Former AA CEO Blames 'Darwinian World' of Market Forces for Failure of 'Progressive' Talk Radio

NewsBusters ^ | February 12, 2010 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

The former CEO of Air America, Danny Goldberg, has been kind enough to provide us with some comedy entertainment in an article, Air America Radio, RIP -- It Didn't Have to Be This Way. Actually, Danny, it did have to be that way due to those market forces at work that you castigate. However, we all owe you a vote of thanks for coming up with several incredibly lame but laughable excuses to explain away the failure of Air America in particular and "progressive talk radio" in general.

First the donor quality excuse:

Democracy Radio folded in 2006 as a result of a lack of financial support from progressive donors.

Some blame bad management for the failure of both Air America and Democracy Radio, and since I spent one unhappy year midway through Air America's life as its CEO I suppose I am one of a dozen or so who are in that category. But if progressives really wanted to address talk radio they could have started competing companies with different management. Instead, most of the monied progressive community did the opposite of their conservative counterparts and bought into the notion that media should stand or fall based on media market forces.

[PJ-Comix]

Air America was hyped bigtime in the MSM when it launched and yet it still flopped bigtime. Few listeners which generated almost no advertising revenue.

[PJ-Comix]

PING!

[henkster]

A socialist enterprise relying on capitalist advertising? There’s your typical socialist business plan; there are no private investment opportunities for socialism. It’s either government subsidies or bust.

[Da Coyote]

Yup, all those mammals with lotsa tails and no cojones have been eliminated.

I eagerly await that fate for our progressives.

[equalitybeforethelaw]

I first read AA as Afirmative Action - not that there is any real difference to Air America.

[A_Former_Democrat]

That’s the only thing that would’ve kept it alive

And it still would have flunked out

[Regulator]

Maybe someone should tell him they just don't like him.

He'll be heartbroken, of course. Libs think the whole world is in love with them, but that's just because of their own narcissism.

[KarlInOhio]

most of the monied progressive community

Does that include children's charities whose bank accounts are emptied to support Err Amerika?

We already have one left wing, moocher/looter radio network. We don't need a second at the public teat.

[Question Liberal Authority]

I agree partially with the Air America guy. He did royally bungle his business model. Air America wouldn't let stations pick and choose their shows. They wouldn't let stations put local content on the air. They wouldn't allow Air America content to air on stations which also ran conservative programs.

I partially agree with Andrew Breitbart, too. "It isn't your business model that sucks. It's you that sucks." Maybe Air America would have been a disaster either way, but there was a point in time when the MSM was really hyping it and it could have gotten some legs if they had put their content on stations which were already attracting talk radio listeners.

[Boonie]

On trips across NC to Tennessee, I would tune in AA around Asheville for about an hour (all I could stand). The only thing whoever happened to be on talked about was the right wing...Probably 3/4ths of the time was crude attempts at humor putting down conservatives...no facts, no news, just poor jokes about the right...

[EyeGuy]

Goldberg is a typical communist who can’t handle it when the big, bad marketplace kicks his talentless ass.

Characteristically, these elites need the type of criminal, political help that the crooks at Goldman Sachs received, in order to succeed.

[1raider1]

Just to show where I’m coming from, I thought it meant Alcoholics Anonymous.

[fishtank]

Welcome to the Darwinian jungle indeed .....

[Myrddin]

Conservative talk radio is a successful commercial enterprise. People want to listen and advertisers are anxious to advertise in front of a large audience. In comparison, the socialist/progressive talk radio is nauseating. They can't draw or hold an audience. Advertisers aren't going to throw money at an enterprise that has no audience. The lefties have a grip on TV. That's fine because mine is never turned on. My TV is a display device for BluRay or DVD. I can choose what I want to patronize and when I want to see it. There are plenty of hapless individuals who feed a cable service and keep the lefties funded. I'm not one of them.

[N. Theknow]

Air America failed because of one undeniable truth.

"You can always tell a liberal. You just can't tell them a damn thing."

[N. Theknow]

Air America = MSNBC without the ugly faces.

[harpu]

Content & Content Providers = Air America’s Failure

[TexasRepublic]

Comrade Goldberg, real Americans don’t like Communism - therefore you lose.