AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTOR

[ABQTom]

The current PD of AAR has left - after only seven months on the job.

http://news.****************/cgi-bin/$rol.exe/headline_id=n17300

Anyone know why? Fired? Resigned?

I'd suggest that whoever the new PD is, that they drop the networks's top heavy emphasis on ideology, that to most outsiders, appears to be their hiring criteria. They should hire hosts who understand that talk radio is just as much about entertainment, as it is political persuasion ... and get some new hosts who offer their own unique brand of entertainment, that's been time tested with ratings and longetivity in local markets, in order to appeal to a wider demographic.

That is what the right has been doing with their shows for years, with Rush Limbaugh as the classic example, and Glenn Beck as an evolving example. On the left, very few national examples of this - Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, and Alan Colmes. Air America, except for Hartmann and Lionel, most other of their syndicated programs are "just too preachy" - especially Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow. I have no idea why they fired Malloy, his theatrical voice presentations are very partisan, but are still hilarious and entertaining, and he handles his callers respectfully. But there are plenty of examples of this in local markets, and the network desperately needs to conduct a nationwide search for new talent, instead of over reliance on talent within the Bohemian community of Manhattan:

suggestions -

Jay Diamond

Bryan Styble

Lou Pate

Arnie Arneson

Turi Ryder

Erin Hart

Doug Basham with Lydia Cornell

Peter B. Collins

http://news.****************/cgi-bin/$rol.exe/headline_id=n17300

 

[doberd]

How about adding Phil Boyce to the list????

 

[robbbc]

Lionel went over like a thud along with the rest of AAR's new programs this guy brought in (the air americans, the young turks- come on...). I'd go back to some of the stuff they started with like Mike Malloy and Morning Sedition (minus riley). They never gave the original programs much time to develop. Put Maddow back in mid-morning and let stations time shift as they need. Malloy could be their night-time guy and bring back Majority report with Sam Seder between Randi and Malloy. The DNC approach didn't work, don't go back to a failing format. They didn't attract new listeners and they lost the old ones. The point of the network is for liberals not moderates and the moderates aren't gonna show up.

 

[Ultimajock]

...NO BLOODY WAY is Mike Malloy going back to work for Air America. In fact, he spoke on-air last week about suing AAR for violating his contract once the bankruptcy program clears...

 

[Ultimajock]

suggestions -

Bryan Styble

...naah, he's too paranoid ;-) ...

 

[amfmsw]

I believe the key word was written earlier...entertain! Holy Smokes, all politics aside, the presentation is a total snore!

It's boring, dry toast no butter no mayo, no flavor or color. Old grey sedan with blackwalls and missing wheel covers.

No imagination. This is where Limbaugh shines. ALL politics aside...he's entertaining and engaging. As a conservative, he says things that are so outrageously crap, even I scratch my head. BUT, he's entertaining.

With the exception of the worst morning show, the talent is fine and they're articulate in their message. But it's delivered in a plain brown wrapper. AA is limp, like listening to NPR on a bad day.

 

[robbbc]

I believe the key word was written earlier...entertain! Holy Smokes, all politics aside, the presentation is a total snore!

It's boring, dry toast no butter no mayo, no flavor or color. Old grey sedan with blackwalls and missing wheel covers.

No imagination. This is where Limbaugh shines. ALL politics aside...he's entertaining and engaging. As a conservative, he says things that are so outrageously crap, even I scratch my head. BUT, he's entertaining.

With the exception of the worst morning show, the talent is fine and they're articulate in their message. But it's delivered in a plain brown wrapper. AA is limp, like listening to NPR on a bad day.

Toward the end of Morning sedition it was great. A morning zoo program with a liberal agenda. That was a potential success. Randi and her hot headed program is a ratings star and when Sam Seder gets rolling he can be great. Malloy too. Steph is a riot and great in mid mornings. I have heard Johnny Angel sub for steph and think he would be great one to have on.

