It's Official: Air America Files for Bankruptcy.

[truebrit71]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/10/13/airamerica.radio.ap/index.html

Perfect timing for the right-wing gloaters.... :eyes:

[AngryAmish]

1. Reorganization not liquidation

[truebrit71]

3. To the reich-wing noise machine it won't make a difference...

...all they will focus on is the word "BANKRUPTCY"....

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.....:grr:

[zbdent]

9. true ... but haven't some airlines emerged from "bankruptcy"?

and many prominent businesses?

I guess that Air American isn't going to get a sweetheart deal like Chrysler did with Iacocca ...

[MoonRiver]

20. I don't care if they gloat. They are invisible to me.

As long as I can listen to my AA I'm good with whatever the company needs to do, business wise.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Yeah, we're gonna be hearing about this for a long time *grrrr*

[JackBeck]

4. My advice: change the subject.

Them: "So, AAR files for bakruptcy..."

You: "Did you hear Bob Ney, a Republican from Ohio, plead guilty today to bribery?"

[KyndCulture]

5. The complete breakdown of management and executives caused this.

If they didn't have a fucking CEO that had NO radio experience and worked in the cosmetics industry this shit would never have happened.

[KittyWampus]

10. According to DU'ers who KNOW radio, this predates the current CEO

and has a lot to do with the state of radio overall, the goal of AAR in the beginning as well as management issues.

This is one subject I am totally sick of hearing DU'ers with no fucking clue about radio expound.

[KharmaTrain]

24. Jon Sinton Has Tons Of Experience

He was the real driving force in putting the network together. He also was instrumental when Evan Cohen screwed over the company in keeping the network afloat. It was his connections that enabled the network to work deals with Clear Channel and the satellite networks and did so with limited funds and a deteriorating marketplace.

Several AAR backers were chased out and the radio market has fallen into revenue hell. AAR tried to be very aggressive and spent so much money and effort in just getting on the air, it found it tough staying on once it got there.

Sadly there are lots of great radio people who no longer are in the business. They've been priced out and the talent drain has led to the entire radio industry teetering on the edge of financial collapse.

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. Thanks Goldberg.

You schmuck.

fsc

[KittyWampus]

11. DU'ers with no clue about radio AS A BUSINESS should read up

on the posts from other DU'ers who've been kind enough to really enlighten the rest of us on this subject.

Kharmatrain has been really, really forthcoming.

Blaming this on one CEO or whatever totally misses the picture.

[fudge stripe cookays]

28. DUers with no fucking clue

about why I'm pissed should cease telling me what I should read.

Money is one thing. Support is another.

It couldn't have helped matters at all to keep replacing their best shows. They broke one of the cardinal rules of developing an audience by continually taking their best shows off the air.

Examples:
Lizz, Rachel and Chuck
Mark and Marc
Mike Malloy

EVERY TIME I got a favorite show, they yanked. Every damned time.

They not only made unwise financial decisions, they kept fucking over the very audience who might have stood by them when the going got tough. As it stands now, I'm bored by all their shows, and they have yanked AAR in Dallas. I have no more interest in the network, quite frankly.

Management caused that.

[Poppyseedman]

7. Big freaking deal

Lots of companies file for bankruptcy to get their financial house in order.

[deutsey]

8. All the more reason to support Pacifica stations

www.pacifica.org

Pacifica's flagship station in Berkely (KPFA) is having its pledge drive even as I write this (right now they're featuring Al Franken's new video as a premium...if you're reading this after the broadcast, you can still pledge online and get the Franken video as a premium). It's been around since 1949 and started listener-supported media.

www.kpfa.org

[Wickerman]

12. Sad, but I guess the spin could be we don't need 'em

The Right is about to get trounced in the mid-terms. People stopped believing the Rethuglican crap and unlike the insecure Republican base that has to be spoon what to think and when to think it Liberals can figure it out on their own. There was truly no need to the progressive spectrum to go off and create their own alternate version of reality; in effect, mimic the weak in the knees Republican.

That said, I hope AA can emerge from the re-org. I can't hear it where I am, but when I have been able to stream it and been in cities that have it have been struck by the fact it's damn fine radio.

[SDDEM06]

13. Guess that's the end of AAR

Just like it's been the end of the airline industry. It's amazing this country still functions without a single working airline because they all went bankrupt.
And Donald Trump. That guy is such a business failure. He's living in tenement housing in a New York slum now, right?

