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Air America RadioAir America Radio (known as Central Air. during its development phase) is a liberal radio network and program syndication service in the United States, launched on March 31, 2004, which features a liberal, left-wing or progressive point of view and specializes in hosts' presentations and monologues, guest interviews, listeners' calls and news. The network's primary station is New York City's WLIB-AM and, as of April 2005, fifty one stations in the U.S. offer some or all of the programs produced and distributed by Air America Radio; in addition, the XM satellite service offers a partial selection of the network's programs on its America Left channel 167 and Sirius Satellite Radio's channel 144 carries the full schedule of programs. Air America Radio also makes use of audio streaming on the internet's world wide web, reaching a national and international audience. Some of the more well-know personalities who host shows on Air America Radio are -- Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Mike Malloy, Randi Rhodes, Marc Maron and Jerry Springer.
Historical contextSince the 1964 presidential election, opponents of the New Deal coalition had been building think tanks and media to formulate or contribute to a Republican alternative. Groups with right-wing politics moved to harness the emerging alternative media formats, particularly talk radio, and for many years, the airwaves were dominated by Rush Limbaugh and others espousing various right-wing political views. Writers including British journalists Jonathan Freedland, John Micklethwait , and Adrian Wooldridge , have credited this Republican alternative with shifting the tone of American public debate, creating an electoral environment where Republican candidates are more able to succeed, and in which Democratic candidates are forced further to the right in order to be "electable". Micklethwait and Wooldridge wrote about this in The Right Nation. Conservative dominance of talk radio played an important role in winning a shift in the balance of the United States House of Representatives in the 1994 midterm elections, though other factors such as the Contract with America also played significant roles. That analysis also credits the media with hampering Clinton's second term by keeping alive stories of scandal in the White House, and contributing to the victory of George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The growing realization that liberal groups were becoming ineffective in terms of getting their viewpoint across in the media, was the environment in which the concept of creating a liberal talk radio network emerged as a serious idea. A rocky startAir America was started as part of Progress Media, which said it had amassed $30 million in venture capital prior to its debut, a claim which later turned out to be untrue (only $6 million was initially collected). Two individuals from Guam, Rex Sorensen and Evan Montvel Cohen, were involved in raising the capital but denied any wrongdoing. [1] Cohen had an unusal history for his position in a progressive-left radio network since he was a Republican political operative in Guam and former chief of staff for Republican Governor Tommy Tanaka. [2] Cohen dismissed concerns by saying he was a committed "progressive" and Republicans in Guam "are left of Paul Wellstone." It was reported that Cohen had unpaid business debutsls in Guam, although Cohen denies this. [3] Tommy Tanaka pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 2003. Two weeks after their debut, Air America Radio was pulled off the air by the owners of two stations the network had licensed in Chicago and Santa Monica, California (near Los Angeles). This was due to a contract dispute between Air America and the station's owner, Multicultural Radio Broadcasting . Air America alleges Multicultural Radio may have sold time on their Los Angeles station to them and another party, and stopped payment on checks to them while they investigated. Multicultural Radio alleges that Air America bounced a check and owes $1 million. Air America Radio filed a complaint in New York Supreme Court, charging breach of contract and was granted an injunction to restore the network on WNTD-AM in Chicago. On April 20, the network announced the dispute had been settled, and Air America's last day of broadcast on WNTD was April 30. Four weeks after Air America's debut, the CEO, Mark Walsh, and Dave Logan, its executive vice president for programming, left the network. One week after those departures, the chairman and vice chairman, Evan Cohen and his investment partner Rex Sorensen, also left. Some attributed Cohen's departure to investor unhappiness with how he handled the dispute with Multicultural Radio Broadcasting. Columnist Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News quoted a marketing communications manager from General Motors, declaring "GM will not advertise on any Air America affiliates." As part of a reorganization, investors in Progress Media bought the assets of that company, creating its current owner, Piquant LLC. An important change which accompanied the reorganization was a decision to stop trying to buy radio stations, lease air time, or insist that stations carry all of the network's programming. On February 28, 2005, a new CEO, Danny Goldberg, was named. Mr. Goldberg has stated he plans to increase the network's visibility in the media and wants the network to be on in 90% of the country as soon as possible. He mentioned on a recent Air America show that Chicago will be on board soon. Austin, Texas gained an affiliate on March 14th, 2005, and Air America started in Dallas, Texas on March 22nd, 2005. Several other Texas cities are soon to follow and a Chicago affilate is to be launched following the network's one-year anniversary in April 2005. A documentary on the network's rocky start and ultimate resurgence, Left of the Dial , premiered March 31, 2005 on HBO. Support from Clear ChannelEvidence of the network's success is demonstrated by the growing number of stations owned by Clear Channel Communications which broadcast Air America's shows as part of a station's switch to a progressive or liberal talk radio format. Such stations often broadcast the network's shows in combination with programming from other networks, such as The Ed Schultz Show. Clear Channel tested the format at KPOJ-AM in Portland, Oregon, the first station to join Air America as an affiliate broadcasting Air America shows combined with other programming. As a result, the station increased its ages 12 and up market share by nearly an order of magnitude. KPOJ's spring 2004 Arbitron ratings grew from a 0.4 to a 3.7. The success in Portland led Clear Channel to switch more of its stations to the format, so that as of September 2004 over a third of Air America's affiliates are owned by Clear Channel. This includes stations in swing states such as Florida (West Palm Beach and Miami (12th largest radio market)), Colorado, Ohio, and New Mexico, as well as major markets such as San Diego (17th largest) and Boston (9th largest). Infinity Broadcasting is also testing Air America on its stations. On October 22, 2004, Infinity announced that it was switching one of its country stations in Seattle (1090 AM) to Air America. The senior vice president of Infinity Radio Seattle said of the switch, "We believe this is distinctive programming. There are those in the radio business who believe that shows with a liberal perspective won't get an audience. Air America in recent months has shattered that myth."[4] Early PromotionsAir America Radio's early promotions humorously describe the network as further to the left than a number of well-known right-wing groups, such as the House Un-American Activities Committee, the NRA, and the John Birch Society, as well as the fictional and apolitical character Betty Crocker. List of weekday programsAir America produces seventeen hours of weekday programming, including news summaries at the top of each hour.
Weekends on some stationsFor those stations for which Air America has full control, weekends feature repeats and highlights from their weekday shows, combined with new original programming and some syndicated shows produced independently. New network programming for weekends includes:
Complementary programmingStations broadcasting Air America programming often augment or replace parts of the network's lineup with other programming, typically with a progressive or liberal political perspective. Beside The Ed Schultz Show (mentioned earlier), examples include:
AffiliatesThe network's programs are streamed on the Internet and carried on XM Satellite Radio's America Left (channel 167, which replaces some Air America programming with unaffiliated shows) and Sirius Satellite Radio's Stream 144 (which carries the full Air America schedule). The network has announced a pending deal with Dish Network. East
Alaska / Hawaii
Central
An affiliate in Chicago, Illinois is expected to join around April 2005. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the new affiliate may be WAIT 850 AM. West
External links and referencesOfficial websites
Fan sites: Message boards, archives, chat rooms
External Links
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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