No Ted Rall on Air America [Rall re Air America: "its execution sucks"]

Rall.Com ^ | March 30, 2004 | Ted Rall

[summer]

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

No Ted Rall on Air America

As one of the few liberals to have worked as a host for AM talk radio for a major station (KFI AM 640, Los Angeles, from 1998 through 2000), I'm getting deluged with email asking whether I'll be part of the new Air America leftie radio syndicate that debuts tomorrow.

I haven't been asked.

As I describe in my upcoming book WAKE UP, YOU'RE LIBERAL, I had discussions with the predecessor to Air America, AnShell Media, but the new Air America has decided to take a less partisan, less overtly liberal political stance than the "left wing Rush Limbaugh/Clear Channel Communications" approach originally conceived by AnShell. That may be why they've excluded progressive voices.

Their roster includes some brilliant comedians--I'm a fan of both Al Franken and Janeane Garafalo--and it seems that that's the direction Air America management wants to go: the leftism goes down easier with a dose of humor. While my KFI show did include a lot of humor, including Dave Eggers' "Brooklyn Traffic", "Dial a Dump" and the infamous "Stan Trek 2000" reality tour of Central Asia, my approach really was to attempt to be the left-wing Rush--aggressive, unfair to the Republican right, and unabashedly unashamed about promoting a liberal agenda. If Air America ever heard my aircheck tapes, they probably thought I was a little too strident for their tastes.

I wish them well, but to be honest, I believe that Air America is doomed.

First and foremost, political talk radio is a difficult medium, very personal and different than televised and stand-up comedy. Listeners to AM talk radio crave honesty, straightforwardness, the ability to think on your feet when dealing with callers. You also have to know your shit, backwards and forward. It took me a year to find my legs on the air; the Air America hosts won't have that much time. If I'd been a member of the management, I would have eschewed the big/expensive names in favor of lesser-known liberal hosts with on-air experience in the medium.

Second, moderation is death. Like many Democrats, I listen to Rush and Hannity because they piss me off. It looks like Air America wants to convince Republicans by becoming their friends. That won't work. Democrats want to hear a strident voice echoing their opinions; Republicans want to throw something at those Goddamn commies. Putting soft liberals on the air--Franken, I read somewhere, favored the war in Afghanistan--doesn't accomplish that.

Third, the distribution model doesn't make sense. Air America is only on six small stations. Here in New York, their WLIB is currently the home of obscure Carribean hits (yes, really). If you're going to buy a station outright or take over its programming, you need to make a big splash. Here in New York, that would have required buying a big 50,000-watt talker like WABC or WOR, where an audience already exists for talk radio. Granted, that would have been prohibitively expensive. A far more intelligent approach would have been the slow build model. Right-wing talk radio, after all, didn't spring up overnight. It started in the late 1970s. If Air America were serious, it would have begun acquiring stations in smaller markets, using their airwaves as a farm system to develop on-air talent for future national syndication. Buying small stations in big markets is an attempt to make a big political splash during an election year, not build a radio network.

Lastly, what happens if Kerry wins? The real test for leftie talk radio, as I can attest from my experience during the Clinton era, is whether it can attack a Democratic president from the left. Right-wing talk radio hosts like Rush often attack Bush from the right; they lose credibility when they suck up to authority. One suspects that Air America's milquetoast approach won't allow for that sort of thing.

Air America was a good idea, but its execution sucks.

[summer]

Thanks for your posts here.

BTW, re my earlier post, post #60, wherein I concluded the people struggling on Air America might eventually develop a new respect for conservative hosts on talk radio -- check out this letter to the editor published today in the NYT:

The NYT --

Talk Radio and Politics

Published: April 3, 2004

To the Editor:

Re "Liberal Voices (Some Sharp) Get New Home on Radio Dial" (Arts pages, March 31):

The unfortunate repercussion of liberal radio will be the legitimization of its right-wing counterpart.

Limited to rhetoric and ad hominem attacks, conservative talk-show hosts replace incisive analysis with character attacks, anti-intellectualism and hate. By joining in this discourse, "liberal" radio implicitly acknowledges that the right wing is participating in politics in a way that warrants attention.

