http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/14/leisure.a...reut/index.html

 

I guess they aren't as popular as they thought they would be if they can't pay their bills. Maybe Al Franken should go back to cracking jokes.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/14/leisure.a...reut/index.html

 

I guess they aren't as popular as they thought they would be if they can't pay their bills.  Maybe Al Franken should go back to cracking jokes.

I guess this proves the media isn't liberal, despite what Rush says.

We have State-sponsored liberal radio - NPR.

I hate liberal radio for the same reason I hate conservative radio--They blame every single problem on the other side, as if all the issues concerning the world could be broken down into only two factions. Or that one side could be always right, and the other always wrong. It's pointless, and anyone who buys into it wholeheartedly on either side is an idiot.

I hate liberal radio for the same reason I hate conservative radio--They blame every single problem on the other side, as if all the issues concerning the world could be broken down into only two factions.  Or that one side could be always right, and the other always wrong.  It's pointless, and anyone who buys into it wholeheartedly on either side is an idiot.

You speak the truth. Once American's remember we have a representative government, that these people are elected to represent us, and we need to bombard them with our opinions, we will continue to have this partisan b.s.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/14/leisure.a...reut/index.html

 

I guess they aren't as popular as they thought they would be if they can't pay their bills.  Maybe Al Franken should go back to cracking jokes.

The 'bounced chack' version is a good one, but not the correct one. Here's the real story from an AAR Press Statement.

 

And here's the body of that text:

 

The Sludge Report

 

After just two weeks on the air, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, and that really loud woman from Florida, appears to have encountered serious cash-flow problems.

 

Stop the presses!!! There’s nothing more exciting than half a story from a third hand source!!!!

Insiders tell SLUDGE, that the reason the network was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, was because, the owner of both stations, Arthur Liu of Multicultural Broadcasting, said, the network bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million! The run-on sentence, tortured grammar and the exclamation point clearly means it’s true!!

 

Only it isn’t.

 

Normally we’d let this go because “habitual liars” like Drudge are laughable, and ridicule is our business.

 

But  Arthur Liu --- not funny. He lied to us, he ripped us off and now we’re chasing him down with a pipe wrench. It’s a metaphor.

 

Here’s what really happened:

This Liu-ser was ripping off our boss Evan Cohen big time (he can’t do that, that’s our job). Evan found out about it and he stopped payment on a check to keep Liu-cifer from ripping him off even more. You can touch Evan for the occasional meal or drinks but a million bucks is crossing the line. And if we ever get low on cash, we can always call Barbra Streisand. Or any of the

Baldwins. Except Stephen.

 

So we got screwed, Liu’d, and tattooed. How Liu can you get? In Liu of payment. Liu’d and lascivious behavior. These write themselves. What we’re getting at is that we hate him.

So now everyone’s saying we’re going down the dumper in Chicago and Los Angeles, but what they don’t tell you is that we’re still on in Portland. And we OWN Portland. And let’s not forget Riverside and Plattsburgh. And New York.  And streaming on the internet. And XM. And Sirius. Actually we’re fine.

 

So cool your jets. Air America Radio isn’t dead, we’re in court and we’re going to slam Liu’s head in a car door. Another metaphor. We hope to be back on the air tomorrow or the next day in those markets.

 

In the meantime, why don’t you give Arthur a call at (212)966-1059, or check out his website www.mrbi.net

 

Arthur Liu, I wouldn’t show your face around here. Or Riverside. Or Plattsburgh.

 

DEVELOPING……

Riverside and Plattsburgh? Where are those places??? South of North Riverside?

The 'bounced chack' version is a good one, but not the correct one.  Here's the real story from an AAR Press Statement.

 

And here's the body of that text:

 

The Sludge Report

 

After just two weeks on the air, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, and that really loud woman from Florida, appears to have encountered serious cash-flow problems.

 

Stop the presses!!! There’s nothing more exciting than half a story from a third hand source!!!!

Insiders tell SLUDGE, that the reason the network was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, was because, the owner of both stations, Arthur Liu of Multicultural Broadcasting, said, the network bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million! The run-on sentence, tortured grammar and the exclamation point clearly means it’s true!!

 

Only it isn’t.

 

Normally we’d let this go because “habitual liars” like Drudge are laughable, and ridicule is our business.

 

But  Arthur Liu --- not funny. He lied to us, he ripped us off and now we’re chasing him down with a pipe wrench. It’s a metaphor.

 

Here’s what really happened:

This Liu-ser was ripping off our boss Evan Cohen big time (he can’t do that, that’s our job). Evan found out about it and he stopped payment on a check to keep Liu-cifer from ripping him off even more. You can touch Evan for the occasional meal or drinks but a million bucks is crossing the line. And if we ever get low on cash, we can always call Barbra Streisand. Or any of the

Baldwins. Except Stephen.

 

So we got screwed, Liu’d, and tattooed. How Liu can you get? In Liu of payment. Liu’d and lascivious behavior. These write themselves. What we’re getting at is that we hate him.

So now everyone’s saying we’re going down the dumper in Chicago and Los Angeles, but what they don’t tell you is that we’re still on in Portland. And we OWN Portland. And let’s not forget Riverside and Plattsburgh. And New York.  And streaming on the internet. And XM. And Sirius. Actually we’re fine.

 

So cool your jets. Air America Radio isn’t dead, we’re in court and we’re going to slam Liu’s head in a car door. Another metaphor. We hope to be back on the air tomorrow or the next day in those markets.

 

In the meantime, why don’t you give Arthur a call at (212)966-1059, or check out his website www.mrbi.net

 

Arthur Liu, I wouldn’t show your face around here. Or Riverside. Or Plattsburgh.

