$SAVIOR: Stephen Green (above) of SL Green is throwing a lifeline to financially challenged Air America, the liberal talk-radio network.
Posted on 01/30/2007 3:28:38 AM PST by Liz
$SAVIOR: Stephen Green (above) of SL Green is throwing a lifeline to financially challenged Air America, the liberal talk-radio network.
Liberal talk-radio network Air America has been saved - again. The bankrupt broadcasting company said that Stephen Green, founder of Manhattan real estate behemoth SL Green Realty Corp. and the brother of New York Democratic Party figure Mark Green, signed a letter of intent to acquire its assets. Air America also said popular host Al Franken would be leaving after his Valentine's Day broadcast.
"Affiliates are just scared to death of Air America now," said radio broker Frank Boyle, citing the network's past history of missed payments and financial problems......affiliates can dump programming at any time and for any reason - as they have with Air America in the past.
Green mentions three things he'll do to ensure the network's success: stabilize finances, hire talent, and form a partnership with other platforms beyond radio to reach a wide audience. Air America listed $4.3 million in assets and $20 million in debt when it filed for bankruptcy in October 2006, a little more than two years after its launch. Some of its more prominent investors include Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, who is personally owed just under $10 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
A fool and his money are soon parted.
More power to him. It's like buying a defective product and you know it's defective.
Given that this guy is an insider, my guess is that he decided he needed to buy it out in order to keep a few skeletons in the closet from being discovered.
The fact that anyone is willing to sink money into this bottomless pit goes to show just how much of a religion liberalism is. Liberal talk radio is not wanted or needed in the marketplace. If it were, then advertisers would be flocking to support Air America. It cannot stand on its own merits because it's message is not supported by facts.
Same is true with any radio station, whether they're right wing or left wing. Air America is just simply a defective entity that isn't marketable. It's the beauty of the free market system.
No program director of any radio station is going to put on the air what cannot generate revenue.
FROM ARTICLE: "Air America also said popular host Al Franken would be leaving after his Valentine's Day broadcast. "
The only reason this screwball is sinking money into this bottomless pit is because no advertiser wants to advertise on a network that has so few listeners.
They couldnt even stand to listen to themselves!!! Now thats funny!
Damn right affiliates are scared. They are scared of watching their ratings and advertising revenue plunge once they sign on to Air Amerika.
"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself."
Milton Friedman
Further down the article it mentions that Green is exploring other means of distribution. I foresee Air America becoming an internet only radio station in the future.
Look, this man is nobody's fool. He does not nurture a Quixotic desire to tilt against the windmills of conservative talk radio, at whatever cost. In the Gordon Gekko sphere he inhabits, there must be profit in it - big profit - for him to bother; particularly knowing the publicity and scrutiny that would ensue. An overfunded pension account perhaps?
It will be interesting to read WSJ's take on this.
Re Franken: Like Donohue, Chung and McEnroe, we can't see the back of him soon enough.
HIRE TALENT.
Ah, I'd just opened the thread when the announcement was made, so I'd posted prior to reading...always an opening for an embarrassing moment. My apologies.
Amazing how these "Men of the People" like Mark Green have such fantastically rich relatives.
Probably looking for a loss for tax purposes; AA is a good Enron-type vehicle for stashing assets that would otherwise be taxed.
No problem.
Exactly. Air America is just a tax-shelter masquerading as a failed radio network.
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