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May 03, 2006

How Low Can You Go?

This list is impressive: Tom Leykis, Mario Cuomo, Jim Hightower, Jesse Jackson, and the Air America Radio Network What do these “progressives” all have in common? All have simply bombed when it comes to building and maintaining a radio audience big enough to stay on the air. Well, except for Air America, which ain’t dead yet, but is on its last breaths, and Tom Leykis who dumped his progressive Democrat talk radio format and switched over to being a Howard Stern clone.

But why? Their views aren’t any more obnoxious, lame, uninformed or retarded than Rush, Sean and their legion of imitators are. And “liberals” (as the msm misidentifies the above-mentioned list), are at least as numerous in the markets where Air America hits the airwaves as are the conservatives. Hmmmm.. If Air America can’t get any ratings in NYC, Chicago, or LA then WTF can they? And why is this anyhow? The bloggers at City Journal have some ideas. To wit:

“You’d think that the public’s growing dissatisfaction with President Bush and the Iraq War would translate into lots of listeners for Air America’s ‘progressive talk’,” says City Journal blogger Brian C. Anderson, “especially with the fawning free publicity the network and its top host, comedian Al Franken, have enjoyed from the mainstream press. But even hard-core liberals (who make up only about one-fifth of the American electorate, it’s important to remember) must find Air America’s incessant and often moronic Bush bashing monotonous and unentertaining—the kiss of death for talk radio.”

And also:

“Further, liberals already have NPR—and for that matter, the New York Times, network newscasts, CNN, and most of the mainstream media. Conservative and libertarian voices dominate the radio dial because they offer a much-needed response to the liberal media mainstream. The Right has done well on cable television and in the blogosphere for the same reason. Air America, created and kept afloat by a handful of wealthy liberal financiers, meets no such market demand.”

The Air (America) Heads could learn from Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert. Even as Air America’s hosts snicker about President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, the network seems destined to disappear from the radio dial before the president leaves the White House. How ironic. But funny eh?

Posted by Ali Massoud at May 3, 2006 03:42 PM

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