# Air America: Bankrupt Again. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 23, 2010, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111 "2010-01-23T14:34:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/61 "2010-01-23T19:11:28Z")
Information is affirmation, when you’re right. Its the tiniest bit disingenuous to claim we favor one over the other whem they are essentially identical. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/62 "2010-01-23T19:12:26Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > It is the job of a moderator to moderate, is it not? If you start blowing off nonsense in class, is the professor to let you continue at the expense of everybody else, or is it their job to tell you to back up your assertion or stop asserting it? Point taken, I suppose, but when I read **Marley23** ’s post, the striking thing about it is that anyone on the Dope could have legitimately submitted it, with no changes required. ETA: In fact, just to make the point (and because I agree that its substance has yet to be addressed), I’ll do it right here: > [@KLR 650](#): > > Does the Left, or does it not, want to put decisions into fewer hands, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/63 "2010-01-23T19:16:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Of the liberals, a lot of them are young people who are either in college or starting in the workforce and starting families. They aren’t going to be listening to daytime talk radio. They’re also heavy internet users, and really have no need for another outlet for their politics. Rush’s audience trends older. Well, I don’t know about not needing another outlet, but I think this is a key point. > [@](#): > > Another thing is that for many people, Rush is a solitary voice for their message. But the airwaves are saturated with the opinions of liberals. The competition for liberal mindshare is much greater. Good one, **Sam** :p. Ol’ Rush, the solitary voice of virtue, battling the evils of the commie-pinkos by suggesting that outrage over Abu Ghraib is overblown, earthquake aid to Haiti is not morally required, and indulging bottom of the barrel racists. Thank tha Lord, he’s alive and off the Oxy (for now)… > [@](#): > > Finally, don’t underestimate the value of the person. Limbaugh has found a mix of anger and humor that works for his audience, and he knows how to push their buttons. This much is true. A good leading personality can be important to a movement. > [@](#): > > From what little I’ve heard from Air America, it seemed to talk down to its audience more than anything. Uh-huh. Tell us another. (BTW, why would someone listen to a talk show if it actually talked down to him/her?) > [@](#): > > But it’s not just talk radio - MSNBC has tried to be the liberal FOX. How so? I don’t think anyone could match the hysteria and dishonesty of FNC. Admittedly, Olbermann and Schultz have had their moments of trying (though few and far between), but they couldn’t do it if they tried. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/64 "2010-01-23T19:19:24Z")
[QUOTE=sleeping] BTW, why would someone listen to a talk show if it actually talked down to him/her? [/quote] Apparently they didn’t. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/65 "2010-01-23T19:20:31Z")
Dang it, I missed the edit window. Let’s try again: In fact, just to make the point (and because I agree that its substance has yet to be addressed), I’ll do it right here: > [@KLR 650](#): > > Does the Left, or does it not, want to put decisions into fewer hands, by the way. You have repeatedly made this assertion. Rather than demanding other people DISprove it, why don’t you back up your own statements? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/66 "2010-01-23T19:23:05Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > ETA: In fact, just to make the point (and because I agree that its substance has yet to be addressed), I’ll do it right here: Well, as I already said: It’s obfuscatory and a rabbit trail at best. It’s just sophistry designed to conflate regulation with “socialism”, which in turn is supposed to stand in for “communism”, which in turn is really supported to be used to mean “totalitarianism” or “Stalinism”. It’s just a silly talking point. And like most irrational and hateful generalizations about a group, it’s rather contradictory with other of the same set of talking points. For instance, Liberals are for bigger government, and Republicans are for smaller government (so says the talking point). But if that’s true, how does having a massive, inefficient government bureaucracy craft regulatory policies while the industries themselves are not only still intact, but then must hire even more people to craft and regulate compliance, mean that control is now in the hands of _fewer_ people? To say nothing of the nonsense about how a totally free market that has a monopoly is no longer a free market because… Obama is a Socialist!! Or what have you. It’s just the same old nonsense we heard during the election. “ZOMG, Socialism!!!” P.S. Oops, sorry, didn’t preview and missed your update. I’ll still let the above stand as I find the OP’s tactics particularly distasteful. ---
**Author:** ![Batfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Batfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batfish)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/67 "2010-01-23T19:56:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > 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 What’s truly amazing is that a Republican is ever elected considering the stranglehold the liberal media has on politics. It just goes to show how incredibly right the Right is. Most of them also have to overcome the disadvantage of being white, male and christian. I can’t understand why anyone would think of opposing them. