AAR signs LIONEL to go into Seders slot

[RBA]

http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2007/04/lionel-slides-into-seders-slot.html ???

ugh

 

[dampier]

The remaining open question about this decision is whether this will be a three hour replay of his WOR show, will be a new show from Lionel in this time slot which will get replayed on WOR later in the evening, or will be a whole new venture in addition to his WOR show or instead of his WOR show.

Lionel can be very entertaining and definitely knows radio. He's more from the Stephanie Miller side of radio - entertainment first, politics second. He HATES talk radio of all kinds. His show is definitely hard to describe because it doesn't fit into traditional political talk radio. He's comfortable doing lifestyle talk, as he did several examples of last week, as well an entertainment and pop culture issues. And he does politics. He hates talking points, Bush Republicans, and blather in general.

The problem for AAR listeners used to a more NPR'ish - inform and educate model are not going to like where Green is taking AAR - decidedly towards entertaining talk radio. Seder could drone on with esoteric guests for an hour. Informative? Perhaps. Entertaining? Not so much. The clearances told the story.

I predict most stations already running Lionel are going to time shift this block into the time slot they have reserved for Lionel right now. They are definitely not going to replace Stephanie Miller to run Lionel. Lionel's current show to me says "evening." If he's leaving WOR, he'll be happy to not have to complain about the phone system at WOR (he's extremely amusing when he starts ranting about how lousy their software system is). If you're an Air America employee and he's in the building, watch out because your foibles become his fodder. He just called two fellow employees "pigs" by name on the air for having a messy workspace, gets annoyed with people walking into his studio while he's on the air, and loves to air the dirty laundry.

Lionel's biggest problems are his own ability to go on and on and on and on (and off) about something without getting to the point until the first ad break is coming up. He's also the most frequent user of the cough button on radio I've ever heard. And he can be repetitive, especially on pop culture stuff. He's also into reconsidering 9/11 (and the building 7 issue, the missing plane in Pennsylvania, etc.) and that is going to make him a conspiracy theorist to people. He also often picks topics that make you wonder if it's a "best of" because nobody else is talking about an issue he occasionally chooses. He's also been very NYC-centric, so AAR is going to sound more NYC then ever.

I think Lionel is actually an improvement over Sam Seder, especially if going for entertainment over politics, but the diehards are not going to like this one bit.

 

[FightingIrish]

R&R is reporting that WOR is currently looking for a replacement.

Guess he wants to get out of nights.

 

[aeris]

R&R is reporting that WOR is currently looking for a replacement.

Guess he wants to get out of nights.

Easy, MIKE MALLOY , and take out health talk...

But Six Hours, of Caustic Radio...

 

[ajhenderson]

This seems a bit of a silly move. Of course, WOR is an a**-backwards organization and the new owners might be writing a big enough check to make it worth his while. However, Stephanie Miller is the de facto 9-noon ET clear for most PTers. Lionel does a very nice show as well, although I feel from his schtick and having seen him personally that it's more of a night time deal. At the least, put him 6-9 or 7-10pm and get rid of the real dreck in AAR's lineup, those piddly little one-hour shows. Put Maddow back from 9-noon if you do that, I suppose, but again, you won't get any live clears anyway. Except on WWRL.

If I had a libtalker, I would have cleared Lionel live. It's nice to have live talk at night, and there's absolutely nothing else in PT radio good at that hour. So, good luck to him. He'll need it.

 

[FightingIrish]

This seems a bit of a silly move. Of course, WOR is an a**-backwards organization and the new owners might be writing a big enough check to make it worth his while. However, Stephanie Miller is the de facto 9-noon ET clear for most PTers. Lionel does a very nice show as well, although I feel from his schtick and having seen him personally that it's more of a night time deal. At the least, put him 6-9 or 7-10pm and get rid of the real dreck in AAR's lineup, those piddly little one-hour shows. Put Maddow back from 9-noon if you do that, I suppose, but again, you won't get any live clears anyway. Except on WWRL.

If I had a libtalker, I would have cleared Lionel live. It's nice to have live talk at night, and there's absolutely nothing else in PT radio good at that hour. So, good luck to him. He'll need it.

I don't think the goal is to get stations to switch from Steph to Lionel. I think their intent is to attract new stations altogether.

Wonder if they'll offer a second channel refeed for nights? And I wonder if they'll continue the live weekend show? Lots of affiliates for that one.

 

[ajhenderson]

This seems a bit of a silly move. Of course, WOR is an a**-backwards organization and the new owners might be writing a big enough check to make it worth his while. However, Stephanie Miller is the de facto 9-noon ET clear for most PTers. Lionel does a very nice show as well, although I feel from his schtick and having seen him personally that it's more of a night time deal. At the least, put him 6-9 or 7-10pm and get rid of the real dreck in AAR's lineup, those piddly little one-hour shows. Put Maddow back from 9-noon if you do that, I suppose, but again, you won't get any live clears anyway. Except on WWRL.

If I had a libtalker, I would have cleared Lionel live. It's nice to have live talk at night, and there's absolutely nothing else in PT radio good at that hour. So, good luck to him. He'll need it.

I don't think the goal is to get stations to switch from Steph to Lionel. I think their intent is to attract new stations altogether.

Wonder if they'll offer a second channel refeed for nights? And I wonder if they'll continue the live weekend show? Lots of affiliates for that one.

True... the 9-noon allows new stations while ostensibly keeping many of the current ones who don't care about live clears. However, WOR/NY, the biggest clear, and 1 or 2 other Buckley stations, as well as those clearing WOR programming (particularly on the weekend) will go away. And with the way AAR slaps its brand all over every liner and rejoin, I wouldn't want to keep the show if I were a conservative or moderate talker clearing it currently.

Granted, he will be available on delay for 3-6pm PT/6-9pm ET, where there's basically nothing (unless Leslie Marshall was going to be in that slot?), however, just like Dennis Miller, you'd like to have SOME live clears

 

[Faraway]

AAR has thrown down the gauntlet, they are making a statement to Jones that they are going to be a much tougher competitor. I agree with earlier posts that there won't be much if any switching out Steph to Lionel. But for AAR to remain viable, they have to offer strong shows between 9am - 6 or 7pm weekdays. The key will be the get more clearances than Seder had - and sorry to Sam's fans - that won't be hard. Still, this was a gutsy and smart move by the the Greens.

PS - on other boards the lefties are whining that Lionel isn't a true "liberal." Maybe not, but it's guys like him that will give the format a chance.