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Air America will never go off the air as long as they have children's charities to rip off.
The Huffington PostRecently, Air America Radio came under attack from the same cast of right wing media characters who have attacked the Network for ideological reasons from day one.
A recent piece in the New York Post by John Mainelli states that “Air America is in...bad financial shape.” On September 20th Bill O’Reilly on Fox News which, like the New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation said that Air America “could be on its last legs.”
This is untrue.
Air America is in strong financial shape. Last week we started broadcasting from our new multi-million dollar studios.
Several weeks earlier the Board of Directors of Air America’s parent company accelerated re-payment of a loan from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club of $875,000 two years in advance of a previously agreed upon re-payment plan. In the last several months, Air America has expanded its executive team to augment our efforts on the internet and in affiliate relations.
The pretext for the latest smears is an initiative I launched last week called Air America Associates, in which I asked our listeners to support our programming financially and at various levels offer bumper stickers, tote bags, etc. as a way of thanking them. (We received thousands of responses, far beyond what we projected for the first few days).
Many of our listeners also listen to NPR stations and Pacifica and are used to supporting radio programming they like. I got the idea from the Nation Magazine’s program “The Nation Associates” which helps them fund investigative journalism. Like Air America Radio, The Nation is a for-profit company.
But the conservative propagandists have tried to make it seem like there is something unseemly because Air America Radio is both commercial—and a radio network, as O’Reilly said last night, “I have never seen a commercial enterprise ask their listeners for money—ever” This is also false. The modern model of the broadcasting business involves numerous revenue streams. If anything, Air America has been late in fully building such an infrastructure which the “Associates” is a part of.
For example, Rush Limbaugh’s Web-site offers his fans the “Limbaugh Letter” for $34.95 a year and a totally separate service called Rush 24/7 which includes access to archived programs at the cost of $49.95 a year. The Limbaugh site also features the “EIB Store” which sells such items as $19.95 polo shirt which amusingly says, “My Mullah went to G’itmo and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”
The Sean Hannity Web-site features a “subscription” to something called, “The Hannity Insider” for $5.95 a month.
But no one tops the self proclaimed non-spinner Bill O’Reilly. Bill O’Reilly.com offers a “premium membership” for either $4.95 a month or $49.95 a year. He also offers a “Gift certificate” for $14.95. Products for sale on the Web site include:
-- Radio Factor diner coffee mug available in white or navy blue for $14.95
- O’Reilly Factor keychain for $7.95 “while supplies last.”
--Three different “No Spin” tote bags at $14.95 apiece
--Ten different hats at a cost of $16.95 each
--The “no spin” jacket for $79.95
--The “ Unisex Black Fleece” embroidered with “The Spin Stops Here” for $39.95
--Several bumper stickers including one that reads “Boycott France” for $2.50
--License plate frame for $18.95
--Three different “No Spin” tote bags at $14.95 each
--An O’Reilly Factor Gear Bag at $64.95
-- “Mens Garment Bag” for $64.95 (sorry ladies!)
--a “Spin Stops Here” organizer briefcase
--A “Spin Stops Here” pen and pad bundle for $19.95
--Two different designs of “Spin Stops Here” doormats for $49.95 and
--Two different “Rain Stops Here” umbrellas at $24.95(“Show everyone who protects you from the rain”)
Mainelli’s article also repeated another falsehood about Air America saying “More recently the 70 station left network has been suffering lower ratings.” His corporate cousin O’Reilly wishfully stated on August 17th said “Air America—nobody is listening to it,” On Aug 3rd O’Reilly claimed that “Air America cannot support itself because of low ratings” and on July 26th O’Reilly said “The Air America radio network continues to fail with catastrophic ratings here in New York City. ”
In fact, the ratings for the Bill O’Reilly radio show in New York were worse than those on Air America that he described as “catastrophic” In the key 25-54 year demographic which talk radio offers to advertisers, the Spring, 2005 Arbitron ratings showed that Monday-Friday from 2-4 PM when O’Reilly is on WOR-AM and which at Air America’s 1190 WLIB-AM contains the last hour of “The Al Franken Show” and the first hour of “The Randi Rhodes Show,” that O’Reilly had a .3 share and Air America a .4 share. O’Reilly had a ulative audience of 75,400 and Air America had a ulative audience of 89,300.
