On 19 Apr 2004 05:22:56 GMT, (Pay Tree Ot) wrote:

Air-America is in the honeymoon stage. That's all I listen to now.
It's so refreshing to hear voices of reason instead of bellowing white
men or sarcastic bimbos on the right. So, it is only reasonable to
say, Air-America is saving talk radio!

The honeymoon is rocky with the loss of Los Angeles. What you need to
understand is that Air America isn't old enough to have a honeymoon
and hasn't enough stations to make any impact beyond press release
puffery.

As with any Talk network or station, the growth is slow. Air America
isn't "saving" anything. It's pleasing you. Period. With fewer than 20
marginal stations carrying perhaps one show (Franken, most likely)
it's got a very long road ahead. I wish them luck. I want to see them
succeed but they appear to be their own worst enemy. It's been my
experience that a company that solves its problems with on air dirty
laundry and litigation scares off potential affiliates.

I created the WOR Radio Network about 12 years ago. It took about 6
years to get to the 400 station count and we never paid a penny buying
time anywhere. Advertisers generally don't buy networks until they
have about 85% national coverage.

Despite what the press releases say, there isn't an industry clamoring
for Liberal programming. It's looking for programming that's
entertaining and gets ratings. We'll see in about 5 Arbitron surveys
whether or not there's an audience clamoring for it. The only station
(if they change the call and branding, IMHO) that has a chance for
numbers is New York. Even then the WLIB signal is nowhere near
comparable to WABC or WOR in the survey areas.

Since Franken is the poster boy and extremely talented, any
significant dent in Rush Limbaugh's WABC numbers after those 5 surveys
will show there's a market, though even Rush hasn't had the wild
success in New York that he's experienced elsewhere.

Rush is handicapped by his loss of passion after all these years. If
he escapes becoming a guest of John Ashcroft for drug abuse it'll be a
fairly level playing field over the next year in New York.

Rich