Thomas Athans is the Executive Vice President of Air America radio. press release below
http://airamerica.com/node/1258 Air America radio stands to gain SIGNIFICANTLY from any bills passed on these talks of "balance"
END THE CORRUPTION!!!
ah! Conflict of interest!
The following is by Tom Taylor of http://www.radio-info.com :
Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow only added to the suspicions of conservative talkshow hosts with her remarks on yesterday’s syndicated Bill Press show. We had these quotes for you on Radio-Info.com before noon Eastern time, and they’re provocative. Stabenow says the airwaves are “dominated by one view that…then overwhelms people’s opinions.” She knocks “the right-wing conservative talkshow hosts who are out there, just trying to make people angry and saying all kinds of things that aren’t true.” So to her, “there has to be voices on the other side.” She tells progressive talker Bill Press “it’s absolutely time to pass a standard” to bring “accountability to the airwaves.” Her method? Start with a Senate hearing. She tells Bill Press “I have already had some discussions with colleagues, and, you know, I feel like that’s gonna happen. Yep.”
Liberal talk disappearing in D.C., San Diego, Miami – that’s got Senator Stabenow hot.
Progressive talker Bill Press brings up the recent euthanasia of Red Zebra’s “Obama 1260” WWRC, which dropped out of politics to do business talk. There are other recent examples in San Diego (Clear Channel’s KLSD/1360) and presumably Miami (see the next story). I think the wave of format deaths is the straw that broke the camel’s back, for some media-sensitive liberals like Senator Debbie Stabenow. Their reasoning is going to be that conservatives dominate the public-owned airwaves and it’s high time to investigate why some of these formats got flipped. Imagine Mark Mays
[Clear Channel] or John Hogan testifying under the glare of Senate lights about San Diego. Or Red Zebra owner Dan Snyder, about the erasure of “Obama 1260.” Or the potential cartons of material a Senate committee might request, looking into emails and other communications about specific format decisions. It would be ugly and unprecedented, and it’s not clear that Stabenow’s got enough support to get very far. But now the ruckus that began with Rush and Hannity fearing the return of the Fairness Doctrine may be entering a new stage.
Miami’s WINZ (940) going all-sports?
The Miami board at Radio-Info.com, and outsiders like the Miami Herald, take it as a fait accompli – especially with current Fox Sports Radio affiliate WMEN (which styles itself “WFTL 640”) being told it’s losing the affiliation. Every format change creates some dissonance, and this one will kick up a fuss. This is another situation (as discussed above) where a liberal-talk station is going away, while a conservative sibling - CC’s WIOD/610, with Rush, Hannity, Glenn Beck – remains. You can talk about the ratings and the revenue and who got into modern talk radio first with the big signals. But this discussion could go on all year.