Air America is bankrupt, again. Why can’t “liberal” talk radio pay its own way?
Good question.
Conservatives (myself included) complain about the liberal mainstream media. Except for Fox News, why hasn’t the conservative viewpoint flourished in mainstream media?
I suspect that conservatives are drawn to the talk radio format for a number of reasons. The right in this country is more comfortable with authoritarianism than the left is, which the single-host-exhorting-his-views-at-the-audience model of talk radio dovetails nicely with.
So don’t suggest that the financial bankruptcy of Air America is a value judgement on liberal ideas. It’s a value judgement on the mode of presenting, and that’s all. As I hint in my second paragraph above, if we can divine value of ideas from their success in the media, what should conservatives conclude about their ideas in light of the paucity of conservative-dominated television news?
Of course, maybe it’s just proof liberals are dreamy-eyed idealists with no financial sense. I know that’s not true, because George Soros still walks the earth, but it’s a fun thought. Just not an accurate one.
Not only does he still walk the Earth, he’s a Doper !
Bricker,
Fox is not just flourishing, it’s growing. And the “liberal” MSM is waning. This process is unabated for now, given a free market.
The repeated bankruptcy of Air Am, and the waning market share of “liberal” MSM, may indeed be a popular judgment on “liberal” ideas. Why not?
It ain’t exactly good news for the liberals, that’s for sure.
Regards,
KLR
Let’s start with the fact that “liberal this” or “conservative that” are, (albeit sometimes useful), linguistic fictions that fallaciously render disparate individuals into a fungible mass.
That being the case, “liberal talk radio” probably has less of an appeal because the political left tends to be much more fractious than the right. The Big Tent strategies of the right which have allowed them to form a rather steady (and more importantly, on-message/talking point) contingent from religious conservatives and economic purists, among others, are mostly absent on the political left.
In a nutshell, the political left has no Rush because you can’t get enough of 'em to decide that being Dittoheads is desirable.
Dittoheads listen to Rush to be told how to think. Liberals think for themselves and don’t need talk radio.
New liberal-oriented media have to compete with other liberal-oriented media. Air America has to compete with ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR and so forth. Fox News has the conservative-oriented news market pretty much to itself.
Regards,
Shodan
The Right has a bigger tent (for ideas) than the Left, by definition. The Left wants to consolidate power.
Have you read David Horowitz? After becoming disillusioned with the Left, he found them to be much more doctrinaire, and the Right much more broad-minded.
For example, Wm F Buckley was a long-time proponent of legalization of certain drugs, an idea generally anathematized on the Right. Yet he is lionized there.
Again, for example, imagine (or name) a prominent Lib who opposes abortion.
Regards,
KLR
The whole business model was messed up from the beginning. Rush and the right wing shows syndicate their programming to stations, thereby getting radio stations to pay them to air their content. But Air America wanted to be a real network, so they leased time on stations, which meant they paid stations to air their content. When Air America was first announced, I thought they were going to fail in a few years based on that.
I lived on the edge of an Air America station so listened to it from time to time as long as I wasn’t driving too far west. The only show I liked was Al Franken’s, because it was a different type of partisan talk radio show. He was entertaining and had guests on all the time. Not just celebrities but smart people who were experts in stuff. I could tune in an actually, you know, learn stuff other than hear for three hours that Bush sucks. Unfortunately, after Franken was Randi Rhodes who was awful. She wasn’t even the liberal version of Rush, more like the liberal Hannity or Savage. The rest of the lineup wasn’t a whole lot better and I never listened after Franken left. I think that station stopped airing Air America’s content a couple of years back.
The Ed Schultz Show is still going strong, of course it was never part of Air America and the host is actually interesting, so liberal talk radio can succeed in the free market with the right personality and syndication. Air America didn’t have a good business plan or many good hosts.
[quote=“Shodan, post:7, topic:526111”]
New liberal-oriented media have to compete with other liberal-oriented media. Air America has to compete with ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR and so forth. Fox News has the conservative-oriented news market pretty much to itself.
