Air America: Why liberal radio's answer to Rush Limbaugh failed and why it matters [View All]

[Mira]

for the full story and full explanation of the individual points made go to:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/2010/01/22/2010-01-22_air_america_why_liberal_radios_answer_to_rush_limbaugh_failed_and_why_it_matters.html

David Hinckley
Friday, January 22nd 2010, 9:45 AM


Progressive radio network Air America's whole life was like the Perils of Pauline, bobbing on a raft at the edge of a massive waterfall.
Monday night at 9, the raft officially goes over the falls. Say goodnight, Pauline.

But while Air America quietly files its Chapter 7 papers, there still are legitimate legacies and lessons from the life and death of a network that was unveiled March 31, 2004, on the bold premise it would be the progressive answer to Rush Limbaugh.

1. As Rush said a few days after that debut, you can't build a popular radio show, or network, on ideology – and rightly or wrongly, Air America got the image that it was working from a playbook.
"First," said Limbaugh, "you have to entertain people. You have to make it interesting to listen. I don't hear any of that."
Interestingly, Air America's original executives agreed with Rush about the importance of entertainment, which is why the opening lineup included Al Franken, Janeane Garafalo and other professional entertainers.
Problem is, they weren't radio people. The best pure radio show on the early Air America was Randi Rhodes, whose background was radio.
It is possible to become good at radio if you have enough time, which most Air America hosts didn't. Rachel Maddow, agree with her or not, got good at radio and did become a progressive "answer." She did it so well she was plucked away by MSNBC.

2. If people can't hear you, what you're saying doesn't matter.
Air America's first bosses, the ones who claimed the company had reams of money that it didn't, talked about buying their own big stations in major markets.
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3. There are wins even in deeat.
Air America arguably made Al Franken a U.S. senator, legitimizing his transition from comedian to serious political figure.
It made Maddow a star in the modest but slowly growing new generation of progressive talkers.
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4. In the talk radio game, it's bad when your guy wins.
Conservative talk radio had way more fun under Clinton than Bush, and the fun has revved up again with Obama.
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5. The future of mass media is really hard to figure out.
By the time Air America realized it didn't have the resources to play the radio game against the WABCs of the world and switched to the Internet, the progressive go-to spots had already been claimed by the likes of moveon.org and the Huffington Post.
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6. Every serious media enterprise reaches somebody.
Rhodes said a few years ago, before she left in one of Air America's numerous clumsy public dramas, that her favorite callers were the ones from little towns in the South or Midwest.
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7. In the end, Rush is still standing. Almost six years after the launch of Air America, the critical mass of political talk radio listeners still resides on the right.

"Talk radio doesn't need 'balance'," Jay Severin said a couple of years ago. "In the larger scope of American media, talk radio is the balance."

Air America declared there isn't an excess of "liberal" views in the media, but a shortage. If Air America was correct, someone else is going to have to pick up that ball and carry it to the next marker.