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AIR AMERICA DROPPED FROM XM

A

argentarius

Guest
It appears that XM has dropped all AAR programming, including The Young Turks, Clout, Jon Elliot, Lionel, Ron Kuby and all weekend programming, replacing with additional hours of Press, Miller, Malloy, as well as the Sirius produced Alex Bennett Show. What's going on? Another nail in AAR's coffin? Even the weekend shows have been replaced with replays of Miller, Schultz, Rhodes and Malloy.
 
Could be one of several things, or a combination thereof.

According to the cover story in "Radio Ink" a few months ago on new AAR CEO Bennett Zier (ex-Mkt Mgr of Clear Channel's DC cluster and briefly CEO of Dan Snyder's Red Zebra Broadcasting) he wanted to turn Air America into an "independent" network, which could be interpreted as "ditch the liberals." If that is indeed the direction he's steering AAR toward, he may have been pushing Thom Hartmann out the door. But Zier had better start grabbing some top-tier "independent" talent pretty quickly, because he'll play hell retaining current affiliates or attracting new ones with the lineup he's got now. And maybe that's the plan. Maybe he's budgeted for zero revenue starting in March.

And from Sirius/XM's standpoint--which dropped the "Air America" tag from Channel 167 a few months ago and renamed it "America Left"--they've got the best talent now, from Dial Global and Nova M. Here's a guess that the renaming of 167 signalled a falling-out with AAR. But, who cares? They've got the Hitters.

Air America wouldn't be the first pioneer in an industry to fail. They had a good idea, but they've made a lot of mistakes. The other guys watched them screw it up, then went ahead and did it better.
 
Other than Miller I would agree XM has the best lineup of Progressive talkers.

Hartman should compete against Miller instead of Schultz, he would make a bigger dent.
 
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