I'll give you that Hartmann is a bit slow but for the 12-3 crowd it may be just what they want. Maddow is another example of a Hartmann type. She is spot on the money but not an entertainer. She deserves a spot but where? The un- stephanie miller?

 

[NewsNow]

I really enjoyed listening to Maddow when she was the lead in for Stephanie Miller on 1260 in DC.

Bill Press, not so much. He had Penn Gillette on as a guest. Gillette put the suck in this guy sucks on the radio.

 

[ABQTom]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

suggestions -

Bryan Styble

...naah, he's too paranoid ;-) ...

That's not fair, Bryan is an acquaintance of mine and he has tremendous knowledge and talent. He was on KIRO 6 nights a week on the skywave last year and did very well with callers from Arcadia, CA to Calgary, AB. Bryan is a politically unpredictable although is a social libertarian, pro-gay marriage, and believes in global warming - Bryan deserves more than just the three Sunday night hours that Bonneville gives him on KIRO currently.

Bryan Styble or Jay Diamond could be Air America's overnight guy 10p-2a Pacific time to compete with "Hoax to Hoax," if I may quote Bryan describing his competition!

 

[SeanMGilbow]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

Among the items on the rumor mill--WOR may soon be syndicating Air America's programming.

If this does happen, Lionel will be tickled. He was previously syndicated by WOR.

Unlike many of my fellow liberal talk listeners, I like Lionel, which many progressive talk stations aired instead of Mike Malloy. But bringing him to Air America resulted in Lionel losing many traditional news/talk stations with mostly conservative hosts. Which meant he had three strikes against him: disgruntled AAR fans, loss of affiliates and the liberal talk ratings juggernaut known as Stephanie Miller.

Thom Hartmann, while a bright spot on Air America 2.0, still has to compete with Ed Schultz. Big Eddie continues to be the leading force in progressive talk and has an established following with conservative listeners. How else could he get Richard Viguerie as a regular?

Randi Rhodes may get on some listeners' nerves, but she and Rachel Maddow have been with the network from the beginning and have been a source of stability for Air America.

But if I were to program a progressive talk station, I would still avoid anything associated with the network. In addition to Miller, Schultz and Malloy, the genre has other non-AAR talkers such as Bill Press, Leslie Marshall and Michael Jackson, the talk radio legend who helped shape the format and just returned to the Los Angeles airwaves. My hope for Jackson is that he is once again syndicated.

Of course, there are others like the legendary Jay Marvin in Boulder who should also be syndicated.

These are the types of hosts that Air America should attract if it wants to expand its listener base toward those like me who are left of center, but not far left.

 

[radiotower40]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

Jay Marvin should be syndicated,he is one of the most honest,entertaining and genuine hosts out there. I tend to be more
conservative but I listened to Jay all the time when he was in Chicago he is a real person who really knows how to entertain
his audience which is the difference between him and someone like Randy who just seems to do nothing but insult people that
she disagrees with.

 

[ABQTom]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

"Unlike many of my fellow liberal talk listeners, I like Lionel, which many progressive talk stations aired instead of Mike Malloy. But bringing him to Air America resulted in Lionel losing many traditional news/talk stations with mostly conservative hosts. Which meant he had three strikes against him: disgruntled AAR fans, loss of affiliates and the liberal talk ratings juggernaut known as Stephanie Miller."

Absolutely. I also like Lionel and it makes economic sense for Lionel to be 7p-10p rather than competing with Stephanie Miller.

"But if I were to program a progressive talk station, I would still avoid anything associated with the network. In addition to Miller, Schultz and Malloy, the genre has other non-AAR talkers such as Bill Press, Leslie Marshall and Michael Jackson....Of course, there are others like the legendary Jay Marvin in Boulder who should also be syndicated.....
These are the types of hosts that Air America should attract if it wants to expand its listener base toward those like me who are left of center, but not far left...."

