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Update: All Access reports the "rich Democrats" bankrolling the Phoenix LMA are the same ones who were principal backers of AAR: Sheldon and Anita Drobny of Chicago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Drobny
Save Air America Phoenix, headed by former Phoenix progressive talk host Mike Newcomb (who currently hosts a syndicated weekend show), claims to have reached a deal for an LMA to get Newcomb and other progressive talk programming back on in Phoenix (Adult Standards KPHX) next Monday. The group's website says they will need continuing donations to stay on the air.
http://www.saveairamericaphoenix.com/
Mike Newcomb website:
http://www.mikenewcomb.net/index.php
Apparently, the new PT line-up will include Newcomb. No announcement has been made whether the line-up will have a place for Phoenix's former morning drive progressive host Charles Goyette - or for Ed Schultz, previously carried on KXXT, Phoenix before that station dropped progressive talk. Nor has the group said exactly which programs it will take from AAR.
All Access (UPDATED):
<blockquote>Air America Phoenix Sets Return On KPHX
ALL ACCESS hears that AIR AMERICA RADIO's PHOENIX affiliate will relaunch on CONTINENTAL BROADCASTING CORP.'s KPHX-A/PHOENIX in an LMA arrangement on APRIL 3. The station recently flipped from ALL COMEDY RADIO to Adult Standards and will pick up the liberal talk lineup, including local host Dr. MIKE NEWCOMB, dropped by crosstown KXXT-A when COMMUNICOM recently bought that station and flipped it to Religion.
The "SAVE AIR AMERICA PHOENIX" group led by NEWCOMB, which held a pixel-selling web site fundraiser to get back on the air, is behind the new LMA venture, although it will need to continue to raise funds to pay the lease. NEWCOMB, who will serve as GM, and AIR AMERICA RADIO co-founders and DEMOCRATIC PARTY financiers SHELDON and ANITA DROBNY have formed NOVA M RADIO to run KPHX and look for more acquisitions or LMAs.</blockquote>
Meanwhile, the Phoenix "alternative" newspaper, Phoenix New Times, suggests at least part of the local liberal community is not happy with or supportive of this "beg-a-thon" approach to saving local progressive talk.
<blockquote>
The Bird thinks that the only thing more unfortunate than the death of Air America Phoenix is the whining and bitch-fighting that's taken place since the liberal radio station's funeral.
Former employees of Air America Phoenix are as busy slinging mud and pointing fingers as they are scrambling to relaunch their hyper-liberal chat station with one of those "save our sunk ship" fund-raising sites -- behavior that The Bird thought liberal radio types were way above.
Wrong. The guys from Air America's Phoenix affiliate -- home to famed chat hosts Charles "Fearless Talk Radio" Goyette and lefty Ed Schultz, and found on the AM dial at KXXT 1010 until March 1, when the station's new owners, Denver-based religious broadcasters Communicom, switched to an all-Jesus format -- are taking the sort of self-pitying "Mom, he hit me!" stance so popular with, well, conservative Christians.
"Air America's Phoenix station was taken off the air by a Christian broadcasting company," according to the group's woe-is-me Web site (www.saveairamericaphoenix.com), which goes on to beg for $500,000 in donations from former listeners.
Please. As much as The Bird enjoys a good conspiracy theory, and as much as it enjoys going after big-bucks-corrupted Christians, even a pretend pigeon can tell that this is merely a case of someone with a bigger pile of dough buying out a little guy who couldn't say no.
Air America Phoenix's former station manager Robert J. Christy agrees.
"There's no conspiracy here," he moaned to The Bird. "(BLEEP) happens. Like a radio station gets offered a ton of money and decides to sell. There's nothing surprising about that. Everyone knew what was happening."
Not so, said former Air America employee Jeff Farias, who produced the station's Mike Newcomb Show and co-hosted a weekend chat fest with The Bird's favorite legislative lefty, state Representative Kyrsten Sinema (see "Howl of Sanity," March 9). "We were as shocked as our listeners. We found out the night we went off the air, when Ed Schultz announced on his show that he was going off the air in Phoenix." ...
"Bullshit!" Christy squawked to this foul fowl. "These naive people that I gave paychecks to think they're smarter than I am. They don't know what it takes to put up a successful broadcasting business. Fifty-dollar donations from listeners aren't enough to finance a station -- the bank will throw their ass out the door!"
But the former Air America-ers won't need a bank, if all goes according to their plan. "We're going to find a rich Democrat," Farias explained to The Bird. "We've already found a station in town that we can lease for a year. We had a meeting with our attorneys, and now we're looking for that wealthy Dem who wants to bankroll a radio station." ...
