Air America seems to be off the air in Memphis

[tnlurker]

I tried to listen to Air america this morning on Progressive Talk 680 this morning in Memphis. Instead I got Fox Sports Network 680.

Their office opens in a few minutes at 8 am.

The number is 901-797-0104 for those of you in the Memphis area.

[Captain Kronos]

1. It's Toast

I live in the Memphis area. Progressive Talk 680 was MIA on Monday (yesterday) morning -- a Fox sports station in its place. (And doesn't Memphis already have a sports talk station or two?)

Progressive talk in Memphis is history. Without any warning whatsover.

Gone.

If you don't have a PC with broadband here, you are completely SOL.

[tnlurker]

2. I just called the station

The receptionist confirmed it. Air America is out, FOX Sports is in. She claimed they were not generating enough revenue. I told her I would not be listening to any of their stations any more. They have about 5 other stations including FM100 and WRVR the River.

[OnyxCollie]

3. Same thing happened here in Akron.

I've been switching from AM 1090 in Seattle, to KLSD in San Diego, to Nova M in Phoenix.

Sadly, there are more public service announcements than paid spots in each commercial break. I think all these stations are living on borrowed time.

[LTR]

11. That may be a webstream issue

Due to some rather moronic legal issues, many commercials are not allowed to be streamed on a station's webcast, due to royalties from voice-over talent and other things that make absolutely little sense. That's why you may hear PSA's, filler music, promos, etc. For all I know, there's probably a lot of advertising on the stations' over-the-air signals. Or perhaps not. I do know KPTK and KLSD have a ton of advertisers.

Some stations are also being creative in selling webstream-only ads.

[OnyxCollie]

19. Thanks for the info.

I did notice that KLSD had a lot of ads on their internet stream (car dealerships, always a good sign), but I noticed a drop in ads on KPTK, maybe one paid ad every other stop set.

[LTR]

9. They did a horrible job of promoting it

What they did is merely slap the straight AAR feed on the signal, and hoped people and advertisers would find it. Ratings were terrible because hardly anyone knew about the station. And advertisers won't buy time on a station nobody's listening to.

WSMB had every chance to be successful, but the management blew it big time.

[Submariner]

4. We lost our AA stations (1200 & 1430) in Boston over a year ago

One minute I was listening to Stephanie Miller, and then the clock hit the top of the hour, and all of a sudden I was listening to Latin Rumba music. WTF I thought! Come to find out that Clear Channel came to town and ended progressive radio that day in Red Sox Nationville.

If we lost it in Liberal Kennedy country, you can bet it will be lost in red states like Davy Crockett country.

To this day those 2 Latin stations still play Rumba 24/7, but the music seems so poor I wonder if there really is an audience listening to it that would have exceeded progressive radio listeners. I think not.

[OnyxCollie]

5. Read this report.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/20/radio-report/

It is likely that the Clear Channel-owned Latin stations are attracting less listeners than progressive radio. Just the way they want it.

[dbt]

6. Part of the fault lies with the original AAR management.

They did not have Clue One as to how to oppose the KKKonserative TalKKK Radio Establi$hment.

THEN, KKKlear Channel was allowed in to the equa$tion. The rest is hysteria.

[LTR]

7. It flipped over the weekend

http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2007/08/dont-be-cruel.html

The irony is, the station is owned by Entercom, a company that donates heavily to Democrats.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Cheap Channel Bails Again

Sadly, I suspect AAR is headed for another crisis and soon. The Greens are losing affiliates and haven't picked up any new ones. The financial problems with the network and many of its affiliates are a major problem that honestly have little to do with politics and a lot to do with Clear Channel and AAR's financial situations.

Few Progressive Talk stations have performed well and this is what matters to corporate media. If they can make a few sheckles more with an obnoxious Sports talk format, they will. Fox offers their programming along with compenstation to local affiliates, something AAR is in no position to do. Also with little to no promotion or on poor signals, most AAR stations show poor ratings...and this drags on the company's bottom line...especially these days when bucks are tight.

Bottom line is AAR is performing poorly in many markets and more format changes are on the way.

[LTR]

10. This isn't Clear Channel

It's Entercom.

[KharmaTrain]

13. Not Much Difference...

Thanks for the clarification...but the point is the situation is similar in Memphis as it is in San Diego (haven't seen anything about the KLSD situation) and in many other areas. AAR continues to lose affiliates...not a good thing.

