That's got to be some kind of record.
“35+ AFFILIATES” is networkspeak for “We have a piece of paper with a list of 35 call letters in shadow or unrated markets. They don’t report to us, and we don’t call them. Yes, we understand they are carrying the show...”
I looked over the list of thirty-five. There’s some things that you ought to understand.
Some of the thirty-five are simply a sister station in the same area of station #1, that delays the transmission to a evening hour.
From the south, there’s only around three stations that carry her. Most of her thirty-five are on the west coast. Few folks talk about the amount of listeners, and I’d take a guess that fewer than 150,000 folks listen to her on a daily basis, from the thirty-five stations.
Why slam Maddow and Franken? She’s stuck in a small market situation and making probably next to nothing on salary. I doubt if she even makes $80,000 a year. She’s been hoping for the past five years that friendships would pay off and she’d finally get moved into the major leagues. Franken didn’t ever help, and Maddow has virtually nothing to get her onto MSNBC. I would imagine that the guys funding her show talked up 2015 and an anticipated pay-cut, for her to stay on the air. She probably added up the time and future....thinking there’s nothing much to stay around for, and just retire.
It’s hard to stand in her shoes. Mostly nutcase folks listen to her show. There’s no national trends based on what she says. She doesn’t get invited to any fancy Democratic conferences to speak. No foundations ever offer seats or situations to her.