I was able to catch his segment on Air America often enough and was not impressed with him at all. Great guests though! Sounded like a fence sitter to me, but I could be wrong. More will be revealed I’m afraid. Hope he doesn’t turn out to be just another politician.

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By NYLefty, April 5, 2007 at 7:09 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

George Sherman: I’m well aware that CC has scrubbed liberal talk in red states. In fact, that was my point after you had said that CC was axing progressive talk “disproportionately in blue states.” No, when you consider that most of the lib talk stations were in blue states in the first place, it wasn’t “disproportionate” at all.

And what’s your point about the “rumors” of an impending sale of KPOJ? So what?

I don’t deny that the Mays are conservatives and that many of the people running Clear Channel clusters and stations are either conservative or cater to conservative potential and actual advertisers, but that still doesn’t add up to the gigantic conspiracy theory that you and others are trying to peddle. If such a conspiracy actually existed, Clear Channel lib talk stations in Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, and Miami wouldn’t be investing in local programming and still trying to make a go of it, despite lousy or mediocre ratings and billings in those markets that would give them good excuses to dump the format.

And where on earth did you get the idea that Clear Channel was threatened with antitrust crackdowns or legislative “remedies” in 2004, 2005, and 2006, when the Justice Department and both houses of congress were controlled by right-wing Republicans?

CC may well have reason to be a little afraid now that the Dems control Congress, but that wasn’t the case when Air America launched and for almost all of the past three years.

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By Spence, April 5, 2007 at 12:51 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Air America is a wonderful station, especially Mark Reilly. His pace, humor, sidekicks, news, analysis and music make my day—give me a touch of the Big Apple. Franken wasn’t a good radio voice, also talked about campaigning too much. I miss Morning Sedition bigtime. Really like Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann for their straight information, except Thom’s cracked record Ayn Rand guests. Boring.

Get real tired of the same commercials because of constant repetitiveness and their loudness. Like the other listener, I sometimes turn them off they are so much louder than the program. Maddow, newscasters and some other hosts and guests irritate me by speaking so fast you can’t follow their thoughts or hear all of what they say. Please! Maybe they consider it their signature, but, for me, it’s a literal turn-off. The advantage of radio is to be able to listen while you do something else without missing what’s being said.

Overall, keep up the great radio!

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By Spence, April 5, 2007 at 12:49 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Overall keep up the great radio!

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By ManipulationNation, April 5, 2007 at 12:19 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The conservative shows present distorted information in an authoritarian and angry way. It is a mystery to me why so many people appear to like that, but they do. I’m guessing that they need role models so they can manipulate and control others while justifying their lack of egalitarianism.

Air America’s market is people who don’t want to be manipulated; we want for our hosts to be genuinely passionate and to provide us with insights and information. We don’t want to be talked down to. I think that Air America is generally doing a good job of providing what we want.

It has to be obvious to the entire population that something doesn’t add up in the cable television and radio businesses. The country is split almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and yet there is only one television program ("Countdown With Keith Olbermann") and one commercial radio network that are liberal. If we had truly free markets, we would not have such an imbalance.

Just as our president is clearly committed to a big business agenda for his money and power, big business is committed to a political agenda that best provides it with money and power. One of those big businesses is Fox and another is Clear Channel. These two businesses are ruining our democracy for their own benefit.

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By Truth Be Told, April 4, 2007 at 5:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Greenspan’s comment of calling Air America “Irrational” is putting it nicely.

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By Bob Geistrick, April 4, 2007 at 9:54 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I subscribed to XM radio specifically so I could listen to Randi Rhodes. I’ll stick with Air America as long as she’s there. I did like Al Franken, unlike some others apparently.

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By john, April 4, 2007 at 9:49 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

i love air america, but i will never listen to Randi Rhodes after her interview of Ralph Nader, what a BITCH!

