Posted on 08/27/2003 7:03:36 PM PDT by Partisan Hack
August 27, 2003 -- THE much-anticipated, all-liberal talk radio network that promises to be the antidote to conservative powerhouses like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bob Grant is revving up to launch in January - just before the Iowa presidential caucuses. The Post has learned that backers of the unnamed network are in active discussions with New York radio titan Arthur Liu to place its programming on one or more of his four local stations.
"They're interested in leasing some stations," said Liu, who owns WPAT, WKDM, WNSW and WZRC - stations that generally charge to run mainly foreign-language programming.
"No deals yet, but we hope so," Liu told The Post.
"We'd like to deal with them but we don't know - we have to come to terms."
The long-promised all-liberal radio network, financed mainly by Chicago venture capitalists and major Democratic-campaign money bags Sheldon and Anita Drobny, is still mum about its lefty lineup.
Jon Sinton, who runs AnShell Media for the Drobnys, wouldn't comment yesterday but told The Post in May, "We're in substantive discussions with Janeane Garofalo."
Sinton also said, last May, that "Al Franken has a book to write so his plate is full I think the HBO thing has Bill Maher pretty busy."
(Franken's controversial new book, which caused a dust up with Fox News Channel, hit bookstores this month.)
There aren't any firmed-up names on AnShell Media's Web site either, but the company promises "top comedy performers, the sharpest political commentators, and knowledgeable experts in the world of business, politics, science and sports. . . to balance the discussion on our nation's airwaves."
Meantime, New York's talk radio execs aren't exactly shaking in their boots at the prospect of all-liberal, all-the-time competition.
"The idea is doomed to fail, but I admire them for trying," said Phil Boyce, WABC's program director, adding that he wasn't contacted byAnShell.
"The landscape of failed liberal talk show hosts Mario Cuomo, Alan Dershowitz, Jerry Brown and Jim Hightower," said Tom Tradup, an exec with Salem, which owns conservative-themed Christian stations WMCA and WWDJ.
"Liberals are congenitally unable to offend anybody and a talk show host who's afraid to offend anybody isn't going to be around long," said Tradup.
Balderdash. They cheerfully offend middle class white men.
Bull. If liberals hadn't spent YEARS offending about 3/4 of the population and there existed an unbiased news network there never would have been a Rush Limbaugh in the first place.
They will pay for the air time rather than take their chances in the market place.
Basically it will be one long infomercial.
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