Inevitably ratings go up and down and vary from time slot to time slot and from market to market. Right wing bloggers have had fun cherry picking isolated pieces of ratings reports to distort the enormous enthusiasm Air America’s growing audience has demonstrated. At the vast majority of our affiliates Air America ratings are up. On a nationwide basis the most recent Arbitron ratings Spring 2005 book showed that our affiliates reach over three million people per week each of whom listens for an average of several hours a week. This is more than triple the amount of people who were listening when measured one year earlier in the Spring, 2004 book.
I do not intend to write something every time something like this happens. In the almost six months during which I have been CEO of Air America Radio, I have refrained, for the most part, from responding to the litany of attacks, lies, half-truths and smears from various members of the right-wing media. In general, it seems to me that paying too much attention to these people only encourages them and that we, at Air America, need to get used to the fact that the spirited progressive opinions of our on-air talent and of our audience will attract the kind of mean-spirited smears that are endemic to contemporary political conversation.
After having a near monopoly on talk radio for so many years, some conservative media types are literally freaked out at confronting robust, persistent and passionate opposition. On Sept 26th, O’Reilly desperately claimed that “Air America’s basic flaw is that “Americans do not want to hear that their country sucks 24 hours a day.” Of course the talent and management of Air America have a love of our country which is what animates all passionate debate on political issues form the left, right and center. it is an obsession with stifling debate—even at the cost of using lies and distortions, which is un-American.
I wonder how much of his own money Rupert Murdoch and other wealthy Republican broadcasters had to put into the pot before Conservative talk radio took off? Today, Rush Limbaugh's crowd is 60% of what it used to be in it's hayday, but we don't hear Bill O'Lilley talking about that, now do we?
Air America will never go off the air as long as they have children's charities to rip off.
Just out of curiosity, does the money Rush, Hannity & O'Reilly charge for subscriptions & merchandise go to support Fox & Clear Channel or whatever? Or for their own profit?
I don't really understand what the problem is with either, though...if people want to pay for that, it doesn't really affect me one way or the other, as I hate radio talk shows anyway.
I still don't understand why some on the political right are so gleeful about the possibility of failure from a radio enterprise that is late to the game and unaffiliated with any major radio network.
It's a bit like H.E.B. feeling it had accomplished some great thing because a mom & pop store located in a seldom-travelled alley, which characterized itself as anti-HEB, had gone out of business.
Good analogy!
I agree with the premise that the Right shouldn't be so gleeful about the possible demise of Air Ameriscam but, for a much different reason. So long as there is an Air Ameriscam the "Fairness Doctrine" will remain on the shelf.
So, please, please, keep them going. Buy the $150.00 bumper stickers so the Left won't start looking for other ways to restrict free speech simply because no one is interested in their message.
I don't care about that crap.
I even listen to Rush, Sean insHannity, Savage Nation, O'Reilly, Laura Ingram so I get both sides..well actually pretty much the conservative side but I'm open minded and agree with some of the things I hear.
The reading comprehension in this forum is non-existant. Air America is not going broke. They have even began to repay start-up loans in advance. Air America is but one group of Nationally syndicated radio shows. Progressive shows like Ed Schultz, Stepanie Miller, Alan Combes, and Lionel which air locally on 92.5 FM are not affiliated with Air America.
You know Dan I fail to understand why you keep referring to the lefties, libs and such as "progressive". I also fail to understand what they have progressed to/on. If you mean trampling on my rights as a citizen, restricting my right's and generally interferring with my everyday living then I guess they are progressive. They, lefties, libs and their ilk have told me I must wear a seat belt, I always have, but resent telling me I have to. I must have insurance to protect others, like you haven't enough sense to carry your own, I can't smoke in a public place, I don't smoke. They don't want people to eat fatty foods, fatty is who's opinion, mine or yours. I am a conservative, always have been always will be. I also have lived enough years to know I am right being one. You folks want to put down God and anyone who happens to believe in him. And I read the other day the best answer to that problem. You don't want to believe in him: fine! I do. But think of this. If I am wrong when I die, I have lost nothing. But if I am right and you are wrong and those of you who don't believe....well I will let you figure that out for yourself, cause you are so smart.
