Liberal radio network down to 1 major city (NYC)

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 04/21/04 | Editorial

[Phantom Lord]

Liberal radio network down to 1 major city
New York only Top 10 market for struggling, new Air America

Despite a court order to return the all-liberal radio network to Chicago, it appears the Windy City won't have Air America by the end of this month, leaving New York City as the sole Top 10 market for the fledgling company.

The Chicago Tribune reports Air America will cease broadcasting over WNTD-AM in Chicago April 30, and will remain off the air for now in Los Angeles, where it was yanked from KBLA-AM last week by station owner Multicultural News Radio.

Los Angeles and Chicago are the nation's No. 2 and 3 media markets respectively, according to ratings service Arbitron.

Besides No. 1 market New York, Air America's next largest region is No. 16 Minneapolis, with other affiliates in Portland, Ore., Riverside, Calif., West Palm Beach, Fla., Key West, Fla., Chapel Hill, N.C.,and Plattsburgh/Burlington on the New York-Vermont border.

Programming also can be heard on XM Satellite Radio as well as the Internet, and the company says "coming soon" markets include No. 4 San Francisco.

Air America features liberal personalities including comic and author Al Franken and actress Janeane Garofalo, and was floated as an alternative to conservative radio talent such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity.

As WorldNetDaily reported last week, the network was silenced in both L.A. and Chicago during a payments dispute with Multicultural Radio, which alleged Air America had bounced checks, a charge strongly denied by the liberal network.

A Chicago source familiar with the situation told the Tribune "a Multicultural representative showed up at WNTD's offices, ... kicked out Air America's lone staffer overseeing the network's feed to the station from New York, switched over to a Spanish-language feed, and changed the locks on the doors."

Air America has since won a court order to return it to the air in Chicago, but yesterday said that it would stop broadcasting on WNTD at the end of this month as it reached a deal with Multicultural.

"We are pleased that we reached a negotiated settlement," said David Goodfriend, executive vice president of Air America, in a brief statement.

"We've been vindicated," Gene Heinemeyer, general manager of Multicultural's New York stations told the Tribune. "It was a dark day in radio for what they did."

Air America isn't giving up on Chicago, however, and is reportedly in preliminary talks with another station, WONX-AM.

"If their money is green and there's enough of it, OK," station owner Frank Kovas, a self-described political conservative, told the Tribune.

Industry analysts say Air America definitely has an uphill battle in reaching financial success in broadcasting.

"The liberal talkers are not only battling the conservatives for air time, they are up against the sports talkers, on-air counselors, medical advisers, computer talk geeks and so on," writes Jeffrey McCall, professor of communication arts and sciences at DePauw University in Indiana. "This is a tough party to crash."

Previous story: Liberal network yanked in L.A., Chicago markets

[BadAndy]

The Rats should do what they always do for failing programs, throw more money at them. I think they should try investing a couple of hundred million dollars in Err AmeriKa over the next few years. They also need people who are more leftwing than Franken to attract more Kucinich/Dean/Nader/Castro supporters.

[pabianice]

"Now hear this. Now hear this. The gloating lamp is lit."

[Joe Brower]

[Mr. K]

"which alleged Air America had bounced checks, a charge strongly denied by the liberal network. "

simple enough to prove... show us the cancelled check

[Dementon]

And we ALL know what floats, don't we?

A duck?

[GOPJ]

It is odd how quiet the press has been on the death of this idiot radio station. I wonder why too. Anyone? (/Sarcasm)

You know the really odd thing, Considering the HUGE media fanfare this got when it kicked off, There hasn't been any mention of its quick death

[Shryke]

Churches! Churches! Very small rocks?

[cyborg]

LOL!!!!

[Interesting Times]

A duck?

Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?

[ken5050]

Just wondering, though off topic..how is O'reilly doing on the radio?...haven't seen anything about his rating..do you have any idea?..regards..

[Phantom Lord]

Don't know about his ratings, but I suspect they are not all that good.

[GOPJ]

Liberals are sooooooo lame.

On a whim, I decided to listen to this yesterday. I live 30 miles north of NYC. I couldn't even tune the station in. So much for their last major market.

[raccoonradio]

>>On a whim, I decided to listen to this yesterday. I live 30 miles north of NYC. I couldn't even tune the station in. So much for their last major market.

How about Boston? Home of liberal thought (?!?), the media and scholarly elites. The Kennedys, John F-in Kerry, and the Democratic National Convention. National Socialist Radio stations like WGBH and WBUR, etc. Is it on there?

50,000 watt stations? No. 5,000? 1,000? Surely it must be on a 250 watt station just outside of town. Nope. It's not even on Part 15 broadcaster Allston-Brighton Free
Radio (which does webcast, but the main signal goes a few blocks if they're lucky). Supposedly a teeny station up in Maine, ayuh, is carrying a show or two but it's too far away.

When they can't even BUY their way onto the airwaves of the People's Republic of Massachusetts, you know they're
in trouble.

[RightWhale]

Burlington would be a good market for this, but in winter. In summer the dozen residents who might listen would be outdoors removing rocks from their fields and building stone walls out of them so maybe they can plant next year.

[AFreeBird]

Anybody got a picture of the leader of the "A-Team"

I Love it when a plan comes together - Col. Hannibal Smith

[bert]

Yes, being invoiced but not paying is the Rat way. The world owes them a living and there is no reason to pay when there are lawyers.

There are major lessons here. Action pays. Cut them off and argue about it later.

[bert]

I have a Casio, when it needs service I throw it away and buy a new one.

[uncitizen]

Will they be playing this all over the place when Air America finally goes down in flames the way they did to announce the it's launch?

I wonder what the market share of AA was?