Air America

[Dan Strassberg]

Another scenario would have Air America disappearing as a separate company,
and Jones Satellite Networks, which provides some of the programming for
WKOXKS and other CCU stations that carry AAR, picking up the portion of the
AAR shows that they feel they could run with. In my view, Randi Rhodes (who,
in addition to her AAR show, does a local show at CCU's WJNO Palm Beach)
would be the pick of the litter. Rhodes can be whiney and strident, but I
find her passion for the issues to be truly compelling--as long as she
remembers to shut up when a guest is answering one of her own
questions--something she often can't seem to manage.

I much enjoy Franken despite his low-key approach, but as I understand it,
his contract doesn't run too much longer and he has expressed interest in
moving on to bigger and better things. I think that whoever nicknamed
Franken's show the Liberal Home Companion, after fellow Minnesotan Garrison
Keillor's Public Radio show Prairie Home Companion, got it EXACTLY right.

In my opinion, AAR's AM drive show, Morning Sedition with Marc Marin and
Mark Reilly, also compares favorably with Jones' Stephanie Miller. I think
Marc and Mark have figured out how to be simultaneously serious and
entertaining in AM drive--no easy task. Although it doesn't run opposite
Morning Sedition, Steph's show runs in AM drive on the West coast. Steph has
her fans, but I find that her show often trivializes serious issues and, in
my opinion, rarely succeeds in being entertaining.

For listeners here in Boston and in other markets where CCU puts AAR and the
Jones left-leaning talk programming on the same stations, the advantage of
having one source for the entire schedule seems to me to be pretty
compelling. WKOXKS runs Rhodes on delay because her show airs opposite
Jones's star of liberal talk, Ed Schultz. I think Rhodes' show may be
Webcast live, but I haven't found the stream. In the absence of a Webcast
(or if, like me, you've got a dialup Internet connection, no cell phone, and
one land line), there is no good way to call into the show. If a single
provider were downlinking the entire schedule, presumably, none of the
programming would be on delay.

BTW, Schultz says he runs his show without a screener. So far, though, I
think I've heard him hang up on only one caller. His show gets a TON of
calls. (I know because I've tried to call a couple of times and haven't been
able to get through.) But I think it would be better for him to take fewer
calls and keep each caller that he does take on the air a little longer.
Nearly all of the callers start out by saying that they want to make a
couple of points, but if they succeed in getting out the first one (which
doesn't always happen), Schultz thanks them, pots them down, and moves on to
another call. Makes for fast pacing, but not for very thoughtful discussion.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Air America


> Donna Halper wrote:
> >How do you think the election results will affect Air America?  I believe
> >the fledgeling network was on too few stations, most of which had weak
> >signals, to make much of a difference in the recent elections.  But given
> >that 9 of the top 10 radio talk shows are done by conservatives, do you
> >foresee some growth for Air America now as the "loyal opposition"?  Like
> >it or not, this was a very polarizing campaign and the end result was
> >still fairly close-- 51 to 49% I believe.  Can Air America be the voice
of
> >that 49% and be successful, or as in the past, do you expect so-called
> >liberal talk shows to fail?
>
> I agree with the other posters.  AA has to move beyond being merely the
> "Bush sucks" network, and develop itself into a network providing
> entertaining talk hosts who just happen to see things a bit differently
> than most current syndicated talk hosts do.  A one-trick pony ain't gonna
> cut it.   If AA steps back, tones down the shrill rhetoric a bit and
> develops a solid line-up of talk hosts (maybe even cut back from trying to
> provide 18 hr/day temporarily) there's no reason they can't succeed.
>
>
>