Here is why Lionel replaced Sam Seder

[Quixote1818]

I like Sam Seder better too, but this is a business decision and Lionel has a bigger listening audience than Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes (see link below). Or at least AS big since it looks like the list is in alphabetical order. Sam Seder doesn't even make the list on the link below. Only Ed Schultz beats Lionel when it comes to the numbers.

The two most popular people on AAR are probably the two we all like the least. Still, DU doesn't get to make the decision. The American People who listen to radio do and Mark Green should listen to the numbers. Green is doing all the right things to make AAR profitable.



http://www.talkers.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=34

[jgraz]

1. You know who has an even bigger audience? Rush Limbaugh

Maybe AAR should've hired him.

AAR was always about more than ratings numbers. Even so, ratings don't happen without support and Sam got none from management. I've been listening to Stephanie Miller since Sam was shitcanned, and she's not even close to him in terms of political analysis and political humor (as opposed to fart jokes). Sam was also able to pull in huge guests from both politics and entertainment. Who else (besides maybe Rachel Maddow) could interview both Henry Rolling and Russ Feingold in the same week?

[Strelnikov_]

24. Word

with two twists and a cherry on top.

[sandyd921]

32. Good response!

This is what AAR seems to have lost track of (the very reason for their being).

I think Sam's ratings problems and lack of affiliates had it's roots in Jerry Springer killing the time slot. I suspect lots of affiliates dropped Jerry and went with Stephanie. Unfortunately Sam, through no fault of his own, inherited the situation. On top of that lack of promotion by AAR didn't help.

[madinmaryland]

2. The problem I have is that it appears Lionel is not a progressive,

and seeing that AAR is supposed to be progressive, doesn't that seem to go against what AAR is? If actual ratings is the only prerequisite, then why not just bring SlantHead or OxyRush on?

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. He is a left wing libetarian

and I don't care for him either

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Steph and Randi have the same market share`

and they are slowly comong up

Ed has actually lost market, since he was, at one point number three

[Ian David]

11. Maybe Ed can get a job working for Joe LIEberman.

Two things caused me to stop listening to Ed.

1) He's got his tongue so far up Joe LIEberman's ass, that I can see his tongue behind Joe's eyeballs.

2) Our local AAR affiliate was so stupid, they supposedly couldn't figure out how to sell advertising for progressive talk radio in BOSTON-- The Blue State capitol full of liberal college students and home of Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, and John F. Kerry that just elected an African-American PROGRESSIVE Governor. (Now they play SPANISH music-- in a state where PORTUGUESE is the fastest growing foreign language segment). Because of that, I subscribed to the Stephanie Miller Podcast-- Only $4.95 per month when you purchase a year in advance (GLING!). So, while Ed Schultz is blathering about his Dungeness Crabs and how great Joe LIEberman's ass tastes, I'm listening to the StephCast on my Muvo player.

I spend about four hours a day in my car, and now my XM Radio mostly goes to waste.

Except that I have it tuned to transmit wirelessly on the same frequency as the local FM right-wing blowhards, knowing that it interferes with signals one or two car-lengths away.

[madinmaryland]

22. Huh? Ed and Liebo?

The last couple of years, Ed has not been very kind to Lieberman, if he has mentioned him at all.

:wtf:

[Ian David]

23. Before the 2006 Election, he was ALL about supporting LIEberman and bashing Ned Lamont.

"It's all about WEE-NING!"

[Ian David]

5. Lionel and The Young Turks are Plug-and-Play Programming

They each had their own audiences and a complete infrastructure when AAR hired them.

Young Turks even had their own video webcast!

Plug-and-play programming.

However, I have come to absolutely LOATHE Lionel.

He has utter and undisguised contempt for his audience, and takes delight in ridiculing even friendly callers who agree with him.

(No, I haven't called him yet, so it's not personal).

I suppose that Lionel is better than that idiot who filled-in a couple weeks ago that knew absolutely nothing about anything. At least Lionel seems to know his shit. He's informative, but he's not entertaining, not dynamic, not engaging, and to boot he's rude, arrogant and condescending.

I want Sam Seder back.

And I even miss Dewey, his frequent right-wing caller with "feminization issues" that he begged Sammy to counsel him about off the air.

We miss you, Sam!

And we even miss YOU, too, Dewey!

[jgraz]

12. Don't forget HR and Jerry from Lawn Guyland

"Good Mooahning, Tank you very much for taking my coowall."