If that were dan's point, I think he'd call them Bush apologists.
All of which, I guess, are far, far worse than things like dictating to people what they can and can't do with their own bodies; arguing to require non-religious people to choose between sitting through religious proselytizing or missing out on important public events; and requiring them to submit to warrantless searches on baseless su ion.
Well first, there are no warrantless searchs. All search warrants must be gotten thru a court. Even under the Patroit Act. I don't think anyone tell's anyone what they can do to their bodies. Note the ear, nose, tounge, belly buttons and other parts of some peoples bodies. But if you are referring to babies, who protects their rights. They did not ask to come into this world, only someone is "stuck on stupid" would get themselves PG. If they do, then they should not have the right to kill someone else just because they didn't want to get PG. As far as proselytinzing, I suppose a prayer for some is painful, I never found it so, nor has countless millions of americans for it so. But then it must offend you. But I should not be offended if you put down my God or my pleasures, like a Christmas scene on the corner of the court house. You prove my point, tenfold. You are obviously
"progressive". Wonder if you read the later part of my post, notice you didn't respond to it. Make you wonder, just maybe.
To each his own.
I consider myself a conservative progressive liberal and I've also lived enough years to to feel that I'm right.
To me "conservative and republican" and "liberal and democrat" don't always go together. There are many conservative democrats and there are many liberal republicans. I know quite a few of them.
You should really study law sometime. You are completely wrong about that. There have always been warrantless searches (like searches incident to arrest, for example). Among other things, though, the Patriot Act allows police and government officials broader discretion to decide to search someone on less su ion than would normally be necessary. If see the seat belt requirement to be an affront to your freedom, but have no issues with broadening the ability of government to conduct warrantless searches, more power to you.
Yes, because promiscuity is the only way that women ever become pregnant. Nice.
It doesn't offend me that someone wants to pray. I pray. What offends me is that the government can back prayers and basically tell people that the government's preferred position is Christianity. As I read the Cons ution, it was always intended to protect the rights of the minority from the whims of the majority. That means that if 99.9% of Americans feel a particular way, it does not give that majority license to trample on the rights of the .1% who disagree. If a majority of Americans thought that black people shouldn't get married, would it be okay for government to outlaw such marriages? If the majority of Americans thought that women should not be allowed to work, would it be okay for government to prohibit women from working? Of course not. Why on Earth, then, should it be okay for government to sanction a particular religious belief just because a majority of Americans happen to share that belief?
But you see, it's your God -- it's not the community's God, even if most of the community might agree with you. Would you feel the same way if, by some chance, you lived in a community that was filled with Satanists who wanted to erect some symbol of their religion on the courthouse lawn? Would you not be offended if the majority of that community agreed that a display of, say, an animal or human sacrifice would be appropriate? What about a less extreme example -- what if you lived in a primarily Muslim community or a primarily Jewish community? Would you be down with large public displays of symbols of those religions? Would you be content if every public event in your community started with the invocation of Allah?
I agree with Joe about the inadequacy of simple labels like you choose. Nevertheless, were I to choose any one label, I suppose I'd go with the progressive tag you've chosen for me. That belief of mine is no different than your belief in conservatism.
You might note, however, that I didn't attack your conservatism. That, howver, didn't stop you from presuming things about me and attacking me based on those presumptions.
I have no problem with anyone being conservative or progressive or liberal or anything else, quite frankly. To each his own. What I quarrel with, however, is the blithe statements of the principles embraced by certain groups and the total ignorance of similar principles embraced by another. That was the sole reason for my post. If you're cool with attacking me based on that, so be it.
Oh what a bunch of crap you spout. You resent every aspect of what I say, you response has proven that. To each his own. You must think In am stupid.
Last edited by xrayzebra; 09-29-2005 at 07:00 PM.
Air America is a bigger joke than John Kerry
I hear they're still paying stations to air their programming.
Well if Yoni said it, I'll take that as set in stone
By the way, don't Drudge and Bill O'Lilley pay stations to play their radio shows?
Air America is the way to go.
I think you ought to buy a dozen of those Johnny. When they are antiques, you will be sitting on a gold mine.Air America is the way to go.
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