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By George Sherman, April 4, 2007 at 9:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

NYLefty, CC has scrubbed liberal talk in red states as well, including Louisiana and Texas. As for KPOJ, rumors of its impending sale—to Fisher or Entercom—have been floating around Portland for months. Even Randy Michaels, the head of Jacor who became head of Clear Channel’s radio division after the merger, then co-invested (as Product 1st) in buying the Ed Schultz show but gave Schultz no support and little contact, has publicly talked about Clear Channel’s “conservative mission.”

It’s interesting to hear conservatives blast a network such as CBS for supposedly putting politics ahead of good business in its news division—but then to hear those same conservatives turn around and naively bleat that, oh no, Clear Channel would never put politics ahead of business!

NYLefty, if the FCC is so immune to public pressure as you contend, why did it refuse to further loosen ownership limits a few years ago when such loosening was fully expected by Clear Channel, which characterized the refusal as a surprise stab in the back? If this issue is as far off the public radar screen as you contend, why did John Dingell’s committee rake Kevin Martin and his cohorts over the coals over it in the recent hearings?

Talk to people, as I have, who work or worked at the CC progressive-talk stations which have been or soon will be torpedoed. Let them tell you the stories about the cheesy formatics ("AM 760 Progressive Traffic"), the total and cynical lack of interest by the clusters’ account executives, and the outright sneering refusal to promote the brands. Oh, and PLEASE talk to the folks at KPOJ and KLSD, and let them tell you about how they have achieved what success they have on their own, with corporate roadblocks thrown up at nearly every turn.

Sorry, but if Clear Channel really had been interested in business decisions, they would have invested in talk shows that catered to the blue half of the population long before they felt threatened with antitrust crackdowns or other legislative or judicial remedies.

Finally, you writethat “its no surprise that generally conservative corporations and other businesses would rather advertise on a sports talk station than on a controversial station thats perceived as anti-corporate, anti-conservative, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, etc.” Fascinating! You readily accept that an advertiser might make a decision based on politics, but then somehow cannot imagine that a radio corporation might do the same thing. Wake up!

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By Jill, April 4, 2007 at 7:04 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Re:#61774: Pacifica networks can’t be put in the same category as Air America, and their presence does not mitigate the need for progressive talk radio that entertains. Amy Goodman knows her stuff, but the relentless earnestness, the P.C. identity politics, and the identification with the A.N.S.W.E.R. left make Pacifica nearly unlistenable. The people who listen to the gasbags of wingnut talk radio don’t do so for earnest, serious conservative commentary, they listen BECAUSE of the outrageous, inflammatory, and in many cases just plain wrong by Limbaugh, Beck, etc.

Successful progressive talk radio will be well-informed AND entertaining. So far I don’t see the Greens off to a very good start with their handling of Seder/Maron.

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By Bukko in Australia, April 4, 2007 at 6:22 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

The comments to this story have been more interesting than the interview, which didn’t tell me much. All that even-handedness and complimenting Druggie Limbaugh… how un(Air)American!

To the people bagging Al Franken, do you even LISTEN to AAR? Al hasn’t been on since Feb. 14, when he left to run for Norm Coleman’s Senate seat in Minnesota. I wasn’t a big Franken fan because he didn’t kick the Repiglicans in the nuts hard enough. But he had on some great guests, and I learned a lot from them.

What’s this about Sam Seder being canned? I haven’t heard any inkling of it on his show or on his blog. Of course, you don’t often announce your impending demise on your own forum. Didn’t he sign a new contract a few months ago? After the way Mike Malloy was unceremoniously sacked, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything.

Finally, I see another reason for poor ratings for AAR—crappy stations. In San Francisco, the evening programs on WQKE were often interrupted for college basketball, plus there was blowhard Ed Schultz in the afternoon. When my wife and I went to Washington, D.C. for the September 2005 antiwar march, just before we fled the country, we could barely pick up the weak-arse signal from the AAR affiliate there when we got outside the Beltway. Maybe it’s a Clear Channel thing, maybe it’s just that strong stations already have successful formats and don’t need to change to liberal talk. But you can’t build a successful network with slack stations.

