Franken to leave Air America after network sale
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 30, 2007


Air America Radio was rescued from bankruptcy yesterday, but still faces the impending loss of Al Franken, its most popular talker.

The liberal network will be sold to Stephen Green, a Manhattan real estate investment mogul with heavy Democratic ties, including his brother Mark Green, who ran for mayor against Michael R. Bloomberg in 2001. The sale of the network -- deemed a "personal investment" by the two brothers -- will be completed in mid-February for an undisclosed sum.

Mr. Green is intent on bringing solvency to Air America, which has been troubled by flagging ratings, cash deficits and management turmoil since it was founded almost three years ago as a foil to popular conservative talk radio.

The network was often called "Err America" by critics.

"In the long run, content is king," said Mr. Green, vowing to stabilize the network's finances, beef up the talent roster and extend the Air America "brand" into other marketing or broadcast opportunities. The network's weekly audience has been stuck at just under 2 million since the beginning -- about one-tenth the number of listeners who tune in each week to conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.

"The current idea in radio is that you have to think outside the box, and find other ways to get content across," said Joe Howard, editor of Radio Ink, an industry publication. "With Air America, you have to wonder if there is enough audience for it to thrive, or if the network is a niche product."

Niche or not, the on-air lineup will suffer when Mr. Franken leaves. He told his listeners he would depart Feb. 14 but was coy about whether he would run against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008 for the U.S. Senate seat in his home state of Minnesota.

"I'm definitely giving it some serious consideration, and I'll make my decision soon," Mr. Franken said yesterday.

He has regarded Air America as a political platform since the beginning.

"Today is both an ending and a beginning -- an end to the right-wing dominance of talk radio, a beginning of a battle for truth, a battle for justice, a battle indeed for America," Mr. Franken said on his first broadcast when the network signed on with five affiliates on March 31, 2004.

He founded the Midwest Values PAC two years ago to provide support to "progressive candidates, activists and causes" around the country, according to his personal Web site. Mr. Franken will be replaced in his noon-3 p.m. time slot by Thom Hartmann.

Meanwhile, Sheldon Drobny, Air America's original founder, left the company and is busy with a Nova M Radio, a national progressive talk-radio network in partnership Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's former campaign manager. The fledgling network broadcasts in 12 cities, funded by "grass-roots membership," according to publicity materials.

"Air America at best will be another content company with a name tarnished by bad-management bankruptcy. And the prospective rescuers have no experience in radio," Mr. Drobny wrote at the online Huffington Post yesterday, later concluding, "Relying on mega-millionaire liberals to put ego aside for the common good is almost impossible."


*I do hope that when they review "The Fairness Act" that they have conservatives sitting in on these shows because that would only be fair. Wouldn't those on the left agree?*

Why do people keep bailing them out? I Don't get it.

I remember when Mark Green was running for the Mayor of Manhattan after Giuliani's term was up and he had an ad saying how much better he would have handled 9/11 and this guy was soooooo pompous and arrogant. Typical politican. Even the liberals were like "Not you, man". So, it's not surprising to see his brother (who ran his campaign) try to think he's going to re-invent the wheel. I could care less. Diversity is good. However, what they haven't realized yet is that dissent for the sake of dissent is not entertaining. Radio is an entertainment medium. Say what you will about Limbaugh, but when I'm on the road (more often than I'd like to be) and Limbaugh's on, I normally find myself engaged and entertained. Whether I always agree with him is secondary. He is among the best at what he does. When I listened to Air-America, I wasn't entertained or engaged. I found the hosts to be smug, not funny, nasty and uneducated about the issue. Emotionally, they were what they were but even I could have debated them. That's not good.

Boy, if that doesn't describe Rush Lamebrain, I don't know what does. If a person knows what he is talking about, Lamebrain will cut the person off. He never appears on other shows because if he doesn't have total control he will look bad. He once appeared on another talk show(TV) and he was made to look so ignorant and political he became livid and wouldn't talk. But, he is still given air time on major corporate radio stations. In fact, in one state, the state political system, using tax payers money, bought ads on his show - now that's political support.

hey dumbass, the posts are about air america, if you have something to say about air america go ahead - but it is obvious you are just trying to change the subject

Guess they ran out of orphanages to rip off.

__________________
Standing on the corner,
Suitcase in my hand,
Jack is in his corset and Jane is in her vest,
And me, I'm in a Rock & Roll band.

Well, whatever you want to say about Limbaugh, the guy has something like 30 million listeners a week and Air America has 3. Limbaugh is the first to do what he did and Air America should have learned from him. Not to follow his ideology per say but Air America obviously isn't offering enough of what people want. Their business plan obviously hasn't worked. It's like the place was run by a bunch of far-left owners. Most far-left people have a hard-on against business to begin with so therefore really aren't dedicated to doing it the right way-only their way which hasn't worked until now. It is interesting how the far-left owns ther est of the media-print, news etc...but can't get through to radio. Even so, "The Fairness Doctrine" or trying to push a progressive, non-entertaining agenda down people's throat's will not do thta. Bottom line is people want to be entertained. Most people don't want to hear the constant "doom and gloom" that the far-left throws at people. They are among the most miserable, unhappy, bigoted, elitest people on the planet. People also want to hear solutions to the issues that Air-America brings up. How long can you play the "Bush's fault" card? This country was around for more than 200 years before Bush came around.

