Air America Goes Belly Up

[rtetro]

This has obviously been coming a for a long time. Here is the notice on their website this afternoon. It's gone by the end of the day, Jan. 21.

 

[qtpieislit]

I recon, don't think that surprises anybody a dang bit. It's an aggregate world after all.

 

[pabsungenis]

Really, Air America disappeared when Randi Rhodes was fired and Rachel Maddow went to MSNBC. They were the last of the original lineup. What's been on the air the past couple of years bore no real resemblance to the Air America they started out with.

Since Randi was fired, "Air America" has been the radio equivalent of Terri Schiavo, and they finally unplugged it.

 

[DToTheJ]

As far as Philadelphia is concerned, I'm sure Air America's "Philadelphia affiliate" - which was actually located in Stroudsburg, PA - is taking the news quite hard.

 

[John1]

WHAT ran 2 AA shows - Al Franken & Randi Rhodes - shortly after the network started, in between their local shows, without any publicity, and it didn't work. The progressive audience stayed with WHYY & the conservative with WPHT. The concept of a full schedule of network talk shows like AA & the Salem stations hasn't really worked well ratings-wise vs. stations selecting individual syndicated shows. AA did kick-start the progressive talk show movement, with the more successful shows - Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, all syndicated. I'd like to see a station with full market coverage try some of these - WPEN 950 comes to mind rather than just mostly simulcasting the FM - they could run talk shows & still pick up the play by play not run on 97.5. Listening to these talk shows on Sirius & online, I have heard many callers from the Philadelphia area who must be listening the same way.

 

[Slant]

they should have ran infomercials like WPHT does in order to generate revenue.

 

[Silkie]

Something about the term, "belly up", to describe bankruptcy tickles me. It doesn't matter who is being described, it is just a funny, funny term.

 

[DanStrassberg]

AA did kick-start the progressive talk show movement, with the more successful shows - Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, all syndicated.

Schultz and Miller, for sure, and I think also Bill Press, were NEVER syndicated by AirAmerica! NEVER! They were with Jones Radio Networks, which a year or so ago was bought by and merged into Dial Global and they continue with Dial Global.

Unfortunately for Progressive Talk, a lot of stations that carried some programs from AirAmerica and some from Jones, identified the programming with AirAmerica, which succeeded at only one thing--establishing a recognizable brand name. The result was that all of the bad decisions and mismanagement at AirAmerica became incorrectly identified with all Progressive talk. Dial Global and its Progressive personalities, several of whom have shows that make real money for the network and its affiliates, get really upset when people mistakenly idenfify them with AirAmerica.

 

[John1]

Sorry, my choice of wording was misleading - what I meant was the startup of Air America allowed for other syndicators to decide to try out progressive talk shows like Ed Schultz, Bill Press & Stephanie Miller. Didn't mean to imply they came from AA. AA did start the national careers of Rachel Maddow & Randi Rhodes, but they have of course done well post-AA.

Forgot to mention earlier that Ed Schultz did run afternoons on WCOJ for a time.