I agree - shouldn't be too far to the left. Also, Peter B. Collins, 3p-6p Pacific, already syndicated in 6 markets and growing. And, Doug Basham/Lydia Cornell, now doing morning drive in Vegas, could be syndicated like Doug himself was in 2005-2006. Weekends, individual progressive stations in Clear channel clusters with a conservative station could pick up Bill Handel and Dr. Dean Edell - instead of Randi Rhodes reruns or paid Air America programs. Clark Howard also good on weekends.

 

[jaymarvin]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

Someone gave me a heads up you were posting about me. Thanks for the kind words. I don't really see myself as ever being syndicated. Also I think I may not be left enough for the format. I use to be very left in my early days of talk radio when I worked on WFLA and WLS. But even then I always said what I thought even if people got mad at me, and they did. Anyway thanks again for the kind words. By the way Lionel and I worked together on WFLA. To me he is one of the best things Air America did. All agenda all the time radio is killing the talk radio format. Plus it's boring.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Some compelling suggestions here, but one thing's missing in this discussion, that being the need to support progressive talk with the mortar that hold the bricks together: A responsible, aggressive local news department that can be depended upon 24-7.

Most of the prog talk stations that I've heard are lacking in this regard. Take Buffalo as an example, where WWKB seemingly runs on life support and has the ratings to prove it. That's a 50kW signal that barely breaks a 1 share. Bill Press is a knowledgeable guy, but he isn't getting any traction in morning drive. Not entirely his fault since the station leaves him hanging out to dry.

I believe talk radio, whether it's progressive, conservative or "proservative" requires compelling, stimulating, live, localism and plenty of news, traffic and weather, as well as sports, especially in morning drive and throughout the remainder of the day.

Strong personalities are a must, but without the service elements they tend not to live up to their potential greatness.

 

[robbbc]

Some compelling suggestions here, but one thing's missing in this discussion, that being the need to support progressive talk with the mortar that hold the bricks together: A responsible, aggressive local news department that can be depended upon 24-7.

Most of the prog talk stations that I've heard are lacking in this regard. Take Buffalo as an example, where WWKB seemingly runs on life support and has the ratings to prove it. That's a 50kW signal that barely breaks a 1 share. Bill Press is a knowledgeable guy, but he isn't getting any traction in morning drive. Not entirely his fault since the station leaves him hanging out to dry.

I believe talk radio, whether it's progressive, conservative or "proservative" requires compelling, stimulating, live, localism and plenty of news, traffic and weather, as well as sports, especially in morning drive and throughout the remainder of the day.

Strong personalities are a must, but without the service elements they tend not to live up to their potential greatness.

If you want ratings better than that you gotta either have the big guns like Rush (WBEN) or an all news format, which WBEN does in the morning. WWKB would never get Rush from WBEN (both entercom properties) and the broadcast pattern for WWKB is suprisingly not better than WBEN's, skywave be damned. So the only choice to make good use of that signal is to do an all-news format (super expensive) or run it on a shoestring and make some low but respectable numbers (precisely what it does now). Why would they want to directly compete with themselves?

 

[Radknowski]

As I read the post, seems the point was that progressive talk stations need the same support that makes talk radio stations a success. KB was only mentioned as an example of what happens when a progressive station doesn't have all the essentials.

Rush gets ratings because he's entertaining and top of mind, even to libby's who hate him. WBEN backs him up with live, local newscasts and plenty of on-air promotion. Rush also is on a station that, as you point out, has a full blown news department, a morning drive news block and a live, local talk host as his lead-in. It would be interesting to find out how a guy like Big Ed would fare on WBEN in Rush's noon to 3 slot? Most likely it would be nowhere near as good as Rush does, but significantly better than Ed does now in the 12-3 slot on the 50 thousand Watt garage door opener, WWKB.

Good points about the WWKB-WBEN signals, WBEN has the superior daytime signal, even though both WWKB and WBEN blanket the market's two MSA counties. Actually, the best daytime signal in Buffalo might be WGR with 5kW ND on 550.

Pastrick didn't mention it in his post, but the man has credible news-talk chops as the production director and later PD/OM of WGR Buffalo when it was news-talk and giving WBEN more than a run for its money. Everybody in (and out of) Buffalo radio knows full well why Entercom is operating KB on the cheap. WBEN is the Queen of the (AM) Cluster and the Queen always gets protected.

