Posted on 05/04/2005 9:33:13 AM PDT by Para-Ord.45
“This show is about...relentlessly hammering away at the Bush administration until they crack and crumble this November because, don’t get me wrong, friends, they are going down!”
So said Al Franken, the comedian-turned-radio host-turned-political prognosticator, opening his very first show on the liberal Air America radio network March 31, 2004.
Well, as it turned out, George W. Bush didn’t go down in November. But Air America’s ratings did.
The numbers are now in for Air America’s first year of broadcasting, and they aren’t good.
For one thing, the network is only on the air in about 50 of the nation’s 285 radio markets. And in most of those, it is broadcast on small stations, often with weak signals. So it is impossible to compare Air America’s ratings to those of its conservative competitors, such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who are heard on hundreds of stations.
But we can compare them in at least one place — New York City.
Last year, Franken, whose program airs on WLIB in New York, boasted that he was beating Limbaugh, who is heard on WABC.
“We beat him,” Franken said of Limbaugh in June 2004. “The period we’re opposite Rush, we — we beat WABC, so we think we beat Rush.”
Turns out that wasn’t the case. When the final ratings came in, Limbaugh remained unscathed.
But there’s no doubt that Franken, aided by an astonishing hype campaign led by The New York Times, had a good start. In his first quarterly ratings, spring 2004 (made up of April, May and June), he won a 2.6 percent share of the audience of listeners age 25 to 54 — the most important group for radio advertisers — to Limbaugh’s 3.2 percent share.
In summer 2004 (July, August and September), Franken did even better, winning a 2.8 percent share of the 25-to-54 audience against Limbaugh’s 3.2 percent. About that time, officials at WABC gave Air America credit for a decent showing.
“They’re doing better than I expected,” Phil Boyce, the program director at WABC, told me last September. “Obviously there is a market for this in New York.”
But then something happened. October came, and then November — months Franken might have been expected to do well, since the presidential campaign was reaching its final stage and his audience was almost beside itself with anti-Bush fervor. But his ratings in New York went down.
When the fall 2004 (October, November and December) ratings came out, they revealed that Franken had pulled just a 1.8 percent share of the 25-to-54 audience — well behind Limbaugh’s 4.1 percent share.
Boyce was a happy man.
“Rush captured the election’s excitement,” Boyce said in January. “Franken didn’t.”
Now we have ratings for January, February and March of this year, and they show Franken with a 1.9 percent share to Limbaugh’s 3.2 percent share.
And that’s just Franken versus Limbaugh. Air America’s overall ratings in New York are far, far worse.
The station on which it is heard, WLIB, used to broadcast a mix of Caribbean music and talk. In its last quarter before switching to Air America, it won 1.3 percent of the total audience in New York. Despite all the publicity, Air America is now actually drawing lower ratings than the old music format; in the most recent figures, Air America score a 1.2 percent share of the New York audience.
And that is in true-blue New York City, where you might expect a liberal talk network to do well.
Now it should be said that Air America is succeeding in a few places. It is going gangbusters, for example, in Portland, Ore. But its overall failure to mount a challenge to conservative talk radio raises an obvious question: Why?
For one thing, many of the network’s hosts aren’t terribly good. While talented, they didn’t have any background in radio, and their passionate interest in politics wasn’t enough to make them polished radio performers. They’ve gotten better in the past year, but not that much better.
Second, even though Air America officials firmly believe that their hosts are more civil than those hard-liners you hear on conservative talk radio, Air America has at times served up a pretty ugly message. Take the time in May of last year when host Randi Rhodes suggested that President Bush be assassinated the way Fredo Corleone was assassinated in The Godfather, Part II. Now Rhodes has done it again, bringing up the kill-Bush idea in a skit aired this week.
Of course, part of the problem could be Franken’s inclination to refer to the president as a “moron,” an “idiot putz” and a “stupid schmuck.” Who knows?
Whatever the problem, Air America, bolstered by some of the same investors who brought you the Democratic 527 groups, will soldier on. And maybe some day they’ll figure it out.
Air America: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.....
I hope they leave it on the air in key markets across the Country.
It's like a "Wake-Up Call" for the rest of us. 24/7
Hate Radio eats it's own.
i have no problem with air america. if liberal investors want to keep flushing their money down the toilet investing in it, by all means let them.
Air who?
BTTT
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
I'm with you. As long as they're operating in the free market, and not using strongarmed government communications (like NPR) it's all good. If the ratings suck and the shows are awful, well that's just icing on the cake.
There's a thing in the industry called a 'radio voice.' It's realy hard to have a successful radio program without one.
Al Franken doesn't have one. He should be publishing books on tape for insomniacs.
"And maybe some day they'll figure it out."
Yes, of course. The same day in which man discovers that pigs can fly, and that Maureen Dowd is actually quite gorgeous-in her own,unique way, and that Al Franken is a quick witted comedian, and finally: Ted Nugent is a spokesman for PETA.
Woooo hoooo! Of ALL! the states, citizens, we're raking it in! We ROCK!......in Portland. Take that!, America!
Air Amerika=Liberal Cluster FFFF!
Al Franken may not have a 'radio voice' but he sure has a 'radio face'.
Average liberals don't pay attention to politics or news. Just listen to Hannity's man-on-the-street interviews. Most of them voted for Kerry (or Kearney) and they don't know who the V.P. is.
Not for much longer. It's a black hole and showing no hope of a return. The money won't hold out forever, and there is virtually no chance of anyone actually paying for advertising on a forum so repulsive to the mainstream.
Bitter doesn't sell. Rush made his audience with humor and the fact he was the only game in town. He was the onlt conservative voice. Err America has tons of competition in their market, from NPR to Howard Stern.
Correction:
Air America: LOSERZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I love how the champions of "diversity" and "multiculturalism" kicked the Carribean music off the air that a lot of people probably enjoyed, to get even lower ratings than the old format by spweing propaganda.
I wish Kearney would have beaten Bush. Stu Ped would likely have been our greatest VP ever.
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