Air America bankrupt?

Not so fast. We barely had finished our party planning for this weekend to celebrate the demise of Air America. However, this may NOT be a “done deal.” It could be just another stunt to soak millions from wealthy liberals by convincing them to invest in the “Little network that never could.” It is rumored that the cash-strapped network is threatening to “close the doors on progressive talk radio forever” unless their “marks” — or “investors” — come up with the cash. “The pitch” which, according to an anonymous source who claims to have been the audience for one of these presentations, apparently has been made to even a few “moderates.” (Blog Editor’s note: I wonder what it takes for Al Franken, or Janeane Garofalo, to consider someone a “moderate.”) It goes something like this: “American democracy is in your hands. Only you can keep (if talking to a liberal) the progressive agenda on the air.” If they’re a “moderate,” the presentation is altered to “Only you can keep ‘balance in the media.’”

What happened, Janeane?

A “deal sweetner” for any potential last minute rescuers will be that more than a few conservatives started the celebration of Air America’s demise prematurely.

The radio business lives and dies by audience market share, cold numbers that cannot be manipulated easily. Media hype can only go so far. Eventually the fact that you don’t have many listeners kills your advertising revenues. In an effort to promote the network last year, HBO even produced a movie, Left of the Dial, where many of the actors were those actually involved in launching the network. It was so popular that it was out on DVD within a few months.

Janeane Garofalo & Al Franken appeared in this HBO movie.

Here’s the Drudge review after he saw an advance copy of the “director’s cut” last year.

In the event that the network really does declare bankruptcy, the Left is already working on how to “put lipstick on the pig.” For example, the blogger Wonkette posted this about the reports of the pending closure:

shocking new developments today suggest that the lefties may be slightly less susceptible to jackasses screaming on the AM radio.

and the original ThinkProgres.org article was quick to point out:

The right wing is sure to seize on Air America’s financial woes as a sign that progressive talk radio is unpopular. In fact, Air America succeeded at creating something that didn’t exist: the progressive talk radio format. That format is now established and strong and will continue with or without Air America. Indeed, many of the country’s most successful and widely-syndicated progressive talk hosts — Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller, for instance — aren’t even associated with Air America.

Radio giant Clear Channel is so committed to progressive talk radio that, this week, it will announce a partnership with the Center for American Progress and MSS Inc. to conduct a nationwide search for the next Progressive Talk Radio Star.

Even if Air America fails to get some deep-pocketed sucker to pony up the cash in time, and Clear Channel doesn’t come through; there’s already another left-wing radio network in the US that liberals can financially support. It’s not as shrill as Air America, but it does have nice coffee cups and tote bags for donors. It’s called “NPR.”

As of this morning, the website quoted by Drudge and NewsMax that was at the center of this controversy, ThinkProgress.org, would not respond, perhaps due to heavy traffic, but no further updates have been forthcoming from them, or any other major media sources. The NewMax article from Wednesday afternoon quoted Air America spokesperson Jamie Horn:

“If Air America had filed for bankruptcy every time someone rumored it to be doing so, we would have ceased to exist long ago. It may be frustrating to some that this hasn’t happened. No decision has been taken to make any filing of any kind. We are not sure of the source of these rumors.”

So, we’ll have to wait and see about our party this weekend. Meanwhile, there’s also another left-wing presence appearing on the airwaves, and one of its founders has definite opinions about Condi. We’ll have a post about it later today.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2006 at 8:58 am and is filed under Press, Rumors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.