What's next, post-Air America?

[Ian David]

Friday, January 22, 2010
What's next, post-Air America?

With the demise of Air America, many stations and hosts are scrambling to fill programming holes, and hosts are scrambling to acquire new gigs and/or syndicators. But seeing as Air America's on-air influence had been greatly diminished as of late, listeners may not notice many differences in their local station lineups.

First, the stations...

# Obviously, it appears that WZAA, the station the network had been leasing and operating in Washington, DC, will be no more, unless owner Bonneville International or another entity decides to air a progressive talk format there. No word yet on WWRL New York, the other station that Air America leased time from. However, WWRL's owner does have a stake in Ed Schultz' show, so having a local affiliate in New York would be a benefit to them.

# John Scott, program director of KKGN in San Francisco, said that the station's format would be unaffected, and that Air America "was dead a long time ago. They're just burying it Monday at 6pm PT." He claimed "management screw ups, overspending, talent management, it was a mess from almost the get go. There were truly some fine, dedicated radio people there that were part of the launch team, but they never had a chance."

"They offered un-entertaining programming. They deserved this. We are in the ENTERTAINMENT business, I am going to say this for the ten billionth time. We are not in the POLITICAL business."

# NEW! KTLK Los Angeles will have to make a few changes, but it appears they will stick with progressive talk for the foreseeable future. KTLK PD Robin Bertolucci emailed LARadio.com, stating "We are figuring it out as we speak. Ron Reagan (M-F 3-6pm), Richard Greene (M-F 9-11pm), Rachel Maddow (M-F 2-3am), and some of our weekend shows are from Air America." Changes won't be in place until the beginning of next week. The station serves as the home to Stephanie Miller's show.

More:
http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/whats-next-post-air-america.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ltradio+%28LTR+-+The+alternative+media+resource%29

Hat-tip to: http://twitter.com/buzzflash/status/8111856907

[Wapsie B]

1. So is Air America's demise more of a management screw-up than anything else?

Or is it much deeper than that? Was there a conscious decision by a powerful few to run this network into the ground?

[Ian David]

2. I've suspected the latter for a while. n/t

[KharmaTrain]

3. It Was Mismanaged From The Get-Go

The fact AAR survived this long is almost miraculous considering all the mistakes that were made over the years. Check out the movie "Left Of The Dial"...it puts you right there as to how screwed up things were at the start-up...problems that plagued the network til the end.

They got caught in a hole because most of their affiliates were weak signals that don't bring in the revenues like being on a large one does...and without the money they couldn't grow and because they didn't grow, they had troubles making money. Add to this the economic downturn that has seen radio revenues drop like a rock and the writing was on the wall for a long time.

AAR isn't the only company that is in trouble...several broadcasting companies have already filed Chapter 11 with more expected. If anything, AAR's demise is the canary in the coal mine for the other companies.

Overall, AAR opened the door that others are now walking through...they hadn't been a major factor in Progressive talk since Al Franken left.

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. According to Mike Malloy, yes

And he was there literally from the beginning. As in, the initial discussions before the network existed. The founders had the best intentions, but like any start up business, you need investors.

The original investors were literally right wing criminals, and the Mark Green regime were a bunch of DLC tools who had no idea how to run a radio network.

I imagine Mike's soon to be published book will go into detail on this story.

[pennylane100]

5. I got XM radio because our progressive station closed in sacramento

However, when I first got here, we had air american and another progressive station, both of which are now closed. I was very disappointed in the changes air america was making. Three hours of rhandi rhodes for me was pure torture and then they took sam sedar off as well. So I was not surprised to hear that they had gone bankrupt.

The good ones like Thom Hartman, Ed Shultz, and Mike Malloy are still on XM, but I do not know how many other stations carry them.

[onehandle]

6. It started out great with a very talented (and entertaining) line-up. But with a bad business model.

Then they inexplicably got rid of the talent and ended up with nothing.

They changed the business model somewhat, but it was too late.

[jmowreader]

7. What's next is real simple

The shows that were making money for their stations will self-syndicate like Mike Malloy does. Everyone else either goes on the Internet and competes with Bartcop for ears, they get on XM and compete with the Young Turks, or they get three suits and a good haircut and become talking heads on a cable channel.

[windowframe]

8. air america

the loss of stuart smalley caused irreversible damage, right?