[Chris A]

Found here

PAPER: 'AIR AMERICA' MISSES PAYROLL; MORE TURBULENCE AT LIB TALK NET
Thu May 06 2004 23:59:55 ET

In yet another sign of trouble for Air America Radio, the liberal talk network entering its fifth chaotic week on the air, co-founder and chairman Evan Cohen resigned Thursday, as did vice-chairman and investor Rex Sorensen.

The CHICAGO TRIBUNE is planning to report in fresh editions: The company also failed to make its scheduled payroll, leaving its staff roughly 100 radio personalities, writers, and producers unpaid until Thursday.

The departures of Cohen, a former political operative from Guam who was among the network's initial investors, and Sorenson, an investor who owns radio stations in Guam, mark the second executive shake-up at the fledgling network in as many weeks.

Developing...

Honestly I dont see what all the big deal was about creating a liberal radio show. There are plenty of them out there as it is. It seems that if there was going to be support for one they would have been better served trying to improve the existing ones.

[LANMaster]

Watch for those who will call this censorship.

The free market will decide this. If people want to listen, they'll get ratings, and people will want to advertise. If people don't want to listen, then they have no right to demand to be heard.

[plschwartz]

Gee
Am I behind the times.
Wasn't the CIA-run airline in Indo-china called "air America"?

[eggplant43]

No, "Air America".

Listening to it right now.

ChrisA, have you listened yet?

[Chris A]

eggplant43,

The staff must be doing volunteer work.


I have never listened to it but I have listened to KGO out of Sanfrancisco. I am not a big AM radio fan I would rather listen to music... Atomship

[eggplant43]

Originally Posted by Chris A

eggplant43,

The staff must be doing volunteer work.


I have never listened to it but I have listened to KGO out of Sanfrancisco. I am not a big AM radio fan I would rather listen to music... Atomship

Well. it is a worthy cause

[bassetman]

I like Air America! Used to listen to every day, but have cut back a little bit lately.

[LANMaster]

Link

Air America Host 'Jokingly' Calls for Bush Hit

One of the leading hosts on the unofficial radio network of the Democratic Party recommended in an apparent "joke" earlier this week that President Bush should be assassinated, reports the New York Daily News.

Comparing Bush and his family to the Corleones of "Godfather" fame, Air America host Randi Rhodes reportedly unleashed this zinger during her Monday night broadcast: "Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw. "

Rhodes then imitated the sound of a gunshot.

In "Godfather II," Fredo Corleone is executed by brother Michael at the end of the film.

Even joking allusions to the death of high government officials sometimes bring harsh consequences to the offending radio host.

In 1996, when reports indicated that a lone passenger had survived the crash of a plane carrying then-Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, New York radio host Bob Grant joked: "I have a hunch that survivor is Ron Brown. But I'm a pessimist at heart."

Grant was dropped from WABC Radio over the quip, despite ratings that made him the top talk radio host in New York City. He was picked up two weeks later by WOR, which broadcasts "The Bob Grant Show" from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays.

[ComputerFix]

PL,

I actually thought that was what the thread was about, and didn't know it was still around...lol....sigh....sometimes we get too wrapped up in this sort of stuff that we miss the forest for the trees....


I think thier mistake was the use of so many comedians. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to George Carlin go on a rant, and may of those rants even go beyond the description "liberal", but if it were me, I would want to listen to serious talk by serious people (no political quip here. Give Bill Clinton a mike and I may tune in, but I'll pass on Jeneane Garafalo (sp?) ).

Dennis Miller was no John Madden, no matter how funny his stand-up is.

[Ciberblade]

George Carlin is funny on-stage, but he is hilarious in person!

[LANMaster]

Air America horrors detailed
Link

Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News earned his reportorial chops and actually sat through 10 hours of Air America programming. Evidently, it was quite an ordeal, according to his write-up of the day.

Here are some of the pearls of wisdom offered by the crowd who claim that conservative talk radio is characterized by hate, while liberals are much more nuanced, see the complexities, and believe in reason and analysis:

- Take one host's linking the talk of "pulling out" the troops with the claim that "that's what the Catholic Church says about premarital sex." Ha, ha.