Talk radio is superficial by nature and cannot provide the forum that is needed for the complex political issues of the day. Unfortunately, politics has gone the way of entertainment, while the real issues are not discussed because they are boring or don't make good radio.

SAM BROOKS
Newark, Del., March 31, 2004

-----------------------

My comment: Now, I sort of agree with this guy, above, in one point he makes, in that I think more listeners -- those who check out Air America and start to wonder: So, THIS is 'talk radio'? -- may want to find out how its counterpart, successful talk radio, sounds, so: they may tune into Rush after never having listened to him at all.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Well, he made the train stop on time. (Er. perhaps just a tad late, but only a tad.)

[freedumb2003]

Those hypocrates!

No doctors, they!

[summer]

Al Franken prepares for
his upcoming radio show.

[Common Tator]

Howard Stern show is owned my Infinity. He is mostly carried on Infinity stations. I do know Stern does not do commericals himslelf. That is a lot different than his show only being sold locally by local stations.

Sterns show has a large audience. With no practical way for national advertisers to buy his show nationwide, infinity would be leaving millions a year on the table. Infinity can't be that stupid.

If a national buyer wants spots in Limbaugh, they call Clear Channel and buy a spot on all the Limbaugh stations in just one phone call. If what you say is true, a buyer would have to call hundreds of stations to get avails and individual prices, and negotiate a price with all the staints, and still would have trouble buying a spot on all Stern stations to run on the same day at the same time. I don't think what you say is true.No syndicated show that I ever bought was sold that way.

If a show is successful and what you say is true, that is a terrible deal for the syndicator and a wonderful deal for the stations. On a price per show, the only way for infinity to increase profits is to get more stations to cary the show. The most they could hope for was an inflation clause in the contract and a substantial bump at contract renewal.

I don't know but I think you are mistaken . Limiting a shows income to local buys would be bad for the syndicator and the show's host. It would make a lot less money for infinity.

[summer]

You very well may be correct on all points. I recall reading it somewhere, but it's quite possible the person who posted it was wrong. Thanks for your post. :)

[Texasforever]

AA sucks? Well, so does Rall's cartooning. Sounds like they're made for each other.

Then combine the two for sucess. A 4 hour show featuring Rall's cartoons on the radio.

[daviddennis]

Air America's headline show conflicts directly with Rush Limbaugh.

If they really wanted rightists to listen, they wouldn't have done that.

Would Ted Rall listen to Air America instead of Rush? It doesn't sound like it.

Ted Rall, incidentally, is a mean, strident fellow who could probably liven up their base, but I don't think he'd change any minds.

I notice a lot of commentary regarding Air America talks about talk radio experience. How much experience did Rush Limbaugh have when he got his own show?

D

[summer]

Re your question -- see the article I posted in my reply #56:

(Limbaugh had been on the radio for close to two decades before he went national with his political talk show.)

[summer]

Re your post #27 - From a Dem site:

-------------

Cocoa (1000+ posts) Sun Apr-04-04 01:53 PM
Original message

Air America is carrying the worst NPR show ever

No offense to anyone who likes, or is, the execrable "Satellite Sisters," but these women are the most annoying things on the radio.

---------------

LOL...

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

A shining example of Ted Ralls' wit:

[freebilly]

Ted Ralls is a scum sucking eunuch (my apologies to scum sucking eunuchs everywhere).

[Enterprise]

Ted Rall has no wit -
He eats little balls of ....

[henbane]

Rall is plenty pissed that Rangers like Pat Tillman punched a lot of tickets for Rall's Al Qaida buddies in Afghanistan.

Rall is one sick-minded creep.

Ted Rall with Taliban pals in Afghanistan

[walford]

Rall actually has a fairly pragmatic approach to Leftist talk radio, and is more true to The Cause when he argues that it should be unabashedly ideological. Of course, that niche has already been filled for years by the Pacifica network, which is as marginal as ever.

He and others of his ilk still don't understand that there already is a saturation of Leftist coverage in the mainstream media -- presenting itself as objective news. That is why there is a hole in the information base creating a hunger that is nicely filled by conservative commentary.

That is why Lib radio won't work -- their voice is amply represented by the Washington Post, the NY Times, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, etc. etc.