What? You mean businesses can file bankruptcy, reorganize and keep functioning? Trump Enterprises is a huge corporation and Trump lives in a penthouse and has a private jet? Gee, guess this isn't the end of AAR after all.

So, how's Mark Foley doing? Bob Ney?
When's Hastert going to resign?
What do you think of the top British General saying it's time for the UK to leave Iraq?

Plenty of other things to talk about than a meaningless bankruptcy case.

[bdamomma]

14. Sam Seder just mentioned this, and he said AAR will be on the air.

[KharmaTrain]

15. Right Wing Hate Radio Shouldn't Gloat

They're in trouble, too. By volume it's not felt like that of an AAR as there are so many hate radio shows and stations across the dial. However these stations and shows are losing audience and revenues as well. The difference is they have well-established networks and sources of revenue that prop up these station not unlike the bulk book sales beef up the numbers for right wing writers.

One group of suckers revenue stream for this network is religious radio. Salem media makes the bulk of its revenues off "dollar-a-hollar" preachers and money funneled to them through the Dobson and other political/religious networks that go to bring up such fine folks as Betamillion Bill Bennett, Laura Ms. Lovely Ingraham and Michael Weiner.

Ratingswise, AAR stations beat the pants off of Salem stations...but so much for moral victories.

As my late mother would say..."every knock is a building block"...there's plenty of good AAR has done. It created the first real Progressive Talk network and now the groundwork is laid to expand the concept further. Clear Channel sees dollars in both sides of the political divide and has been successful with several of their Progressive Talk stations...and they've done it with limited resources and funds. Now they look to be ready to up their ante and the next step of Progressive talk radio will arise.

The difference between right wing and progressive radio is that one is a mile wide and an inch deep while the other is a deep well that hasn't been properly tapped.

Cheers...

[KittyWampus]

19. KT, I want to thank you for your commentary. It's good to hear from

a DU'er who can offer helpful perspective.

For some reason AAR is one subject where uninformed opinions really grate my nerves.

[thefloyd]

16. Democrats are Capitalist

Just tell Cons AAR is filled with Entrepreneurs and capitalists. Some failure is bound to happen BUT reorganization is anything but failure.

[Greyhound]

17. I wish I could be surprised.

We have been talking about the deficiencies of their model for months.

How long will it take for people to realize that the models we have been indoctrinating in our business management schools don't work in the long term.

[Beelzebud]

18. I wonder if the Young Turks wish they had stayed with Sirius...

That must be odd for them to move from Sirius to AAR, to have the company declare bankruptcy a month after joining.

[fudge stripe cookays]

29. Considering they suck,

probably not that odd.

[meldroc]

21. I'm guessing a lot of the problem is advertising revenue, or lack thereof.

Just listen to AAR in the evenings or at night - you hear a lot of musical interludes instead of advertisements between segments of talk time. That's a Bad Thing, because that means AAR wasn't able to find advertising to fill that spot, and when that happens, they're bleeding money.

I suspect this could have been avoided if AAR had better sales and marketing that more aggressively pursued advertising contracts.

AAR has one last chance to survive. The bankruptcy keeps the wolves from the door for the short term. What they need to do is keep the shows on the air through any means necessary, then aggressively sell advertising. It might not work - with the bankruptcy, advertisers may start thinking AAR won't be able to fulfill the contract and air their ads before they bleed out completely and shut down.

[NYCGirl]

22. What station are you listening to? Here in NYC there's MUCHO advertising,

even in the evenings. The two evening shows, BTW, "Politically Direct" and "Eco Talk" have their own sponsors.

[meldroc]

23. Didn't Mike Malloy have this problem?

I hadn't had the chance to listen to him before he got canned, but yeah, I remember hearing a few musical interludes.

[NYCGirl]

25. Honestly, I couldn't answer that question. I never listened to more than

a few minutes of Malloy's show.

The story though, when Satellite Sisters was brought on to WLIB was that the station made more money from the fee paid by ABC to air that show than they made from Malloy.

[clbuck]

26. The Smoking Gun has the actual bankruptcy filing, if you're curious

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1013062airamerica1.html

[Bandit]

27. It seems like a lot of bankruptcies under this Republican rule.

:shrug: