air america

[Mark Laurence]

On Aug 2, 2005, at 4:14 PM, Keating Willcox wrote:

> Conservative talk shows are everywhere because of ....ratings

Some are, some are not.  Some programmers just follow what's been  
successful in some other markets.  Some owners program because of  
their own political beliefs.

> plus the propensity of listeners to stay with a station through a  
> station break

If you mean TSL, that is one area where WKOX and WXKS-AM have  
excelled.  Their listeners sit through hours of commercial breaks,  
listening longer than nearly any other audience in town.

> Opera and NPR don't have very good....ratings.

Opera?  The days when opera was synonymous with NPR are long gone.   
NPR and WBUR have earned excellent ratings in Boston, as have NPR  
news/talk stations in many markets.

> and now that Air America has become an opportunity for Democrat in- 
> kind fund raising, that sort of speaks to its poor ratings.

I don't know what you are talking about.  Do you?  There have been no  
fund raising drives for Air America that I know of.  It is running  
like a business, with some start-up problems for sure, but  
anticipating profits, not charity.

> Does anyone have figures for how well these talk shows do on the  
> sat broadcast?

Air America just signed an exclusivity deal with XM, so their brand  
name has some value to that satellite broadcaster.  In general, talk  
shows have had a lot of value, with Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony,  
and other name-brand personalities in high profile competition.  But  
I have never seen ratings for individual satellite channels and I'm  
not sure they exist.