Posted on 01/25/2006 1:50:20 PM PST by PJ-Comix
Last year, I was privileged to work with Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer on an ongoing blog investigative series about beleaguered Air America radio's finances. Brian has continued to dig and dig deep on the story.
He has a new report here and will discuss it tonight on The O'Reilly Factor.
Brian asks: "Did Al Franken's outrageous salary demands hamper Air America's ability to repay the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in 2005?"
Excerpt:
During the same mid-to-late 2004 period when Air America parent Piquant LLC was quietly considering how to resolve the still-undisclosed scandal, Franken was demanding everything, including the kitchen sink.
A June, 2004 Wall Street Journal investigative report on Air America stated Al was making "over $1 million a year". That was accurate, but not for long.
Despite mixed reviews, low ratings and a perpetually shaky cash outlook, Franken was handed a virtual blank check by Piquant. Even as the extent of the Gloria Wise crisis became clear to an ever-changing series of managers, Franken pushed ahead anyway with an eye-popping 2005 compensation package.
Included was a staggering base salary boost to $1,725,000, plus fringe benefits and potential bonuses, after less than a year on the air. Nor was his bloated staff left out. The result: what is quite likely talk radio's largest-ever and most overpaid entourage, mostly from the ranks of Al's Harvard research team.
The kicker: Franken successfully insisted the entire base sum be paid in advance, during the first week of January, 2005...
Read the whole thing.
I'm no fan of AA. But Rhodes is 50 times the pro Franken is.
This is Franken's way of bailing out with dignity (thatis, to the extent he has any).
I don't think this qhole Air America fiasco has exactly been great for his career.
$1 MILLION? I know people who will act like an ass for far less than that, some at no cost.........
"I doubt if she is even getting 10% of his salary."
If she was making .001% of his salary she would be greatly overpaid.
If Al were being paid what he is actually worth, it would be bupkis.
O'Reilly's doing a segment on Air America tonight.
Randi Loads was bitching about the apartment rent she's paying in -20 degree weather! LMAO
I need to consider having my brains sucked out so I can pursue reaping what Franken is attempting to reap.
Randi Robertson is a hoax. She found a niche in post 9-11 radio.
Gee....
Take from Peter to pay Paul.
Rhodes is a pedigreed gutter rat. She has such a hateful personality that she makes Franken look like Mister Rodgers.
I'm guessing Randi only earns about $80,000. Good money in the rest of the country but tought to pay the rent in NY on that.
Pro as in prostitute? Give me a break. She is a brain-dead former AOR Rock jock who used to bang Jack Russel from Great White on the side...not to mention other hair rockers in the 1980s.
I worked on her show in the 1990s and she has no clue about anything other than bitching, copy and pasting stuff from liberal websites and newspapers,and stealing word for word from liberal blogs.
She is full of it to the highest story building. Her "crack" team of Bush haters are what fill her venom vials that she spits on her microphone on a daily basis.
She knows jack shit.
Bingo. I remember being an intern at WSHE back in the day in Ft.Lauderdale and watched her be a "pro" at many a live remote with her weed, coke, and booze.
Yeah...total "pro".
To be fair though...she found her niche during the Impeachment Scandal/Lewinski...where she got her base in South Florida.
Al is so worth every penny!
What a loser.
I remember Randi on the air down here in her South Florida days saying that her greatest fantasy in life would be to perform a "Lewinsky" on Bill aboard Air Force One.
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