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/68 "2010-01-23T20:07:19Z")
I think Air America was doomed from the beginning- NOT because there’s no market for left-leaning commentary, but because Air America was a purely REACTIVE endeavor. That is, A Franken & Friends didn’t do a survey, figure out “There’s a huge pool of liberal radio buffs who are eager to hear what we have to say,” and then create a format to cater to those listeners. Rather, they ASSUMED the audience must be there, and tried to create left-wing versions of the Limbaugh and Hannity shows. What they forgot was this: in 1980, if you had offered Al Franken his own AM radio talk show, he’d have scoffed at the idea. “Radio is dead, it’s passe,” he’d have sneered (not without good reason). Rush Limbaugh and others like him were able to take a medium that nobody thought much of and MAKE it successful by appealing to people who THOUGHT their opinions weren’t being heard anywhere else. (It was understandable that many conservatives felt that way in 1980; it’s increasingly silly today.) Today, there are so many cable channels and so many media outlets and so many political websites that almost NOBODY can plausibly claim, “There’s nowhere that I can hear MY views being expressed.” Left wingers may have liked the IDEA of a radio counterweight to Limbaugh, but hardly any of them were AM radio listeners. Most of them already had their own favorite columnists, their own favorite bloggers, their own favorite magazines and their own favorite TV commentators. They knew where to go to read and hear opinions that matched their own. They didn’t want or need to listen to those ideas on AM radio. ---
**Author:** ![KLR\_650](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c4cdca/32.png) [@KLR\_650](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KLR_650)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/69 "2010-01-23T20:07:20Z")
There is nothing in the Left’s agenda that is not coercive. They want to pass more, and more, laws. And regulations, which put decisions into fewer and fewer hands. As regulations increase in number and scope, they tend more and more toward the socialist, and away from the free market, end of the spectrum. See Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/70 "2010-01-23T20:13:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Well, we’re discovering that the liberal message has a much smaller market than the conservative message. The latest polls show that only 19% of the public consider themselves liberal. 40% are conservative and 40% moderates. Not necessarily Sam. One always has to look at the language/methodology in a poll to see what’s really going on. Unless I miss my guess, the poll you’re referring to actually asked people to self-identify as belonging to various political ideologies. That’s quite different, especially since the very word “liberal” has become a dirty word, thanks in large part to Language: a Key Mechanism Of Control. A much more reliable metric would have been to check, for instance, people’s voting records and/or their responses to specific policy questions, especially since the very labels “conservative” and “liberal” are linguistic fictions and most people’s political ideas tend to fall along a continuum. “I’m for legalization of all drugs but against amnesty for illegal immigration and for abortion rights but against civil unions because I believe in full gay marriage and…” Simplifying things into little boxes of “liberal” and “conservative” isn’t really that effective a method, especially if your goal is to determine marketing demographics. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/71 "2010-01-23T20:14:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Well, we’re discovering that the liberal message has a much smaller market than the conservative message. The latest polls show that only 19% of the public consider themselves liberal. 40% are conservative and 40% moderates. [It’s a bit more complicated than that,](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/political_ideology.html) as it usually is. > [@](#): > > For years, traditional public opinion polling has broken down ideology into three distinct groupings: liberal, moderate, and conservative. Based on this categorization, there has been remarkable stability in ideological orientation, with roughly one-fifth of Americans identifying themselves as “liberal” and about four in 10 classifying themselves as “moderate” or ”conservative,” respectively, according to Gallup polling from 1992 to 2008. > > In this study, however, the electorate is broken down using a more expansive five-point scale of political ideology that reflects the variety of approaches people ascribe to today. Employing this more calibrated measure, **34 percent of the country identifies as “conservative,” 29 percent as “moderate,” 15 percent as “liberal,” 16 percent as “progressive,” and 2 percent as “libertarian.”** After moderates are asked which approach they lean toward, the overall ideological breakdown of the country divides into fairly neat left and right groupings, with **47 percent of Americans identifying as progressive or liberal and 48 percent as conservative or libertarian.** The rest are unsure or scattered among moderate and other approaches. > > Combining this five-point scale of political ideology with responses to the 40 specific ideological statements, the progressive leanings of the country become readily apparent. On the domestic front, after years of supply-side tax cuts, support for corporations (especially extractive oil and mining companies), and deregulation of the economy, large percentages of Americans increasingly favor progressive ideas centered on: sustainable lifestyles and green energy; public investment in education, infrastructure, and science; financial support for the poor, elderly, and sick; regulation of business to protect workers and consumers; and guaranteed affordable health coverage for every American. On the international front, the legacy of the Bush years has yielded to an American public far more interested in restoring the country’s image abroad, fighting climate change, and pursuing security through diplomacy, alliances, and international institutions than in the continued pursuit of national objectives through the sole projection of military might. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/72 "2010-01-23T20:14:41Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Apparently they didn’t. But that’s the point. Air America had millions of listeners. Why did these people tune in if they didn’t actually like it or were “being talked down to”? The real, obvious answer is the one \*\*astorian \*\*provided. Liberals wanted their own radio show, but then realized that it wasn’t that useful since they got most of their info from the internet. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/73 "2010-01-23T20:17:03Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Today, there are so many cable channels and so many media outlets and so many political websites that almost NOBODY can plausibly claim, “There’s nowhere that I can hear MY views being expressed.” Not true WRT television. See post #58. Not true, either, WRT big-market newspapers, if that apparently dying medium matters. ---
