Air America to KHTS-FM 93.3 HD3

[SDRadio]

That's the plan, place AA on HD3.

 

[kilohertz]

Oh, that will work. NOT.

 

[SDRadio]

Jones and Air America did not buy that plan ... so it is on hold, according to CC San Diego.

 

[Lopaka]

Lets see, I can get right wing tsuji at 600, 760, 1170, 1210, and 1700 and the kind of sensible left wing political viewpoint that pulled the country out of the Depression and kept it stable for almost 70 years...on 1340 during the day from Santa Barbara if I am within a mile or two of the coast. Gee that seems real fair. Just come up with $100 million for a couple of stations and you can have freedom of speech too.

 

[RBA]

Lets see, I can get right wing tsuji at 600, 760, 1170, 1210, and 1700 and the kind of sensible left wing political viewpoint that pulled the country out of the Depression and kept it stable for almost 70 years...on 1340 during the day from Santa Barbara if I am within a mile or two of the coast. Gee that seems real fair. Just come up with $100 million for a couple of stations and you can have freedom of speech too.

But there isn't enough of sports options, unless you count 570, 710, 800, 1090, 1360 plus the occasional Games an 600 and other stations.

 

[Bob_Hudson]

Lets see, I can get right wing tsuji at 600, 760, 1170, 1210, and 1700 and the kind of sensible left wing political viewpoint that pulled the country out of the Depression and kept it stable for almost 70 years...on 1340 during the day from Santa Barbara if I am within a mile or two of the coast. Gee that seems real fair. Just come up with $100 million for a couple of stations and you can have freedom of speech too.

Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

[Board Editor's Note-post removed]

What part of the equation are you not getting? The only reason that 1360 failed is the lack of revenue and lack of advertisers. Nothing more, nothing less. In Chris' words, that the radio "bidness." It had a good run, Lopaka, and it failed. As someone who identifies himself as a slightly conservative independent, 1360 was BORING. They had no shows which appealed to me. As a friend of mine recently remarked, the station was very good at preaching to its congregation, but failed miserably in gaining new converts. Interestingly though, some of my friends who identify themselves as very liberal, found the station BORING as well. There was nothing that made you want to tune in to tomorrow's show. That is a very important part of the success of a radio station and its programming. For example, whenever I get a chance I turn on JOhn and Ken on KFI. The signal is sometimes problematic here in SD, but if I can tune them in I do because they have made me curious as a listener what they are up to on today's show. And when you have that factor, it is going to result in higher ratings and advertiser success. If the advertiser has success then he will come back and continue to support the station and so it goes round-and-round-and-round. You should know that.

[EDIT]

AM 600, 760, 1210, 1700 have figured out how to build a better mousetrap and have attracted the buyers of that mousetrap. Meanwhile the owners of the company that produced the "1360 Mousetrap" have found that there is not much of a market for their brand of mousetraps and have followed Adam Smith's "secret hand of the market place" as a tried and true test of market reality.

[EDIT-reply to deleted post]

 

[marcus250]

shoutcast.com has alex jones as most popular talk show why isn't he on radio?

alex makes me want to tune in every day but i have to tune in on the net cuz radio is too stupid to pick him up so it has nothing to do with what the people want to hear and everything to do with government sensorship!

 

[Lopaka]

Indeed it is a business. I understand that KLSD was actually making good money. But the point is...the promise of freedom of speech is empty when you get five stations all rapturously praising the present administration and zero offering criticism. KLSD offered constructive criticism, not name calling like you get on KOGO and KFMB and KCBQ and KPRZ and whatever 1700 is. I know some dyed in the wool Democrats who didn't like KLSD, either. To me it is just ironic that our economic system, not actually capitalism of course because that requires competition, delivers up the same uniformity of praise for the administration that Russians used to get under Communism. Official media in Russia was largely ignored, politics and culture were passed along citizen to citizen by samizdat and thats the system that is developing here as well for the same reason: official media is worthless except for scores, traffic, and weather. When we see GM posting a $39 billion loss in a single quarter, it is the result of alienating their customer base for decades with inferior products--loyal customers were simply driven away. Isn't that what radio is doing, too?

 

[amfmxm]

Let's get a couple things clarified.

One, every programming decision is not a "business decision." Thousands of radio stations in the U.S. don't make a dime, but instead are supported by wealthy people who want to push a particular point of view--religious or political.

[EDIT]

But--knowing as we all do that convervatives are perceived to be pro-business and liberals are perceived to be anit-business--why would progressive radio design an operational model dependent on business (advertising) for support?

Air America crashed in 2006 because of an organized boycott by the biggest advertisers in network radio--not because of ratings, but because of the anti-business perception. The new owners--wealthy New York liberal real estate moguls--promptly announced that they'd make it work by selling more advertising. Duh.

Air America should be reconfigured as a non-profit corporation supported by underwriting and membership--using the NPR/PBS model. AA doesn't exist to make money. It generates money to exist.