</blockquote>
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-03-16/news/Bird_print.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Drobny
Save Air America Phoenix, headed by former Phoenix progressive talk host Mike Newcomb (who currently hosts a syndicated weekend show), claims to have reached a deal for an LMA to get Newcomb and other progressive talk programming back on in Phoenix (Adult Standards KPHX) next Monday. The group's website says they will need continuing donations to stay on the air.
http://www.saveairamericaphoenix.com/
Mike Newcomb website:
http://www.mikenewcomb.net/index.php
Apparently, the new PT line-up will include Newcomb. No announcement has been made whether the line-up will have a place for Phoenix's former morning drive progressive host Charles Goyette - or for Ed Schultz, previously carried on KXXT, Phoenix before that station dropped progressive talk. Nor has the group said exactly which programs it will take from AAR.
All Access (UPDATED):
<blockquote>Air America Phoenix Sets Return On KPHX
ALL ACCESS hears that AIR AMERICA RADIO's PHOENIX affiliate will relaunch on CONTINENTAL BROADCASTING CORP.'s KPHX-A/PHOENIX in an LMA arrangement on APRIL 3. The station recently flipped from ALL COMEDY RADIO to Adult Standards and will pick up the liberal talk lineup, including local host Dr. MIKE NEWCOMB, dropped by crosstown KXXT-A when COMMUNICOM recently bought that station and flipped it to Religion.
The "SAVE AIR AMERICA PHOENIX" group led by NEWCOMB, which held a pixel-selling web site fundraiser to get back on the air, is behind the new LMA venture, although it will need to continue to raise funds to pay the lease. NEWCOMB, who will serve as GM, and AIR AMERICA RADIO co-founders and DEMOCRATIC PARTY financiers SHELDON and ANITA DROBNY have formed NOVA M RADIO to run KPHX and look for more acquisitions or LMAs.</blockquote>
Meanwhile, the Phoenix "alternative" newspaper, Phoenix New Times, suggests at least part of the local liberal community is not happy with or supportive of this "beg-a-thon" approach to saving local progressive talk.
<blockquote>
The Bird thinks that the only thing more unfortunate than the death of Air America Phoenix is the whining and bitch-fighting that's taken place since the liberal radio station's funeral.
Former employees of Air America Phoenix are as busy slinging mud and pointing fingers as they are scrambling to relaunch their hyper-liberal chat station with one of those "save our sunk ship" fund-raising sites -- behavior that The Bird thought liberal radio types were way above.
Wrong. The guys from Air America's Phoenix affiliate -- home to famed chat hosts Charles "Fearless Talk Radio" Goyette and lefty Ed Schultz, and found on the AM dial at KXXT 1010 until March 1, when the station's new owners, Denver-based religious broadcasters Communicom, switched to an all-Jesus format -- are taking the sort of self-pitying "Mom, he hit me!" stance so popular with, well, conservative Christians.
"Air America's Phoenix station was taken off the air by a Christian broadcasting company," according to the group's woe-is-me Web site (www.saveairamericaphoenix.com), which goes on to beg for $500,000 in donations from former listeners.
Please. As much as The Bird enjoys a good conspiracy theory, and as much as it enjoys going after big-bucks-corrupted Christians, even a pretend pigeon can tell that this is merely a case of someone with a bigger pile of dough buying out a little guy who couldn't say no.
Air America Phoenix's former station manager Robert J. Christy agrees.
"There's no conspiracy here," he moaned to The Bird. "(BLEEP) happens. Like a radio station gets offered a ton of money and decides to sell. There's nothing surprising about that. Everyone knew what was happening."
Not so, said former Air America employee Jeff Farias, who produced the station's Mike Newcomb Show and co-hosted a weekend chat fest with The Bird's favorite legislative lefty, state Representative Kyrsten Sinema (see "Howl of Sanity," March 9). "We were as shocked as our listeners. We found out the night we went off the air, when Ed Schultz announced on his show that he was going off the air in Phoenix." ...
"Bullshit!" Christy squawked to this foul fowl. "These naive people that I gave paychecks to think they're smarter than I am. They don't know what it takes to put up a successful broadcasting business. Fifty-dollar donations from listeners aren't enough to finance a station -- the bank will throw their ass out the door!"
But the former Air America-ers won't need a bank, if all goes according to their plan. "We're going to find a rich Democrat," Farias explained to The Bird. "We've already found a station in town that we can lease for a year. We had a meeting with our attorneys, and now we're looking for that wealthy Dem who wants to bankroll a radio station." ...
</blockquote>
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-03-16/news/Bird_print.html