**Author:** ![tacoloco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tacoloco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tacoloco)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/74 "2010-01-23T20:32:06Z")
Fascinating post _Sam Stone_. Are you planning on backing any of that up with actual data? Same goes for KLR 650. You’re making an awful lot of assertions and providing no supporting facts. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/75 "2010-01-23T20:43:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [It’s a bit more complicated than that,](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/political_ideology.html) as it usually is. You’ve posted this analysis many times. I would remind everyone that this was a report commissioned by the Center for American Progress, a ‘progressive’ organization, and was conducted by a liberal analyst. Its findings are significantly different than those of many other major polls. It slices and dices the electorate by asking a long series of questions, then attempts to put together overall political ideology from that. And surprise surprise, we find out that 70-80% of Americans support ‘progressive’ ideas, that progressives are smarter than conservatives, yada yada. When they discovered that a 55-58% of Americans supported core conservative ideas about markets, taxes, the military, limited government, the family and other issues, they describe it as a ‘cluster’ of Americans who still retain ‘residual support’ for ‘some components’ of the conservative worldview. And yet, when asked a basic question like, “Do you want a larger government that provides more services, or a smaller government which provides fewer services”, American chose smaller government by a ratio of 58-38. When asked to self-identify as liberal, moderate, or conservative, only 19% of Americans call themselves liberal. And of course, we have the stark fact that Obama and the Democrat’s policies are polling terribly, and that Obama’s approval ratings are sinking and Democrats are losing elections they should be winning in a landslide. ---
**Author:** ![tacoloco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tacoloco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tacoloco)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/76 "2010-01-23T20:57:12Z")
> [@sleeping](#): > > The real, obvious answer is the one \*\*astorian \*\*provided. Liberals wanted their own radio show, but then realized that it wasn’t that useful since they got most of their info from the internet. I believe this means liberals don’t need to be spoon fed with sound bites. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/77 "2010-01-23T21:00:19Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It’s really as simple as the fact that liberals don’t need to be constantly reassured by hearing the soothing repetition of their own opinions all day. That would explain the disdain for Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow on this MB. I’ve been wondering about that oddity for some time now. I wonder, though, if it’s a class thing. Liberals tend to be working in jobs where it’s not practical to listen to the radio all day, whereas more conservatives are. If I think of the split between liberals and conservative in my circle of friends and business associates, that seems to be pretty accurate. Not 100%, of course. And there also seems to be a strange fascination that liberals have to tune into conservative radio/TV that I haven’t seen on the other side of the aisle. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/78 "2010-01-23T21:05:22Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > I’m not sure. I hate what Rush says, but his voice is very soothing. I listen to Randi Rhodes, and A: I may like female singers, but I can’t stand her, and B: about halfway through one of her diatribes, I hear her say something incredibly false or untrue, and boom, off she goes. > > The proper model for a liberal talk show is not Rush, but Howard Stern. Inclusive. Willing to examine its own questions. Curious about the world, not dogmatic. With a hefty amount of willing to be called on its own bullshit. > > Oh, and entertaining as hell. BTW Randi Rhodes is not from Air America, she works at Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications. IMHO Air America suffered from lousy management, as Jones radio, Premiere and Dial Global (Stephanie Miller) demonstrate, there is an audience for left leaning radio hosts As Sthephanie Miller would say, many statements from the right regarding this issue are BS (there is a famous little song for those statements). AFAICR Air America reported that they dismissed Randy Rhodes because she was disrespectful to Hillary and the management allegedly tried to become more mainstream! Randy was not what they wanted. So I will not shed a tear if they finally come down, progressive radio is still here. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/79 "2010-01-23T21:08:00Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And there also seems to be a strange fascination that liberals have to tune into conservative radio/TV that I haven’t seen on the other side of the aisle. I’ve noticed also. I think it’s because we already know what we think, and are interested in what the other side _actually_ has to say, as opposed to what commentators interpret them as saying. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111/80 "2010-01-23T21:08:03Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And there also seems to be a strange fascination that liberals have to tune into conservative radio/TV that I haven’t seen on the other side of the aisle. It was my personal experience (listened to Rushbo in the past thanks to carpooling) that liberals like to listen to as to then be able to destroy his sorry points later with the dittoheads at the office. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/air-america-bankrupt-again/526111.md?page=5)