[GOTV]

6. That's a depressing list. Lib Radio is getting it's clock cleaned n/t

[Quixote1818]

8. Actually Ed, Randi, Stephanie and Lionel are doing pretty good

To make it on that list is not easy. There are thousands of radio personality's out there and to make it onto that list puts you in an elite group.

[GOTV]

17. 1/12 of Rush or Hannity's numbers. Blech n/t

[napi21]

9. Liberal radio is still relatively new. I heard someone on the radio today

talking about that and all the complaints about AAR not making money. They mentionedd FOX News, and their BIG $$ guys are O'Reiley and Hannity who have both been on FOX since it began. FOX LOST $5 million+ in their first years, and it took them 5 years to make any money at all! It takes time to build a market and a following. I think we're being too antsy!

[GOTV]

15. Yeah, I know. I keep telling myself that. I thought they were doing better than this though n/t

[Clark2008]

30. And don't forget that there's absolutely NO liberal radio in most

of the country, yet - well, at least in significant parts of the country.

The only place in my state that has it is Memphis (unless Nashville's got it now - there was a petition afoot to get into Nashville, but I'm not sure if it succeeded).

[Ian David]

16. AAR is populating "Lib Radio" with people who refuse to actually call themselves Liberals.

It might be better for winning over advertisers, but it doesn't help us that our own talkers declare themselves to be "independents"-- just like Bill O'rally does.

[Strelnikov_]

25. But didn't ya know. They had to destroy 'Liberal' talk radio to save it n/t

[Junkdrawer]

18. Factor in AAR's limited reach... n/t

[GOTV]

20. That's true. Good point n/t

[LTR]

35. The Talkers list is not at all scientific

They do use audience level, but most of it is just pulled out of their asses.

And of course conservotalk dominates. They've been at it much longer.

We'll talk in ten years or so, when the average age of the conservotalk listener will be beyond the point of being lucrative for advertising buys. One thing liberal talk has going for it is they tend to skew a bit younger.

[sam sarrha]

7. it's ok with me.. i just have an alarm clock for Randi.. then i turn them on

[Canuckistanian]

10. Are ratings written in stone?

How can you attract and keep an audience when your lineup changes so often?

Too much tinkering can kill a network's ratings, too. People will just get frustrated and refuse to tune in.

Relying on a "star" who brings their own audience, yet pisses off the regular network listeners is a zero sum game.

[madfloridian]

13. Well, we have NO, NONE, ZERO liberal radio anywhere near us.

Have not had for years.

I would say no wonder...no wonder right wing does better. How many areas like ours??

I either stream or pay for XM or Sirius. That is it.

How many of us do that? Do they count that?

[napi21]

28. There's no liberal radio here in Ga. either!

I'm lucky, I'm retired so I stream radio all day long (and keep up with all the current stuff via DU), but if I'm in the car, I resort to a music station becaue my brain and nerves can't stand even 1 minute of Boortz, Limpballs, Hannity, and several locals just like them.

[rurallib]

14. Um ... I think Lionel has more outlets ergo has more opportunity

for people to listen. Simple total numbers only tell a portion of the story. AAR lost a lot of outlets and the outlets they have or had often barely covered the market. WLIB doesn't have near the coverage of WWOR. Christ I can get WWOR out here in Iowa.
Rushie is on something like 700 stations, including almost every "big" station in the cities plus almost all the 50,000 watters.
These numbers are really misleading to me. Limbaugh has been on the air and the big stations for 20 years. Steph's been on the air for what ? 3years and her home station barely covers LA.
I think that AAR was just finally beginning to establish a brand and this is a real step back.
Of course we can't get them out here because ours was one of the areas that CC blacked out. But I can get all sorts of RW hate all over my dial.
Remember also that Limbaugh was not an instant success and FOX NEWS lost huge bundles of moneyfor the first many years.

[rurallib]

19. BTW - we have been trying to get a community radio station in our area

I posted on this yesterday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=912531&mesg_id=912531
My point is that the RW owns radio and it will only get worse, much worse. Soon your over the air radio will be only Jesus and Rush. So basing decisions like this on popularity is like saying that the national enquirer must be true because the most people read it.
Also, Lionel was part of the "liberal" radio we got for a short time. Very inconsistent in his views. I'd take Sam any day. Hope he's on Nova M soon.

