Axe falls on WRKO news Dept.

[Donna Halper]

>it was said--
>The folks who ran Air America ran up $20 million in debt. Be glad
>they're not running the country! (By the way there have been rumors
>that Franken is leaving on Dec 8
>though a post on the Huffington blog disputes it; and several Air
>America affliates/
>progressive talk stations have changed format recently, usually to sports--
>including the progressive haven of Madison, Wisconsin)

This one is a mystery to all of us.  92.1 the Mic in Madison had 
strong ratings, was very popular, and newspapers (who seldom champion 
a radio station) have been utterly stunned by the announcement. One 
even editorialized that this was a very dumb move.  If the station 
had been a ratings loser or had no sponsors, I'd say hey you're 
right, but it was doing quite well, by all accounts.   As for 
Franken, nice guy, has great guests (both righties and lefties), but 
not such a good talk show host.  His leaving, if he really does 
leave, will actually open things up for somebody who is a much better 
announcer to step in.  And as for the debt, it's a known fact that 
early financial problems were never entirely overcome. Much has been 
written about it-- but I don't think it proves that (gasp) liberals 
can't be fiscally responsible.  We all know this current Republican 
administration has run up quite a bit of debt and let's not even 
discuss the deficit.  Back to radio-- there has been a major 
advertiser boycott of AAR, something that really hurt their bottom 
line.  I understand that some advertisers don't like controversy, but 
if a station is getting good ratings (and yes some AAR affiliates do 
have respectable numbers-- I've seen them), put aside your personal 
beliefs and put your commercials on the air.  The boycott had been 
going on for months, long before it was finally publicised last week 
in the Times and Post and elsewhere.