- Franken… imitated a priest giving Communion, saying "Body of Christ" when an imagined pedophile priest was in line but "not for you" when pro-choice politicians came up. The church was a day-long obsession, as was Limbaugh. He is an "awful man," "a pig" and "a Nazi."

- The queen of venom, Randi Rhodes, followed Franken in the host slot. Her imitation of a cracker military type telling a soldier to "insert this fluorescent light bulb into that man's buttocks" was revolting. She compared U.S. prisons in Iraq to the "Nazi gulag" and said, "The day I say thank you to Rumsfeld is the same day I'll say thank you to the 12 people who raped me."

Rock bottom came when she compared Bush and his family to the Corleones in the "Godfather" saga. "Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw," she said, imitating the sound of gunfire.

Goodwin notes that he heard ads for some big companies – the likes of Hewlett-Packard and GM.

Ryndee Carney, GM's manager of marketing communications, said the ads were wrongly picked up from an earlier deal with WLIB. She said the station was ordered to "cease and desist" yesterday, and added: "GM will not advertise on any Air America affiliates."

It is a very good thing that Franken and his lot have the opportunity to demonstrate the fatuousness of their claims to represent a more thoughtful approach to politics. I only wish that Air America would follow through on their longstanding claim to be getting Bay Area affiliates. As of this morning, the Berkeley 1000 watt station they claim as their future affiliate is still carrying Cantonese language programming.

[LANMaster]

The Air America fiasco
Link

Things are getting "curiouser and curiouser" over at Air America, the failing liberal talk radio network, which has recently lost its Chicago and Los Angeles outlets, but which claims on its own web page to be adding 15 more stations in May.

Last week, paychecks bounced. On air talent made jokes about it. Paychecks bounced again this Wednesday, though by Thursday, management had apparently come up with the cash to pay “staff.”

Today’s Chicago Tribune carries the news that the chairman and co-founder, Evan Cohen, and vice-chairman and investment partner Rex Sorenson resigned Thursday. This follows last week’s resignation of chief executive and co-founder Mark Walsh.

The surviving member of top management, president Joe Stinton, was quoted by the Trib as saying:

"We're on a wild ride," said Jon Sinton, the network's president, acknowledging that Air America has suffered "the typical bumps and bruises faced by any start-up." (If it weren't for private donations, they would have been off air in the first week or less)

"But the bottom line," he said, "is that we are on the air to stay."

The Tribune article reports that Walsh and Cohen purchased “most” of the network from founder [how many founders and co-founders does this place have, and what do you have to do to be called a co-founder?] Sheldon Drobny. Judging by their reportedly forced sudden departure, it looks as though Walsh and Cohen must have sold majority control to other investors, among whom the Trib numbers “former broadcasters Thomas Embrescia and Norman Wain, [and] TV pioneer Norman Lear.”

So, it would appear that prior to taking to the airwaves, majority control of the network changed hands twice. That’s very intriguing. Given the amount of hype from the press which accompanied its start, one has to wonder what sort of profit [if any] accompanied the flipping. Could it be that canny founding investors sold the hype to others, and took their profits before actual operations commenced?

Another very curious piece of information also enters the public domain via the Chicago Trbune article. It seems that the fledgling network employs “roughly 100 writers and producers.”

This is an astonishing level of staffing for an operation whose second-biggest station is in Minneapolis, which only runs 3 hours of the network’s programming. Having worked in the talk radio industry, I can assure you that very few shows, if any, break into double digits of staff “writers and producers” at work behind the scenes.

It would seem clear that the third-stage shareholders, the ones holding the bag today, have got a lot to be unhappy about.

[bassetman]

I tried listening to Randi Rhodes for awhile, I couldn't take here. She is like a female, liberal version of Rush.

Got any pearls of wisdom from the Big Bag of Wind?

[LANMaster]

Good call, Basset. That's pretty much why I don't listen to Rush.

[LANMaster]

Air America shuts LA, Chicago sales offices

Reuters: 5/12/04
LOS ANGELES - Air America has shut its sales offices in Los Angeles and Chicago and is recasting its business plan, the network’s president said Wednesday as troubles beset the liberal talk show network.