Given the denial by Air America and the lack of a topic to debate in the OP, I have to wonder if this thread was merely a case of premature gloating from our friend Bricker.
BTW, if Independent World Television launches next year as planned, we’ll get a chance to see if progressive broadcasting can work on TV.
Be gracious. They have so little, these days, its churlish to deny them this scrap.
You can’t have a station simply to bash your opponents, especially when your opponents have the majority of seats in the Senate, Congress, most of the Governerships and the White House.
That denial was not there when I posted the OP, and is identified as an update.
Obviously, if this isn’t true, the OP is somewhat useless. But you can hardly accuse me of being misled by ring-wing propaganda in believing the initial report, given the source.
I have spoken to the denial issue in my last post.
The debate topic was clear in the OP:
Can’t argue with that. 
I’m pretty big on expecting people here to exercise a bit of skepticism when they run across purported facts that are a bit ‘too good to be true’ in partisan sources, but I can’t see where your bullshit detector, or anyone else’s, should have been tripped by ThinkProgress’ supposed scoop.
For all we know, it still might turn out to be true in a few days; I’ve gotta admit I have no idea whether Air America’s making money or hemorrhaging it. They’ve expanded their network pretty fast, which seems like a good sign, but they’d hardly be the first company to expand faster than they were capable of sustaining.
We never got to hear what you thinks this means - and since Air America is apparently not filing for bankruptcy right now, let’s rephrase it this way: Air America has had financial difficulties and has to deny rumors of its pending bankruptcy. What does this mean in relation to the prospects for a swing toward progressives in the upcoming elections? Is there an established correlation between talk radio ratings for particular viewpoints and electoral success or failure? Are they more reliable, say than approval ratings for the presidential administration in power?
Franken’s not getting paid.
Air America has had problems from day one. Sure, regular talk radio has Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, etc. But they are not a network unto themselves. They are syndicated shows that are played on specific stations in certain markets.
The idea of a station that is “All Liberal, all the time” is ridiculous. Create a decent syndicated show with an engaging, entertaining host and try to get it picked up on the major markets. WLS-AM in Chicago has done that many times with many different hosts.
But the funny thing is, the shows never seem to last long. The ratings drop and the show is removed. They bring in a new show, usually put at the most awful slot like 2 to 5 AM on Sunday right after Art Bell, in an attempt to “balance” the conservative slot but no one wants to hear it at any time. In a “blue state” like Illinois and a Democratically controlled city like Chicago, why wouldn’t a “liberal” show be a hit?
Could it be that people are tired of the outside the mainstream talk from liberals? Most Americans are religious or at least believers, 51% oppose gay marriages, 31% want abortion generally available (the rest want stricter limits, for rape, incest or to save the mother’s life, or say not permitted at all) with 73% saying it is sometimes or nearly always morally wrong . When you see stats like that it is easy to understand why liberal talk radio fails. It does not represent what most Americans believe.
I can’t wait to see what Greenstone will do!
I too would very much like to hear more about the link Bricker was trying to make between ratings for Air America and elections. In his reply, I hope he can also account for recent polls which suggest that the number of people who self-identify as Republicans has dropped, and is lower than the number who self-identify as Democrats.
I also am curious - is there a right wing broadcasting station like Air America? I know that there are just scads and scads of bloviators, as elucidator described, but I can’t say that I’ve heard of a company organized around them.
If there is not, then the comparison between the financial woes of Air America and particular right wing gas bags would be a bit of apples to oranges.
I just couldn’t disagree more. For example, your cited polling numbers aren’t altogether convincing. Alternatively, the polling data says that majorities of Americans oppose banning abortion, and only about one quarter regard it as always morally wrong. If liberal talk radio were all about abortion (as if conservative talk radio is :rolleyes: ) it sounds like there’s a pretty big mainstream market who would be in agreement.
Similarly, you suggest that the slimmest majority of polling opposition to gay marriage means that liberal radio would be outside of the mainstream.
You also suggest that most Americans are religious, as if liberal talk radio is in opposition to religion (and again, as if Rush Limbaugh is about religion).
Apart from guns, you’ve nearly hit the trifecta of guns, gays and God. But politics and talk radio are about so much more than that, and on many many other issues, liberals represent clear majority opinions. So if liberal talk radio can be said to be a failure (and I do believe, to the contrary, that Franken has beaten out his conservative opposition in the ratings, at least at times), there must be some other explanation.