 

DEVELOPING……

The end of that rant reminded me of Howard Dean's famous speech.

 

AND WERE ON IN PORTLAND

 

AND WERE ON IN RIVERSIDE

 

AND WERE ON IN PLATTSBURGH

 

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Regardless of the true issue of the 'bounced check', they will be lucky if they last 6 months. The hosts will burn themselves out with their anger. The conservative hosts always seem like they are having fun in their work. I have listened, and the hosts just seem so consumed by hate, that it will eat them up before long. They need to learn to lighten up a bit.

We have State-sponsored liberal radio - NPR.

NPR is a 98% privately-funded organization, with 1-2% of its funding coming from competitive federal grants for which they apply. These grants add up only 1-2 million dollars per year.

How is NPR Supported?

 

NPR (National Public Radio) is a private, self-supporting nonprofit media company with hundreds of independent radio stations as members. NPR receives no direct federal funding for general support. NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from stations, contributions from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage - between 1-2 percent of NPR's annual budget - comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. At present, NPR's annual operating budget is approximately $100 million a year (2002 NPR Annual Report).

Regardless of the true issue of the 'bounced check', they will be lucky if they last 6 months.  The hosts will burn themselves out with their anger.  The conservative hosts always seem like they are having fun in their work.  I have listened, and the hosts just seem so consumed by hate, that it will eat them up before long.  They need to learn to lighten up a bit.

I disagree on the anger point, to a degree.

I think both sides have a fair amount of anger - if there's an angrier guy on the radio than Sean Hannity, I haven't heard him.

Air America will probably last for the simple reason that each side needs the other, and there's nothing better for ratings than a feud. Can't really feud with yourself, or with the choir of listeners, so an enemy down the dial is the easiest target. It's worked for pro wrestling and Howard Stern for years.

I disagree on the anger point, to a degree.

I think both sides have a fair amount of anger - if there's an angrier guy on the radio than Sean Hannity, I haven't heard him.

Air America will probably last for the simple reason that each side needs the other, and there's nothing better for ratings than a feud. Can't really feud with yourself, or with the choir of listeners, so an enemy down the dial is the easiest target. It's worked for pro wrestling and Howard Stern for years.

As long as they can attract enough financial support to keep it going. Listeners may be less than half the equation.

As long as they can attract enough financial support to keep it going. Listeners may be less than half the equation.

Listeners = ratings = sponsor interest = financial support.

It all comes down to listeners, because nobody ( except maybe the Democratic Party ) will advertise on Air America if nobody's listening.

It's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too early to bury or praise Air America - any new media outlet needs time ( probably a year or more ) to judge its long-term viability.

I disagree on the anger point, to a degree.

I think both sides have a fair amount of anger - if there's an angrier guy on the radio than Sean Hannity, I haven't heard him.

Air America will probably last for the simple reason that each side needs the other, and there's nothing better for ratings than a feud. Can't really feud with yourself, or with the choir of listeners, so an enemy down the dial is the easiest target. It's worked for pro wrestling and Howard Stern for years.

You have obviously never heard Michael Savage.

*semi informed opinion about air america coming from dude who works in the biz, could potentially be boring, or even balanced.*

 

I think the Air America strategy is a poor one. Rather than a whole lineup, they should have concentrated on two shows. Al Franken and Rhandi Rhodes. They started with 5 outlets, and are now on 16- excluding the still off the air LA outlet - in a matter of two weeks. That's good growth for a start up network. Not all of these stations carry the full lineup and one station - the Minneapolis one - is likely a temporary home, that station is expected to flip to Religious once the pending sale of it closes in May.

 

As far as the dispute between AA and MRC goes, I'm likely to say it is actually closer to the AA story than MRC. From the stories of the funds that Air America started with, it seems unlikely that they would have bounced a check four months into the company's existence. Even if money was tight, you would have seen them pare shows from the lineup rather than give up a top 3 market affiliate. The issue seems to be the owner, a company which time brokers, selling time on the LA station that AA had already paid to use before the network launch. This is called, double dipping - where you charge two companies for the same air time - and it's illegal. And time brokers are notorious for this practice.

 

The Temporary restraining order in Chicago seems to be evidence that there is some truth to the AA double dip claim. Most likely, they were able to show an account balance that would have covered the "bounced" checks in question when they were written... and probably correspondence of the double dipping issue before the launch of the network.

 

But frankly, who knows.

You have obviously never heard Michael Savage.

No, I haven't.

Is he on anywhere in Chicago?

I don't do much Internet radio - too geeky.

I dunno if he is or isn't.

 

This is a guy who made his name by being on the air in SF and referring to gay people as f**s. He's now nationwide and his hook is anger. Pure seething anger. MSNBC gave him a weekend show and he lost it by telling a crank caller that he was a sodomite and that he hopes he would get AIDS and die. Oh yeah, he used to swim naked with gay beat poet and NAMBLA member to the death Allen Ginsberg. He also believes in coffee enemas. I think he even wrote a book on it.

I dunno if he is or isn't.

 

This is a guy who made his name by being on the air in SF and referring to gay people as f**s. He's now nationwide and his hook is anger. Pure seething anger. MSNBC gave him a weekend show and he lost it by telling a crank caller that he was a sodomite and that he hopes he would get AIDS and die. Oh yeah, he used to swim naked with gay beat poet and NAMBLA member to the death Allen Ginsberg. He also believes in coffee enemas. I think he even wrote a book on it.

I knew a young Chicago musician in the late 80s who did time as a Ginsburg boytoy for a year or so. Really creeped me out, but I guess it was a way to expand one's horizons.