Air Am wasn’t competing in the TV market. The Left cannot penetrate the radio market. While the Right has made great headway in the TV market and is growing there.
Incidentally, it all began with Reagan’s lifting of that ban of free speech known as the Fairness Doktrine.
- By your definition.
- Bull. I don’t know how anybody paying attention to the history of the Democratic Party could possibly claim that they operate under the goal of consolidating power. The classic quote is “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
You won’t find a major Democrat strongly opposing abortion just like you won’t find a major Republican strongly supporting it. Your claim is silly, in any case, and easily gainsaid by even a brief perusal of the facts. Witness, for example, the storm over the War on Christmas, or what have you, to see just how much doctrinal flexibility there is over certain issues.
And Obama announced that he’d cleave to certain centrist positions during his election campaign and still got elected, your point? Besides, movements are quite capable of choosing their own figureheads for their own purposes and whitewashing details that don’t fit. Rush is (or was, what-have-you) a notorious drug addict if not an outright criminal for his behavior in that regard, and yet he’s still lionized. But this isn’t because of some sort of Republican tolerance for drug use, as witnessed by the long-term discussion over Clinton inhaling.
It’s that when you choose a leader sometimes you need to ignore their foibles in order to better sell the persona.
To Finn,
The Left wants to consolidate power; that is it’s agenda. Obama’s failed attempt to socialize medicine in this country is an example.
Not an organized party? Obama came from one of the most notorious well-oiled political machines in recent history: Chicago.
Not only are you making that up out of whole cloth, but such absurd rank partisan nonsense has no purpose here other than to annoy. There are certain sites for such vapid sloganeering, but this isn’t one of them. If all you have to offer is “Right awesome, left tyranic locksteppers!”, well… cut it out and offer something of substance.
Do you really want me to count the fallacies here?
Equivocation, composition, non sequitor… do I really need to go on?
If the Dems were a completely organized, lockstepping power bloc then we wouldn’t have even seen the town hall meetings. They’d have just used their supermajority to ram through their agenda with no delay and we’d already have a robust healthcare package in place. Play straight.
When come back, bring nuance.
The success of a radio station is dependent on listeners and advertisers. The available stations for Air America was inadequate which limits listeners and they will always have trouble getting major advertisers .
But if he were starting out today, how would he be treated by the party? If someone like Hannity (not that they are the equal, Hannity is not fit to lick Buckly’s shoes) was pro legalization I doubt he’d be as big as he is today.
The Left agenda for medicine in this country consists of putting decisions into the hands of fewer people. This is a consolidation of power.
The typical Left voter is a “useful idiot,” a technical political term for people who vote for consolidation of power without knowing it. The term was coined, I think, by Lenin.
The Left in this country isn’t really very interested in history or policy. They just like to have emotional issues to believe in. Thus, the Left is compassionate; the Right is greedy. The details are not of interest to them.
That is why Air America is going bankrupt, again.
To Cumberdale,
That is an interesting question, and a good point. Thanks.
But I don’t think that was the model for all of Air America, was it. I dropped in a couple of times and there were many people talking. Another poster cites that Franken’s show had guests. So, while I think there is probably some validity to your analysis, I don’t think it is an adequate explanation. And the premise it’s based upon might even be incorrect.
Does anyone know to what degree AA shows followed the Rush model? Also, how often does Rush have guests. (I’m not a listener.)
No, this is an oversimplification motivated by some pretty distasteful partisan gameplaying. “ZOMG, the republicans want to put the military under the command of generals instead of having every single military action open to direct democracy from the entire population of the United States, they’re tyrannically trying to consolidate power!!!”
Seriously, this shit may fly in some fetid corners of the 'net, but it won’t work here. Cut it out.
Take it to the fucking Pit.
You’d be wrong as it’s apocryphal, but why start being right now?
You have something in common with your fictional Left, then.
Wait, this seems to contradict itself. If the right has a big tent, as you say (and I agree with), it’s because it accepts a broader, more disperse set of views. That would make it more fractious, wouldn’t it?