From my point of view, it is that I just would not be interested in hearing political opinions, even those that I hold with the greatest of conviction, spoken about in the manner that Rush Limbaugh does. I know what I believe - I don’t need some chimp to jump up and down about it to reify my views. I have very much enjoyed Al Franken’s show, because I was able to trust that he was providing me with novel, accurate and honest information. Now, I go to liberal blogs to get my political news, for very much the same reasons. Some of the liberal shows I’ve heard do sound shrill and do seem to make dubious assertions, and that is my perception of shows like Limbaugh’s. I’ve turned that kind of stuff off in a heartbeat.
I think that in a purely business sense, Air America was doomed to fail because it wasn’t some huge groundswell of public demand that created it, it was a bunch of people who were tired of hearing a bunch of right-wing horseshit on the radio and wanted to do something about it. A noble cause, but not an economically savvy one at the time.
If Air America had been rolled out this year instead of a couple of years ago, the result might have been different. There’s a much more solid anti-Bush admin sentiment out there than there was two years ago, that’s for sure.
Oh, and maybe they should have had some real radio people running it or something. How in God’s name did AA get relegated to AM radio in the DC market? I think either AAs dealmakers sucked or the FCC or somebody boned them.
HaHaHaHaHa, funny. Yah, without Air America we won’t know how miserable to be. The horrors of low unemployment, low inflation, tax rebates and a DOW that’s over 10,000.
The entertainment value will be missed by everyone except possibly the children they tried to steal money from. Maybe someone who’s made money off of the liberal circuit will kick in a few bucks for the home team. Where’s Michael Moore’s entrepreneurial skill when you need it. From each according to their ability.
What I was trying to say with the stats is that most Americans don’t seem to go along with the “liberal” agenda. Of course, the numbers vary from subject to subject but, on a whole, I would say that most people prefer things stay the way they are, which basically describes “conservative” but not in the political sense.
The labels of liberal and conservative are so arbitrary as to be laughable. In America a Communist is considered liberal. In the Soviet Union a Communist was conservative because he was intent on keeping things as is.
The “conservative” hosts are really the more extreme Right-wing people, especially people like Savage. They are the ones saying don’t upset the apple cart. But if you listen to some callers to the other shows (not the hosts but the callers) you will hear more moderation.
I’ll say it again: get an entertaining host and it will make a good show. Don’t create a format station for talk radio. The only time that seems to work is sports radio but they have the advantage of different sports topics and broadcasting games. I couldn’t listen to WLS if it was all conservative. They had Nancy Skinner until 2003 when she left to run for office. They had Jay Marvin who was obnoxious but hilarious until 2004. They still have Nate Clay who is like Chris Rock’s Nate X character on SNL. And on the weekends they have financial, computer and real estate shows.
It failed because they were a bunch of shrill sounding moonbats. If you heard them on the air it was embarrassing. No amount of money would fix this.
Well, I happen to think that the right-wing talkers are a bunch of shrill sounding moonbats, and when I hear them on the air, it’s embarrassing. If people aren’t embarrassed at listening to some doctor-shopping, pill-popping hatemonger, then yeah, no amount of money is going to change that.
Look, if you want someone to take care of a soup kitchen, you get a liberal. You want someone to run a business, you get a conservative. When I look for a financial adviser, I want someone who will bring money to me, not be looking for ways for me to throw it away.
And talk radio is put on AM for a simple reason: you don’t need the high power FM transmitters to hear people flapping their gums about immigration reform or the latest celebrity craptastic event. You save FM so music comes across in higher stereo quality. No conspiracy behind it. I don’t need to hear Al Franken or Rush Limbaugh blaring from both speakers without static. I do need to hear my music that way, though.
But you’ve not got much in the way of support for that assertion.
Okay, but if you’re going to use the terms liberal and conservative in a politically oriented thread, it might be good to try to do so in a way that has some semblance of the general connotation.
For example, would you call a desire to maintain the status quo regarding abortion a conservative position? It would be keeping things the same as they are, after all.
To review the bidding, my comment was in response to tomndebb’s analysis, in which he posited:
It was THAT proposition that led me to ask – and, again, not in a Socratic, here’s-the-answer-I’m-leading-you-towards-way, but just as honest inquiry… IF remaining intelligent and promoting intelligent Liberal ideas is doomed to fail in a mass market, what does that say about the chances for successful political candidates to be those that remain intelligent and promote intelligent Liberal ideas?