Meanwhile, we’ll continue to download podcasts of AAR in our political exile here, along with Malloy on Nova-M. (We’re financial members—Aussie slang for “paid-up”—of both.) Malloy and Randi Rhodes echo the anger and disgust we feel with the U.S. government. Good luck to you in the (other) States, but the same battle that AAR is losing to the fascist forces that control America is the one that the common working folks are also losing.

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By gregrocker, April 3, 2007 at 7:44 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

NYShifty doesn’t address the central LIE in Clear Channel’s post-election decision to begin shutting down Air America affiliates: the claim that they couldn’t sell advertising. Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller (not even Air America) who had rising ratings on these stations have exposed the utter fraud of these claims, proving that no effort was made to sell advertising on Clear Channel’s shut down stations. Ed sits on major ad contracts with Staples and a dozen other FOrtune 500 companies and is well aware that Clear Channel won’t bother trying to sell on many of their libtalk affiliates, not even returning phone calls to companies trying to sponsor his show locally.

They own most of the billboards in America but won’t put up a few in each city which would jolt listenership overnight for progressive talk, yet they do it for their multitude of rightist(liar) stations.

Yet in Los Angeles, I count five car companies from Audi to VW who are major advertisers, the Bank of America, Carls, Jr. and a glut of others. Hence they can’t use the lie they used to shut down the other stations in crucial Dem swing districts like Ohio. So instead they are fouling the broadcast schedule with idiotic decisions like banishing their highest rated show to a sports-preempt night slot, moving Randi from afternoon drive to live at noon, and bringing in Mr. KABC/KFI to chat during drive about Starbucks, the latest idiot celebrity gossip, any nonsense as long as it isn’t political. He takes calls live and edits out during the conversation any reference to progressive talk or politics. If you ask questions during his silly question hour (he is a local “Mr. Wizard” radio personality) which mention progressive talk he will edit them out on the fly.

You seem to miss the most important reason we need an AM radio response to the right’s talk radio juggernaut. They took over the fuckin country with a monopoly juggernaut of lies and trash that in itself dumbed down America to around 6th grade. They duped 50 million people and swung 5 out of 6 elections, according to the research by Annenberg, which shows how they twisted facts into utter “false certainty” on almost every issue. Since it was all built on LIES, just having ANY presence on the radio which stands up to these bullies with truth is a major blow to their scheme. You simply can’t infect the media chain with threats of “immediate chemical attacks by Iraqi toy airplanes” when the station next to you on the dial is making uproarious fun of your lying lies, while pointing out that you justsettled the $6 million damage claim for making phone calls to your producer in which you talked about the loofah up your anus.

They started this, and to say we should fight with anything less than their ferocity, is to cede the game. Plus we have the truth.

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By NYLefty, April 3, 2007 at 11:50 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Sorry, George Sherman, but your version of the Clear Channel conspiracy theory doesn’t add up either. All the evidence suggests that CC switched some of its poor performing AM stations to progressive talk because it believed that the format could make it some money and has dropped it some markets because it wasn’t making money, period.

Even an increase from a .04 share to a .08 share is meaningless if your billings go down, and it’s no surprise that generally conservative corporations and other businesses would rather advertise on a sports talk station than on a “controversial” station that’s perceived as anti-corporate, anti-conservative, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, etc. I’m not saying they’re right, but that’s the mind-set.

As for the stations where CC is dropping progressive talk being “disproportiontely in blue states,” I can only say, “huh?” Most progressive talk stations are IN blue states because it was thought that listeners in those states would me most receptive to progressive talk! Seems to me that it would fit your conspiracy theory better if CC was dropping the format in RED states that we liberals are attempting to turn blue.

And do your really think that Clear Channel switched more than 20 of its stations to progressive talk because the public was putting pressure on the Bush-controlled FCC? The Bush-controlled FCC doesn’t give a damn about the public and only a tiny fraction of one percent of the public was concerned about the issue anyway.

As for KTLK and KKZN being “exceptions” to your theory, you forgot to mention the only progressive talk station that’s been a ratings and billing success, Clear Channel’s KPOJ in Portland, OR. And CC has also shown no signs of dropping the format at its progressive talk stations in San Diego, San Francisco, Miami, and Washington, DC, even though the ratings and billings at those stations have been poor to mediocre at best.

