RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Franken's "Air America" Going Under Already

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the G-man said:
It's the media forum. We've talked about a lot of different media companies' operations, which includes their funding. Rex, himself, started a thread about the financial troubles for TV Guide. How is discussing Air America's financial trouble any different?

We've also used this forum to discuss the legal troubles of many stars, including Michael Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Roman Polanski, Howard Sterm and Don Imus. How is discussing the legal problems of, for example, Al Franken's show any different?

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the G-man said:
Right here.

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Brian Jonopolus said:
Can you please keep this kind of shit in the fascist controlled political flame war forum?

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the Air America radio network is in such bad financial shape that its announcers are begging listeners for help paying the bills.
In a rare move for commercial radio, the all-liberal network began asking listeners for donations and selling blocks of weekend airtime.

The move comes after the network was pressured by city investigators to repay the $875,000 borrowed from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club — with the money going into an escrow account until a city probe of the loan is finished.

The "loan" from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club was arranged by one of Air America's founding partners, Evan Montvel-Cohen, who was at the same time a fund-raiser for the Co-op City-based club, which was primarily funded by city contracts.

The scandal, which came to light over the summer, prompted city investigators to yank $10 million worth of contracts for youth and elderly services from Gloria Wise. Charles Rosen, the group's director, was forced to resign.

Shortly after its launch last year, Air America began bouncing checks and was kicked off stations in Los Angeles and Chicago. Montvel-Cohen was bounced from the network.

More recently, the 70-station lefty network has been suffering lower ratings, a phenomenon that has hit many politics-obsessed talk stations since last fall's election, including conservative WABC (770 AM).

"They must be in so much trouble," said former WABC talker Lynn Samuels, now on Sirius Satellite Radio's all-liberal channel. "I'd never heard of a commercial station asking for money."

It is with great regret that we write to let you know that Katherine Lanpher will be leaving "The Al Franken Show." Katherine has received a book deal from a new imprint at Time Warner to write a memoir of her move to New York.

While we will miss Katherine every time Al fumbles an interview, mangles an introduction, or has to go to the bathroom in the middle of a segment, in other words, all the time, we are thrilled that she has this opportunity to use the talent that has sustained us at "The Al Franken Show" in a new and rewarding way.

Her deadline in mid-January is unusually aggressive and necessitates an almost immediate departure so that she can begin procrastinating in earnest. Katherine has been very generous in agreeing to work for another two weeks while we prepare as best we can for our Post-Katherine Era.

Her last broadcast as co-host will be on Friday, Oct. 7th. Her first broadcast as best-selling author should take place sometime next spring.

The Staff of The Al Franken Show

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the G-man said:More recently, the 70-station lefty network has been suffering lower ratings, a phenomenon that has hit many politics-obsessed talk stations since last fall's election, including conservative WABC (770 AM).

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so, a business venture isn't doing too well. that must mean what they have to say is worthless.
so, i guess since stern is so popular with his lesbian shitting contest he must be the true voice of america.

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r3x29yz4a said:

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the G-man said:More recently, the 70-station lefty network has been suffering lower ratings, a phenomenon that has hit many politics-obsessed talk stations since last fall's election, including conservative WABC (770 AM).

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so, a business venture isn't doing too well. that must mean what they have to say is worthless.
so, i guess since stern is so popular with his lesbian shitting contest he must be the true voice of america.

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Air America, the liberal talk network carried on WWRC-AM (1260), went from bad to nonexistent. After WWRC recorded a mere fraction of a rating point in the spring with syndicated shows from the likes of lefty talkers Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo and Stephanie Miller, Arbitron couldn't detect a measurable listenership for the station this time around.

• In Franken`s Lying Liars book, he goes to great lengths trying to refute Republican criticism that Bill Clinton was asleep at the wheel while terrorist enemies were plotting against us. To prove his point, he cites a report, without giving details, by Barton Gellman of the Washington Post dated December 20, 2001. After doing a Lexis Nexis search I discovered that Gellman`s report was actually a scathing indictment of Clinton and his entire cabinet.
  
  
• On May 23, 2005, Franken played a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying that all of President Bush’s minority judicial nominees were getting the Clarence Thomas treatment — demeaning and degrading humiliation — at the hands of white elitist liberal senators. Franken then named two black judges who passed right through the judiciary committee — supposedly proving once again that Rush was a liar. The truth, however, is that the two judges cited by Franken were actually pro-choice liberals initially appointed by Bill Clinton and reappointed by President Bush as a good faith gesture to Democrats. Rush was clearly referring to conservative minority nominees whose nominations were being held up by Senate Democrats.
  
  
• Franken likes to portray Bill O`Reilly acting like a bully when, on February 4, 2003, he interviewed Jeremy Glick, an antiwar activist whose father was killed on 9/11. According to Franken, O`Reilly bullied a poor kid “whose only crime was losing his father on 9/11.” Franken went on to say that “all Glick did was sign some antiwar ad.”
  
  The “antiwar ad” Franken so glibly dismisses was actually a two-page ad in The New York Times, signed by radical leftists such as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Ed Asner and Ramsey Clark, to name just a few. The ad was paid for a group called Not in Our Name and it was not simply antiwar but anti-America and anti-Israel. Franken also neglected to inform his readers and listeners that Glick is a self-styled revolutionary who allies himself with such luminaries as Amiri Baraka (who wrote a poem claiming that Israel had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks).