Blame Rush all you want. He isn't worried about being on the air tomorrow. Your guys/gals are. Worry about your own survival because I don't believe Limbaugh cares one way or the other to be honest.

You might want to listen to the NPR interview to see what Flush Thetoilet cares about:

Building Bipartisanship? Not Limbaugh's Problem, by David Folkenflik

He has had to create an audience and I do give him credit for that but he is an entertainer at the very best, nothing more. No salient information comes from his show and BS rants.

Yes, AA's business plan was flawed from the beginning and they assumed there was market out there in place. That is the case for ANY new product. They have had to get a whole new set of people on and truly worry about ratings. If they are to survive they will need to get more listenable people...I could not stand listening to Mike Malloy, what a loudmouth jerk he was.

An estimated 13.5 million listeners tune in to the Rush Limbaugh Show each week — more than any other radio show in the country.

Limbaugh talks tough and takes unyielding conservative stands. Some critics blame him and a crop of imitators for splitting Americans further apart, making it more difficult for people of goodwill to forge a consensus on tricky issues.

Limbaugh says that's not his problem. He has absolutely no interest in crossing the divide and forging compromise — and good reasons not to do so.

Why should he have to apologize for who he is?

"I always say my real purpose is to attract the largest audience I can, and hold it for as long as I can, so I can charge confiscatory advertising rates," the talk show host says.

And that formula has made him a very rich man. But Limbaugh says he is able to make such profits by pursuing his passions, such as politics.

Limbaugh is a capatalist and has managed to make millions doing what he loves. I applaud him because I can't claim the same.

"Getting along is not the objective. When it comes to the war on terror, when it comes to tax policy, to me, defeating, politically, people I disagree with is the order of the day, and I don't think I defeat them by compromising with them," he says.

There seems to be a movement and an accepted wisdom that it is republicans who must compromise with Democrats. If they don't they get tagged a "racist" or a "Neo-con" or whatever the popular catch-phrase of the day is.

Limbaugh says people should remember that earlier in his career, Fox News Channel didn't exist, and conservatives like him couldn't find their views reflected in the major media. Limbaugh had been a music DJ, but became a talk radio host in Sacramento, Calif., and New York City.

He went national in 1988 and became a standard-bearer for conservative listeners.

Republican leaders say Limbaugh's ability to energize listeners was a big help to them in winning control of Congress in 1994. Nowadays, the conservative media landscape is far more crowded. But there's no true left-of-center radio counterpart to Limbaugh. The liberal Air America talk radio network has struggled, and its finances are in shambles.

And Air-America's problems are Limbaugh's problems?

But Rush Limbaugh keeps on going. Even with a changing political landscape, Limbaugh sees no need to change the format of his show.

"I'm the expert. I don't need to talk to somebody else to find out what's going on," he says. "There's a whole psychology of doing the program the way that I do it."

And that often involves barbs aimed directly at liberals. Some feminist leaders become "Feminazis." Recently, Limbaugh joked that new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — the first woman in U.S. history to hold that position — might well breastfeed a child sitting on her lap during official ceremonies.

Limbaugh says he is just using humor to make a point. But a rival conservative talk show host, Glenn Beck, says such severe rhetoric only drives people apart.

"I truly believe it's going to be the death of us. It's going to be the death of our industry, and the death of our country, if we don't stop dividing ourselves like this," Beck says. "It's not right."

Beck had mentioned that his remarks were totally taken out of context. I heard him on the radio as I was driving to hartford one day and he played the whole thing and he was in fact taken out of context.

Beck has TV gigs on CNN and ABC. Despite that criticism, he is unabashed about his own beliefs — and he has taken flak for them.

"There's nothing wrong with pointing out differences. There's nothing wrong with having a heated debate. There's nothing wrong with doing all of those things in an entertaining way. But they cannot define you," he says.

Tom Rosenstiel, who leads the Project for Excellence in Journalism, agrees. But the media critic says there is another problem: Limbaugh and other ideological talk show hosts aren't remotely as careful with the facts as the mainstream media outlets they so frequently mock.

"Setting aside the question of whether journalists always achieve their goal of sort of being fair and unbiased, if you get a fact wrong, you pay a cost in the news business," he says.

I think with the exception of Dan Rather, I would take issue with that. This guy just sunds like an apoligist.

And Rosenstiel says talk radio hosts pay little price — because accuracy is not their goal.

"They're not there entirely to elevate or energize the public conversation. They are also often members of a team. They're in that nether world between entertainment, propaganda and journalism," Rosentstiel says.

That's fine with Limbaugh. He says he is not a journalist but a combatant in what he calls "the arena of ideas."

"There's no question I am trying to persuade people to agree with me, for the express purpose of making them informed, so that when the next opportunity to vote comes up, they do, and they vote in an informed way," Limbaugh says.

Crossing that divide? Limbaugh says that's not his problem.

Yes Again Rush Admits Accuracy Is Not His Goal. So Really Even From The Right Is Their One Idiot On This Forum Who Listens To This Guy Seriously!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!he Makes Us Look Bad People. Why Do The Right Listen To This Clown. Rush May Be A Left Trying To Screw Us He Is So Bad.