Sorry, conspiracy buffs, but I don’t buy this one.

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By Dudeson, April 3, 2007 at 11:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Air America has been a leader in progressive talk radio and scares the hell out of Conservatives. Just listen to Thom Hartman or Rachael Maddow, then tune in o’reilly or beck on TV, notice the difference? logic over loud lunacy. Perhaps the cons. are right, maybe we are so dumbed down that all we care about is sports and mind numbing war talk. I hope not. We were a great nation, we can be again if we wake up and say no to this bullshit.

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By NYLefty, April 3, 2007 at 11:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Sam Seder’s weekday show is being cancelled because progressive talk radio stations don’t want it and carry Stephanie Miller instead.

In the top 25 markets, only one station carries Seder live and only two stations carry him in the daytime. The station that carries him live is WWRL, which Air America pays to carry Seder and most of the AAR lineup. The only other top-25 station that carries Seder in the daytime is KPOJ in Portland, OR, which can’t carry Stephanie Miller because another station in Portland carries her.

Seder’s fans simply can’t accept the fact that he has failed in the marketplace. Personally, I’d rather listen to Seder than Stephanie Miller, but if I owned a station, I’d go with S. Miller if I wanted to maximize my listenership and profits.

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By Jill, April 3, 2007 at 9:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I would feel a whole lot better about the new regime if Green wasn’t starting right out of the gate by taking a page from Danny Goldberg’s book and firing Sam Seder—on the heels of making a half-hearted attempt to bring back Marc Maron by making him stab his friend in the back.

The knock on progressive talk radio was always that liberals weren’t funny. Well, Mark Green’s good friend Danny Goldberg cancelled the funniest and most original show on radio in a generation, and now he himself is going to cancel the CURRENT most entertaining show on Air America.

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By walt, April 3, 2007 at 8:23 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Air America Radio failed because it was too cynical and derisive of average Americans. It reinforced the oft advanced neo con position that liberals are elitists that hold the average Joe in disdain. Garolfolo contstantly brayed “What’s wrong with Americans? Don’t they get it?” never acknowledging that they were victims of one of the most comprehensive (and effective) propaganda campaigns since Goebbels. That and Al Franken, the brightest light on the station could never have a serious conversation if he saw a lame joke he could derail it with.
Let it be reborn indeed.

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By George Sherman, April 3, 2007 at 7:54 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

NYLefty, I don’t think I’d dismiss GregRocker’s conspiracy theory so lightly, and here’s why: Think about what was going on in radio before Clear Channel flipped all those stations to Air America. CC thought it was going to be a slam-dunk with the FCC to repeal radio ownership limits entirely, allowing CC and a few others to completely dominate the airwaves, squeeze out minority owners and make sure that commercial radio was all-conservative, all-the-time. But then the Minot debacle occurred, and finally the public started taking notice of what was happening to radio and its former commitment to program in the public interest. Suddenly the political strategy behind the Republican-led repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the subsequent relaxation of ownership limits began to become clear. People began to get really suspicious that even in liberal enclaves such as Boston and San Francisco, the Right dominated talk radio. People rose up and packed those localism hearings. And, lo and behold, Michael Powell’s seemingly bought-and-paid-for FCC betrayed Clear Channel’s Bush-loving Mays family and refused to further repeal ownership limits.

So now CC had a problem. It had to clean up its public image, and try to prove to the public that big owners could allow diversity. So it picked up the Air America stations—not to serve the public, but to serve as a hedge against Congressional action to break up Big Radio. The move was a win-win for Clear Channel: If the stations actually make money despite our anemic, half-hearted efforts to promote and sell time on them, then we prosper. And if they fail (as we expect they will given our weak support of them) then we can say to Congress and the public: See? We tried liberal radio and it “didn’t work.”

But then something awful happened: The Democrats took over Congress in the November 2006 election, and local GOP party leaders—especially in crucial swing states such as Ohio—blasted the heretofore-reliable Mays family, privately and publicly, for allowing the ‘other side’ to be heard and hold sway.

Look at these stations where CC is axing progressive talk! Not only are they disproportionately in blue states, but the formats they’re being flipped to are often the same formats that were failing on the same frequencies (such as sports talk) before progressive talk doubled or even tripled the station’s overall Arbitron.

KTLK and Denver’s KKZN are exceptions, but Clear Channel is now actively torpedoing most of these stations because they and their message have now proven harmful to the corporate business agenda of complete repeal of ownership limits. CC would rather take a deductible tax loss with a sports-talk station nobody listens to than risk another November 2006.

I predict that by the end of this year, you’ll be able to count the number of commercial progressive-talk radio stations on one hand ... despite whatever ratings gains they’ve shown. Meanwhile, you’ll also see the other leg of the GOP’s airwaves-cleansing strategy pick up steam: so-called “religious” megastations (actually tax-sheltered GOP propaganda arms) with hundreds of low-power repeaters outbidding public-access stations for non-commercial FM frequencies.

By this time next year, in the heart of the primary season, non-liberal views will be nearly gone from our once-publicly-owned radio dials.

I hope I’m wrong. But I fear I’m not.

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By James, April 3, 2007 at 6:56 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

“Well most Europeans know there is a 9/ll coverup”

Nah, we’ve heard of a 9/11 coverup, but there’s a huge gap between evidence and compelling information.

Besides which, America is the home of abductees, Ted Haggard, Elvis not being dead, Jesus in cheese sandwiches, Fighting for peace, pancake wrapped sausage on a stick and two terms electoral victories for Bush.

Still love Air America and support the constitution, however.

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By nylefty, April 2, 2007 at 7:17 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

There’s a typo in my previous comment. KTLK’s share in the latest Arbitron ratings was 0.6, not 0.06. But it did rank #40 among all stations in the market.

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By david, April 2, 2007 at 7:10 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Im a Democrat for life but good god i cant stand Al Franken. I listen to Limbaughs propaganda every chance i get, its just unfortunate so many people are easily brainwashed by his propaganda instead of recognizing he is for entertainment only.

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By NYLefty, April 2, 2007 at 6:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

“Gregrocker” is all over the Internet, peddling his conspiracy theory about Clear Channel supposedly trying to “sabotage” Air America, and claiming that CC is doing this even though its progressive talk stations are supposedly “wildly successful.”

His prime example is Clear Channel’s KTLK in Los Angeles, which actually ranks #40 in the market in the latest Arbitron ratings, with a 0.06 share. Any other owner would have changed formats long ago, but KTLK has recently opted to hire a talk show host who was very successful on KABC (Mark Germain) to do a four-hour PM drive show and is broadcasting locally-produced newscasts every hour, something that is almost unheard of for such a low-rated station.

I’ve been in the radio business for many years and can’t believe that I’m saying anything positive about Clear Channel, but Gregrocker doesn’t what he’s talking about. Air America would have gone out of business long ago if Clear Channel hadn’t put it on many of its stations and stuck with the progressive talk format, despite the dismal ratings that the format has gotten in almost every market.

I want progressive talk in general and Air America in particular to succeed, but Gregrocker should be attacking the inept former management of Air America and all the station owners who refuse to consider the format at all, rather than continue his conspiracy-theory attacks on Clear Channel.

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By Dale Headley, April 2, 2007 at 3:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

There is a good reason why Rush Limbaugh always has - and always will - defeat his competition: he doesn’t let truth, dignity, and decency get in his way.

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By Rick Nesti, April 2, 2007 at 2:43 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I am glad to hear that another message will continue to be available. The Neo-Con/Bush Crime Family double speak has succeeded in brainwashing a large segment of the American people.

Hopefully it is not too late to prevent the complete destruction of our country’s political process.

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By One Black Woman's Opnion, April 2, 2007 at 2:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Air America is all white people all the time just like “conservative” talk radio with one black guy (wow, how edgy - NOT!). They spend too much time “reacting” and trying not to “cross the line” when they should just spit it and get it over with instead of kow-towing to conservative spin.