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Skorski's other brush with fame came via a March 25, 2000, Washington Post article about the controversy surrounding an exhibit at New York's Whitney Museum:
On Thursday afternoon, as hundreds of people waited in line to be among the first to view the Biennial, a lone protester stood in front of the museum, holding up a homemade poster that depicted Rosie O'Donnell, Hillary Clinton and Alec Baldwin wearing swastika armbands.
Alan Skorski, 37, wore a yarmulke, argued with museum-goers and said he was objecting to the exhibit because "enough is enough."

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Just past its second birthday, Air America, the Left’s great hope to defeat the Right in the talk radio wars, has no reason to celebrate.

Winter 2006 Arbitron ratings, leaked to Matt Drudge earlier this week and reported in greater detail by the invaluable Radio Equalizer blog, show Air America registering a weak 1.0 share in Los Angeles, an even tinier share in Chicago, and a catastrophic drop in New York City, where flagship station WLIB hemorrhaged nearly half its listenership over the last ratings period, falling from a mediocre 1.4 to a pathetic 0.8 share. That’s smaller than the all-Caribbean format the network replaced when it first launched in New York and nowhere near the ratings of conservative heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in the city.

Air America’s Gotham numbers are so dismal that WLIB is booting the network off the station later this summer, industry publication Mediaweek has just announced.

liberals already have NPR—and for that matter, the New York Times, network newscasts, CNN, and most of the mainstream media. Conservative and libertarian voices dominate the radio dial because they offer a much-needed response to the liberal media mainstream. The Right has done well on cable television and in the blogosphere for the same reason. Air America, created and kept afloat by a handful of wealthy liberal financiers, meets no such market demand.

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the G-man said:
Air America Deflates

Just past its second birthday, Air America, the Left’s great hope to defeat the Right in the talk radio wars, has no reason to celebrate.

Winter 2006 Arbitron ratings, leaked to Matt Drudge earlier this week and reported in greater detail by the invaluable Radio Equalizer blog, show Air America registering a weak 1.0 share in Los Angeles, an even tinier share in Chicago, and a catastrophic drop in New York City, where flagship station WLIB hemorrhaged nearly half its listenership over the last ratings period, falling from a mediocre 1.4 to a pathetic 0.8 share. That’s smaller than the all-Caribbean format the network replaced when it first launched in New York and nowhere near the ratings of conservative heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in the city.

Air America’s Gotham numbers are so dismal that WLIB is booting the network off the station later this summer, industry publication Mediaweek has just announced.

liberals already have NPR—and for that matter, the New York Times, network newscasts, CNN, and most of the mainstream media. Conservative and libertarian voices dominate the radio dial because they offer a much-needed response to the liberal media mainstream. The Right has done well on cable television and in the blogosphere for the same reason. Air America, created and kept afloat by a handful of wealthy liberal financiers, meets no such market demand.

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Cash- starved Air America Radio is broke and up for sale, the Radio Equalizer has learned exclusively.

In addition, a liberal website is reporting that the so- called "progressive" radio network will announce a bankruptcy filing on Friday. As of this moment, the story has yet to be verified.

What our own sources are telling the Radio Equalizer is that two potential buyers have recently been looking to scoop up Air America's assets. But internal board squabbling has created a disunited front, with some members looking to hand the network back to eccentric co- founder (and Huffington Post contributor) Sheldon Drobny, while the rest shop for buyers.

Jon Sinton, a former Air America and Clear Channel Radio executive, is said to be leading the effort to seek a purchaser.

Drobny, meanwhile, has been scrambling to figure out a way to retake the network and intends to rehire former COO Carl Ginsburg if he is successful.

To Radio Equalizer readers as well as Air America staffers, none of this should come as any surprise. Big layoffs came earlier this week and insiders have been bracing for the worst possible news.

Recently, we had reported on a number of management departures and the fact that Air America could no longer afford to pay the Associated Press for wire service coverage. Plus, the Gloria Wise scandal has still not been resolved.

In addition, this indication of Air America's financial condition allows Al Franken to trigger a clause in his contract that would allow him to immediately depart the network if he so chooses. He first must request a financial statement, however.

If Air America isn't able to continue its programming, it opens the door for new feminist talk radio network GreenStone Media to take over some, or perhaps many, of its stations. As we've reported exclusively, GreenStone, founded by Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem, has gradually begun to take over Air America's physical operations in New York City.

Air America Radio, a liberal talk and news radio network, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a network official told the AP.

The network had denied rumors just a month ago that it would file for bankruptcy, but on Friday Air America said negotiations with a creditor from the company's early days had broken down.

The network will stay on the air while it resolves issues with its creditors, spokeswoman Jaime Horn told the Associated Press. A formal announcement was expected to be made later Friday.

Liberal talk-radio network Air America has been saved - again.

The bankrupt broadcasting company said yesterday that Stephen Green, founder of Manhattan real estate behemoth SL Green Realty Corp. and the brother of New York Democratic Party figure Mark Green, signed a letter of intent to acquire its assets.

Air America also said popular host Al Franken would be leaving after his Valentine's Day broadcast. Franken's departure is a Catch-22 for the network - the loss of his seven-figure salary will certainly ease Air America's payroll burden, but his absence also removes its most public face and most stabilizing internal force.

"Affiliates are just scared to death of Air America now," said radio broker Frank Boyle, citing the network's past history of missed payments and financial problems.

According to documents filed yesterday in bankruptcy court for the Southern District of Manhattan, Air America is flat broke, operating at a cash deficit of about $140,000 for the week ended Jan. 28. The company has petitioned the bankruptcy court to approve an additional $1 million in loans so it won't shut down before the deal closes in mid-February.

Air America listed $4.3 million in assets and $20 million in debt when it filed for bankruptcy in October 2006, a little more than two years after its launch. Some of its more prominent investors include Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, who is personally owed just under $10 million.