Give me the full monty on AAR. I want to know...

[Writer]

How is AAR's advertising revenue?

Is AAR now doing pledge drives to raise funds?

Why did the CEO leave in the first month?

Why do you think Al Franken is higher rated than Randi Rhodes?

Give me the whole story now, unabridged. After two years, how viable is AAR?

[benburch]

1. Read Sheldon Drobny's book.

Much of this is covered in there.

How viable? I think they are making it. I know they wish they were making it in better style.

Franken has a better time slot than Randi.

[scarletlib]

4. randi has the time slot she wanted.

[benburch]

6. Correct.

But just in terms of ratings, it is the inferior slot.

[bandy]

8. Randi has that time slot for a reason -

Her fans, myself included here in So. Fla. Randi would not agree to go to AAR until she was guaranteed that slot because WRMF, 1290 AM is the one station that carries her in this area. Rush Gasbag is on til 3:00 followed by Randi. By the way, Randi was #1 in the ratings at this station in spite of the gasbag being a resident of this repig stronghold. But according to him HE is #1.

[Syrinx]

2. I can only answer one

And it's the obvious one.

Al Franken is higher rated because people know who he is. He's been on national TV since the mid seventies.

[laststeamtrain]

3. RE: RR vs. AF

It's an apples and oranges comparison.
It seems to me there's two formats in current talk radio that prevail.
1) Rant
2) Patter, bits, interviews

As a rule I prefer 2), but I'm not insensitive to 1). It's a mood thing. For instance I like Bernie Ward and he's pretty much a ranter. He mentioned the other night that he's 250 something on the top talk radio host list. Oh well...

Randi's good when she has something to talk about. I don't understand when she attacks callers who are agreeing with her.

I like Al. An interesting combo of Manhattan and Minnesota. He's a weird 'fit' in current radio. I think his name recognition does go a far piece in his ratings. I listen to him several times a week usually.

I really like Guy James. It's great to hear a left populist voice on radio.

Anyway, that's my two bits. Probably meaningless when it comes to 'audience studies'. I'm 54 and about to become irrelevant demographic-wise and I buy too little. The 'creative' part of radio is just the crap they fit between the ads and I figure if you have to advertise, your product is probably crap, otherwise people would buy it because it's good.

[Jai4WKC08]

5. I wonder if moving to XM satellite

Hurt AAR, since it happened shortly before all the publicity and new listeners Sirius got with Howard Stern's move. Most people aren't gonna pay for two satellite services.

I got satellite after both events, and ended up going with Sirius. Not for Howard, but because of Ed Shultz, the Young Turks, and Stephanie Miller. But I really wish I could hear Franken and Rhodes too.

[zann725]

7. Their ratings are stellar. They've expanded into nearly ALL 'markets'

nationwide. Each franchise (or area) may have slightly different line-up. They've re-arranged the one in L.A. several times now, but they just brought BACK Marc Maron, which is good..as is Stephanie Miller...and we have Randi and Al, and Sam Seder and "Ring of Fire" (w/RFK Jr.) and also Laura Flanders on weekend. A few of their line-up is not my liking, but most are. And a lot of people I know listen to some or most of the broadcasts (either on-line) or via car radio, or regular radio (for those that are not Satellite radio connected yet).

AAR certainly contributed to Rush Limbaugh's rating demise...and others like him...nationwide.