[Captain Kronos]

12. I (partly) blame Lionel

I liked the Young Turks, Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes (in small doses) and Tom Hartmann. But Lionel is absolutely awful. (Even Springer's show, as bad as it was, was better.)

The utter shittiness of the Lionel show is probably a contributing factor to AA ratings decline...

Memphis' ProgTalk 680 should've paid the extra dough to get Stephanie Miller from Jones Network in Lionel's slot. Stephanie is informative and funny; I think her show would've been a hit here. And while I don't care for his style, I believe Ed Schultz would go over well here, too.

BTW: Did I already mention just how SHITTY Lionel is?

[KharmaTrain]

14. Welcome To DU

I was in New York last week and heard both the morning show and Lionel...then infomercials all night on WWRL...a big difference over what I had heard on WLIB a year earlier. Fortunately they used to carry Lionel in Chicago but dumped him a long time ago.

The problem is the dough. The station wasn't willing to pay dough...for talent, for marketing and the owners will get money from Fox for carrying inane sports talk as well as probably tapping into some local sports bucks. It's a catch 22...stations won't spend money cause they aren't seeing any coming in. AAR stations, sadly, aren't marketed well and financially supported. Many are the weakest station in a group of 5 or more and may have a few sales people who try to sell that in addition with other formats. With money being tight...especially in radio...format changes happen frequently...and usually by the same morons who messed things up in the first place.

Cheers...

[napi21]

15. I sure agree on Lionel! I managed to listen to 1 1/2 of his shows, and that

was more than I can stand. When he comes on, I go to another stream! I keep hoping that whatever offer AAR made to him is SHORT!

[LTR]

16. The thing is, it doesn't cost a whole lot of money to do it

Stephanie Miller's show is offered on a barter basis, just like Air America, Ed Schultz, and almost every syndicated show out there, save for Limbaugh and a few of the biggies. Meaning, they can carry it for free, but just have to run network ads.

All it would really take is a configuration of the station's automation software. They can do it for Cardinals baseball, and likely, since we're talking Entercom here, the existing computer could do it. But they were just too lazy to do it.

[AX10]

20. I agree. Stephanie and Ed are assets. Lionel is a jerk.

AAR has to be one of the worse run organizations around.

[Rob H.]

17. The local management screwed it up royally, imo

They hired a local host for a while in 2005 (Leon Gray) and his show was substituted for the final two hours of Randi's show and the first hour of The Majority Report until it became clear that he was a conservative fundagelical homophobe in liberal clothing. He also talked a lot about what was going on locally, and since I live in Memphis I could've watched the local TV news or read the paper and learned just as much as, if not more than, I ever learned about local politics from listening to him. (And hello, we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan and Bush is wiping his ass with The Constitution--viewed in that context I couldn't care less about what's happening in local politics.)

It took a while, but 680's management finally fired Gray (as an on-air personality, at least). I think they probably lost a lot of GLBT and GLBT-friendly listeners because of him--some of my gay friends never went back even after Gray got the axe.

On the weekends they were running infomercials at least part of the time, and some local church service on Sunday mornings. They had also become "the official station for Cardinals baseball," which meant that they would often and without warning cut into Rachel Maddow's show on game nights.

They also haven't updated the website in over a year, either--it still has Morning Sedition, Jerry Springer, Al Franken, The Majority Report, and Mike Malloy listed as current shows!

I guess they figured doing something half-assed still counts as doing something. :(

[Ioo]

18. Do what I did, Get XM and have it everywhere...

[memphiscatman]

21. Petition To Save Progressive Talk In Memphis

SAVE PROGRESSIVE TALK RADIO IN MEMPHIS
Sign the petition at the link below:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/210422181
Target:Entercom Memphis and stations considering a progressive talk format
Created by:Brian Stuhr - Progressive Talk Radio For The Mid-South

Let's let Entercom Memphis know we were listening and encourage them to bring this format back to Memphis radio. If they are unwilling, let's let other stations know we would support them and their advertisers.
Please visit http://www.memphiscatman.blogspot.com for updates, audio links to progressive talk shows and more.
Email me at [e-mail] to get on the mailing list. We need to organize an event so the media can see us!
Visit http://www.nonstopradio.com/ to see what people are doing in other communities.
Thanks much! Brian Stuhr