FWIW, Clear Channel (led by Big Texas Republicans) did flip stations like KLSD--stations with zero shares and zero revenue--for business reasons. They thought that progressive talk would attract listeners & they'd be able to sell spots. What CC did not count on was that the GOP would lose the 2006 mid-term elections--and that they'd catch hell for helping it happen. Since then they've been moving their stations away from progressive talk...


[EDIT-baiting]

 

[Bob_Hudson]

[Board Editor's Note-post removed]

You make the common mistake of confusing Democrats with the far left progressives who are most likely to listen to Air America, join Move On or patronize other such entities on the political fringe.

Progressives wrongly see Rush Limbaugh as being on the far right and fail to understand that he taps into the common sentiment of the majority of Republicans and Democrats. Rush did not succeed because some rich radio station owners decided he cold sell their political ideology - he succeeded because he delivers an audience so those owners can sell spots and make money. If you pay attention to real world politics you'd see that the Congressional Democrats haven't acted much differently thn Congressional Republicans when they had control and the reason is: they know that the majority of Americans favor the status quo and want it fine-tuned, not radically altered.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

[Board Editor's Note-post removed]

You make the common mistake of confusing Democrats with the far left progressives who are most likely to listen to Air America, join Move On or patronize other such entities on the political fringe.

Progressives wrongly see Rush Limbaugh as being on the far right and fail to understand that he taps into the common sentiment of the majority of Republicans and Democrats. Rush did not succeed because some rich radio station owners decided he cold sell their political ideology - he succeeded because he delivers an audience so those owners can sell spots and make money. If you pay attention to real world politics you'd see that the Congressional Democrats haven't acted much differently thn Congressional Republicans when they had control and the reason is: they know that the majority of Americans favor the status quo and want it fine-tuned, not radically altered.

I couldn't say it any better.

 

[RBA]

Rush is a racist bigot. Most Democrats and Republicans don't even listen to a word he says.

 

[EDwalker]

Indeed it is a business. I understand that KLSD was actually making good money.

You cannot substantiate that. Money is money to the shareholders of the company; and if it isn't happening change will happen. If the station was indeed making "good money" (whatever that is), I doubt change would have happened.

If indeed Clear Channel has a political agenda, KLSD would have never existed from day one - or the other liberal talk stations within the company.

 

[Lopaka]

I saw the figure $1.4 m/yr posted earlier for the KLSD income, probably the net. Not bad money. But no, I can't "substantiate" that.

Formats change all the time. Its just that when you end up with every political angle on radio coming from one side it makes it look like a loaded game, it makes a joke out of freedom of speech. Would our friends on the right not complain if 5 local stations all flooded the airwaves with only the left's positions, and there was not a single voice from or for the right?

 

[DaleGriffin]

[Board Editor's Note-post edited for baiting]

Sourcw this ridiculous statement

FWIW, Clear Channel (led by Big Texas Republicans) did flip stations like KLSD--stations with zero shares and zero revenue--for business reasons. They thought that progressive talk would attract listeners & they'd be able to sell spots. What CC did not count on was that the GOP would lose the 2006 mid-term elections--and that they'd catch hell for helping it happen. Since then they've been moving their stations away from progressive talk...

Source this ridiculous statement


[/quote]

 

[davideduardo]

I saw the figure $1.4 m/yr posted earlier for the KLSD income, probably the net. Not bad money. But no, I can't "substantiate" that.

No, it is the gross. I don't believe the station made a profit.

Formats change all the time. Its just that when you end up with every political angle on radio coming from one side it makes it look like a loaded game, it makes a joke out of freedom of speech.

"Freedom of speech" does not apply to private property, of course. In private enterprise, whatever makes money is generally done if legal. Liberal radio seldom makes money as it seldom get listeners. The other side does both, so guess which kind of talk radio we get?

Would our friends on the right not complain if 5 local stations all flooded the airwaves with only the left's positions, and there was not a single voice from or for the right?

The issue here is that KLSD got minimal ratings (about a tenth of the sum of KOGO and KFMB) and made no money. Money has no pollitics... proof being that the company that had the largest number of Air AmeriKa affiliates was Clear Channel, whose political affiliations are almost totally conservative.

 

[RBA]

Why do people feel they need to use "Err" and "AmeriKa" and other "clever" little digs in order to spell "Air America"?

Also, what's the source of KLSD's profit? Saying "it's the gross and I don't believe it made a profit" without any source doesn't really add to the conversation.

Seriously, the way corporations cook their books, I would be surprised if Clear Channel admitted they made a profit on any of their radio stations.

 

[SDRadio]

Why do people feel they need to use "Err" and "AmeriKa" and other "clever" little digs in order to spell "Air America"?

They are a product of state sponsored ed-u-kation.

 

[hipman2]

Maybe some of ths stations could launch Holiday music channels on the HD2 channels.

Related note: I just bought an HD Radio this week. A review is coming at a website near you.