 

[SeanMGilbow]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

Someone gave me a heads up you were posting about me. Thanks for the kind words. I don't really see myself as ever being syndicated. Also I think I may not be left enough for the format. I use to be very left in my early days of talk radio when I worked on WFLA and WLS. But even then I always said what I thought even if people got mad at me, and they did. Anyway thanks again for the kind words. By the way Lionel and I worked together on WFLA. To me he is one of the best things Air America did. All agenda all the time radio is killing the talk radio format. Plus it's boring.

Jay...I hope Jones Radio would think of syndicating you in Big Eddie's previous time slot, thus giving Jones a 12-hour progressive talk block with Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, Big Eddie and you. I always enjoyed listening to you substituting for Big Eddie.

I do hope Lionel continues to get as good an audience as he did with WOR.

But until the stigma associated with Air America can be lifted, he, Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes will face some major challenges, as well as the network as a whole. The one thing in their favor, as I mentioned previously, is that they, along with Steph and Big Eddie, are heard on stations with conservative talkers.

 

[kaufcom]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

But until the stigma associated with Air America can be lifted, he, Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes will face some major challenges, as well as the network as a whole. The one thing in their favor, as I mentioned previously, is that they, along with Steph and Big Eddie, are heard on stations with conservative talkers.

Problem is that most of 20 plus conservative talk stations carrying Schultz carry him in low-rated evening slots. The good clearances that Hartmann and Rhodes have in L.A. and N.Y. generate more listeners than all of the stand-alone Schultz slots.

 

[bub]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

All agenda all the time radio is killing the talk radio format. Plus it's boring.

All agenda all the time is killing some music-intensive stations on the FM, too...and they're just as boring.

 

[ABQTom]

Re: AIR AMERICA PROGRAM DIRECTOR EXITS - SUGGESTION FOR THE NEXT PROGRAM DIRECTO

All agenda all the time radio is killing the talk radio format. Plus it's boring.

Because of this inappropriate encouragement of ideology, conservative hosts like Limbaugh, Levin, and Hannity are polar opposites of liberal hosts like Rhodes, Maddow, and Malloy. That divides the audience, to some extent into two groups, doesn't it? And, since there are more conservative talk listeners than liberal listeners (according to Talkers Magazine on line), then how can liberal talk ever expect to equal conservative talk?

Does anyone know of any surveys that look at the percentage of conservatives who will listen to liberal talk, and the percentage of liberals who will listen to conservative talk?

As for the emphasis on ideology as Jay Marvin writes, why do certain conservative and liberal hosts never discuss their personal lives, where they went on vacation, what they had for dinner, etc?

Finally this division also makes it difficult to find advertisers. The big talk hosts are on 50,000 watt signals and they have big advertising contracts. If a liberal talk station on 5kW/1kW comes along and goes after the advertisers on the big station they'll have difficulty.

It seems to me that it's unnecessary to have "all-conservative talk" and "all-liberal talk" stations in the first place. KGO and KIRO get good ratings with a mix of both. The hosts make fun of each other on and off the air at debates. That makes great radio. This proves that the necessity to provide two completely diametrically opposing formats in order to generate ratings is a myth.

So I see one solution could be for programmers to follow what Luckoff/Swanson/Berry/Olinger/Clendening have done over the years at KGO and KIRO, providing both ideologies and some lifestyle talk. What would happen if programmers of "Air America stations" and "FOX NEWS talk" stations started swapping some hosts with each other?

Then, Big Ed might gain some monster 50kW signals, while Savage would be relegated to some class D's with 21W at night. In Albuquerque, imagine Big Ed getting 11 shares on on Citadel's 50,000 watt KKOB 10a-1p, right after their 11 share morning news program with Bob Clark, and Rush Limbaugh moving to CC's 5kW KABQ 1350. Of course, that's not a plausible example, but something similar could occur, maybe with evening hosts.