Sometimes the racial stuff really isn’t much different and they cut off their call-in listeners in just as ugly a fashion as Rush and such.

I got sick of Air America really fast because they just would not have a strong opposition view. Instead it’s all, “well we can’t say that...” well why the hell not.

If Air America is going to be successful they’re going to have do what Democrats in Congress have yet to do - take off the kid gloves, put on some boxing gloves and fight dirty as hell.

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By cybersaint2k, April 2, 2007 at 1:49 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

“One of the problems is that businesses are owned, I would say, more by Republicans than Democrats. Its just the way it goes.”

Those darned conservatives, who own most businesses, wouldn’t advertise on their
stations. If AA had an audience, businesses--any business--would advert on their station. Business people are not usually that politically driven--they follow the money.

If I were a businessperson, I might not tell everyone my plans for fixing AA. So Mark Green could just be holding his cards very close to his chest when he suggests that increasing sales staff and switching programing around will fix the problems.

I feel as if someone from a slightly different perspective should try and explain it for you fine readers of Truthdig--liberals already have 4-6 TV networks and dozens of large left-wing bloggers that promote their perspective all over the planet. The market has spoken repeatedly that there is no need for AA because the market is truly saturated with the perspective of the Left.

CNN has a conservative, Glenn Beck, with a show, and it’s doing very well. Why? Aside from Glenn Beck’s flaws, aside from whatever else you might say about CNN, you cannot dispute that people like Beck succeed because the market WANTS more conservative-based news analysis and entertainment. It’s *not* saturated yet. It wants more.

Can people like Mark Green hear a message like that? I hope so. If not, it will be more dreams and money wasted and no meaningful, substantive challenge will be issued against the dangerous ideas and actions of neo-conservatives. Just more emotional drivel, one-sided reporting, and Rosie O’Donald-ish hysterics.

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By gregrocker, April 2, 2007 at 1:42 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I’m not sure Air America is aware of the hit job being done on you by Clear Channel. When they first offered to complete the AAR network with their low-power/performing stations, many of us were suspicious since they are career sponsors of Bush who funded their start-up with invesotr profits bilked from taxpayers in Arlington, TX. who built W’s Texas Rangers a new stadium. But business commentators said it was covering their butts in case Dems came back to power.

Well, Dems came back to power, thanks in large part to tiny struggling Air America (according to Howard Dean) and Clear Channel began shutting down their progressive talk affiliates outright on false pretenses that they couldn’t sell advertising, when in fact they never tried. First to go were all 3 affiliates in Ohio which had helped swing that state Dem in 06. And they are tampering with their successful West Coast stations, banishing #1 ratings getter Ed Schultz in L.A. to a sports-preempted slot in the evening, and adding a general talk live host to replace Randi during drive.

The solution to this is the same for reclaming the AM dial from the far right disinformation trickster operation it has become, swinging the past 5 of 6 elections and duping 50 million listeners according to the Annenberg School studies. Congressional hearings should investigate every aspect of this, educating the public as to how their politics became so false and ugly, while pressuring the media corporations to return some balance to AM radio. Until then, the right wing talk juggernaut will continue to steamroll Dem initiations with unchallenged lies, while Bush cronies like Clear Channel openly play dirty tricks to sabotage our only liberal voice on AM. The right has a radio disinformation operation that holds the balance of power in this country now, one which would astound Goebbels.

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By LG, April 2, 2007 at 12:52 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The lineup is fine save for Al Franken, I love all the other hosts. Al’s plethera of ahs and inscent rewording of the same thought make the show unbearable.

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By Clairmonde, April 2, 2007 at 12:31 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Although I love listening to Air America I do have two cents on the one thing they need to change.

!!! HIT YOU OVER THE HEAD, ANNOYINGLY LOUD, CONTINUOUS COMMERCIALS !!!

I tune out and then forget to listen or just turn it off all together. If you are going to insist on that much advertising at least make sure that the same add does not run in every single spot consecutively.

It drives me nuts and drives me away from listening.

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