[ConsAreLiars]

21. I assume that you know that those numbers are totally bogus

as measures of "popularity," unless you mean popularity with corporate media owners. They primarily reflect the number of stations that carry each of them and the size of those markets. You may like listening to a poorly informed simpleton who thinks being a jerk is good for ratings - that is your right - but those numbers say nothing about the relative popularity of those hosts in any particular market in which they actually compete.

[tech3149]

26. I listened to Lionel before he came to AAR

At times he's good, at times he's irritating. I think his listener #'s are more a matter of marketing and the time he's been on the air. If you listen to Randi, you should know that one thing AAR doesn't do well is marketing. That hasn't improved with the Green Bro's. If AAR and Jones marketed their best, Rush and his ilk would be relegated to the dustbin of history. If you look at individual markets, both Randi and Stephanie as newcomers grabbed a major market share within a few months. Limpballs et al took years to do that.

The numbers presented from Talkers don't represent the number and size of the marketplace where they're available. Real progressive voices aren't available to people that are inundated 24/7 with RW bile up and down the dial. I think it would be impossible to do a head to head comparison between one talk show host and another unless the the size and number of markets were factored into the equation.

[Swamp Rat]

27. Air America who?

http://www.novamradio.com/

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

29. my theory is sam was canned for taking on lieberman so hard

he was probably rivaled only by markos as the most vocal backer of lamont. the dlc establishment backed lieberman through the primary and didnt want lamont's campaign to take off.
the new aar management loves the dlc. look at their guest list for next week (al from, stephonoolous, etc). and look at who's been canned: flanders, seder etc

this is just speculation on my part, but it's a theory to consider

[Peace Patriot]

31. I don't agree. I am forced to listen to Ed Schultz, for instance, because there is

nothing else worth listening to on my radio band at that time--although I constantly switch to BBC News and C-Span hoping for something better. They are counting me as part of Ed Schultz's numbers--but I am given no choice. He's better than Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. And I sometimes just go to the 60's and '70s rock stations, because they're all so disgusting (even, at times, the BBC--such shills for Blair, since the Blairites threatened them over the David Kelly incident).

AAR is being corporatized and "cleaned up." They were blacklisted by Corporate advertisers--that's why they ran into financial trouble. We really need to understand this. The Corporate Fascists ARE NOT GOING TO PERMIT ANY SERIOUS QUESTIONING OF CORPORATE RULE, FASCIST POLICY OR WAR PROFITEERING ON OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES. **THEY** say who and what we get to listen to, not the listeners--not us.

The other day I caught Eco-Talk and had to listen to the host gushing over a PG&E P.R. flak and their "green" policies. I just wanted to vomit. I turned it off. NO SERIOUS QUESTIONING. Nothing.

This is one of the prices we are paying for Corporate Rule. They are monopolies and are acting in restraint of trade--in this case, in restraint of a true "marketplace of ideas"--because they control not only the advertising, but also WHO AND WHAT get airtime, in a monolithic power structure, and in conspiracy with each other. This is NOT a "free market." If it were, Mike Malloy and Sam Seder would still be on AAR. Malloy is a riveting radio personality--and Seder is also compelling in his own way--and both of them are, in addition, vastly better informed than most radio commentators. It is WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY that is not permissible, not whether or not they are a "sellable" product. The Corporate Rulers DON'T CARE WHAT WE THINK. They are into CONTROLLING what we think, and disempowering us--and they will even take financial losses in order to maintain market monopolies, particularly thought-control and national news narrative control markets. They do it all the time, to drive local businesses out of business--they sell products at a loss, so that the big chain can move in. They do it to third world countries, dumping cheap U.S. ag products on their produce markets to destroy local farmers and the country's ability to feed itself. And they're doing it in the "news" business.

So please don't buy this crap about "ratings." It is a highly manipulated, monopoly-controlled "market" aimed at making the fascist message the only thing we hear and see, and undermining and destroying real journalism and real leftist (majorityist) commentary.

And there are three broad solutions to it:

1. Transparent vote counting, so that we start getting REAL representation in Congress and other government bodies.
2. So that, we can start busting up these gigantic international war profiteering corporate news monopolies; and
3. Bring back the "Fairness Doctrine" by which we require that those who obtain a license to use the PUBLIC AIRWAVES provide a broad spectrum of opinion and responsible journalism in the public interest.

[Ilsa]

33. I can't tell I'm listening to liberal talk radio when I hear Lionel, I don't

care what his numbers are.

[Rex]

34. AAR is being Democratized! Now yall stop all this fuss and buy something

soon!