Posted on 03/02/2005 5:46:17 AM PST by MisterRepublican
Brian Maloney has an interesting post up about Air America’s failure to catch fire with listeners:
- Air America’s flagship station, WLIB-AM in New York, garnered a 1.2 share in the latest quarter, down 0.1 from the year-ago period. By comparison, WABC-AM, New York's leading conservative station, garnered a 3.8 share, up 0.1 from the year-ago period. WOR-AM, another conservative station, posted a 2.1 share, down 0.1 from the year-earlier period.
- Air America’s Boston station, WKOX-AM, got a tiny 0.6 share in the latest quarter, compared to a 4.3 share at WTKK-FM and a 4.0 share at WRKO-AM, both of which are conservative.
- Air America’s San Diego station, KLSD-AM, got a 1.9 share, up from 1.5 in the year-ago quarter. A respectable performance. By comparison, KOGO-AM, San Diego's conservative station, garnered a 5.5 share, up from 5.2 in the year-earlier period.
- Air America’s Philadelphia affiliate, WHAT-AM, garnered a 0.8 market share in the latest quarter, down 0.1 from the year-earlier period. By comparison, Philadelphia's conservative station, WPHT-AM, posted a 4.1 market share, up smartly from 3.2 in the year-earlier period.
- In Providence, Maloney reports, ratings at WHJJ-AM plunged after it replaced its conservative line-up with Air America, from a 3.5 share of the 12 and older audience to a 2.6 share. Meanwhile, Maloney says Providence's conservative station, WPRO-AM, “saw a surge during the survey period from a 4.4 to a 5.1 audience share.”
I'm sure some of Air America's supporters will point to particular shows that are successful with particular demographic subgroups. But so what if Al Franken is beating Rush Limbaugh among left-handed male eskimos between the ages of 35 and 54? The Arbitron numbers leave no doubt about the general trend: Air America is no match for conservative talk radio. Even in San Diego, where Air America is doing decently, its ratings are only a little more than one third that of the conservative competition.
In the past, Air America's defenders could argue with some justification that its low ratings were the inevitable result of starting from square one. But Air America's flagship station, WLIB-AM, has now been on the air for a full year. As Maloney suggests, it is no longer credible to blame the station's mediocre performance on the fact that it is new:
WLIB has now had a full year, a generous amount of time in broadcasting, to build an audience and figures are still flat compared with the previous niche Caribbean format the station featured. Often in radio that would mean imminent cancellation, but backers continue to be so noisy, they have generated enough industry hype to sustain poor performance a tad bit longer....
My contention is that if liberal talk radio can't find an audience in New York City, it certainly doesn't have a chance in San Antonio, Reno, Fresno and other places now gaining Air America stations that have small "progressive" populations.
Yep.
Air America also now has to compete with NPR for listeners, more so now that NPR has abandonded its Classical Music programming. I mean, if you're a Liberal, why listen to Leftwing-lite Air America, which is - GASP - being run like a, a, a CORPORATION, when you can listen to "public" radio and get such "intellectuals" as Juan Williams?
Perhaps if Air America found some mature personalities.....but wait, we're talking about liberals....oh, never mind....
The problem is that today's liberalism is more of an emotion than a thought.
The liberals have it backwards. They don't need to emulate our talk radio, we need to emulate their NPR. I personally can't stand the self-important blowhards on talk radio even they do generally share my politics.
na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye
I'm not trying to defend Franken here, but they did just start and are picking up market around the country. Conservative talk radio didn't happen overnight. I wouldn't count them out yet.
"I'm not trying to defend Franken here, but they did just start and are picking up market around the country. Conservative talk radio didn't happen overnight. I wouldn't count them out yet."
They've been at it for a year as of the end of this month. Yes, they're picking up markets, but they're picking up these dinky, low-power radio stations. Worst of all (for them, anyway), they aren't picking up many listeners. They've only got two markets where their ratings are 3.0 (or better) AQH for the 12+ demo.
Their biggest problem is that they just don't understand broadcasting, period. Franken? Garofalo? RFK Jr? It's like rookie night at the local college radio station. They've got one experienced host, Randi Rhodes, but she's a complete quack who makes up some of the most amazing BS ever heard.
They've had nearly a year to figure things out -- not to be a roaring success, but to at learn and figure out the broadcasting business and attempt to get on the right track. As it is, they're still stuck with saying "Huh huh, Bush sucks, huh huh" for the bulk of the shows.
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