Air America Off The Air...Actually Almost Nobody Hardest Hit

[MKSheppard]

So our favorite talk radio network filed chapter 7 bankruptcy and stopped transmitting.

From: Charlie Kireker
Date: January 21, 2010 4:36:59 PM EST

To: All
Subject: Air America Operations

It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America's business. This past year has seen a "perfect storm" in the media industry generally.

National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry's long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.

Those companies that remain are facing audience fragmentation as a result of new media technologies, are often saddled with crushing debt, and have generally found it difficult to obtain operating or investment capital from traditional sources of funding. In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.

With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad.

And though Internet/new media revenues are projected to grow, our expanding online efforts face the same monetization and profitability challenges in the short term confronting the Web operations of most media companies.

When Air America Radio launched in April, 2004 with already-known personalities like Al Franken and then-unknown future stars like Rachel Maddow, it was the only full-time progressive voice in the mainstream broadcast media world. At a critical time in our nation's history -- when dissent on issues such as the Iraq war were often denounced as "un-American" - Air America and its talented team helped millions of Americans remember the importance of compelling discussion about the most pivotal events and decisions of our generation.

Through some 100 radio outlets nationwide, Air America helped build a new sense of purpose and determination among American progressives. With this revival, the progressive movement made major gains in the 2006 mid-term elections and, more recently, in the election of President Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress.

Laws have changed for the better thanks to this revival.....but all the same our company cannot escape the laws of economics. So we intend a rapid, orderly closure over the next few days. All current employees will be paid through today, January 21. A severance package will be offered tomorrow to full-time current employees with more than six months of tenure. We will strive to assist affiliates and partners in achieving a smooth transition. Starting at 6 pm EST today, we will provide our affiliates, listeners and users a selection of encore programming until 9 pm EST on Monday, January 25, at which time Air America programming will end.

We are proud that Air America's mission lives on through the words and actions of so many former radio hosts who are active today in progressive causes and media nationwide. In the years ahead, as we look back, we should all be proud of our passionate determination to assure that our nation's progressive voice would be heard loud and clear. Through the hard work and dedication of current staff, and those who preceded you, a lasting legacy was forged which will now continue through other voices and venues.

Thank you.

Charlie Kireker
Chair, Air America Media

[FSTargetDrone]

I listened to Air America fairly regularly when it first started. Well, I listened to it for a few weeks (maybe even a month or so, I don't remember now) and thought to myself, "Well, I'm pretty progressive and I agree with a lot (but not all) of what's being discussed. But you know, I really didn't need to hear a constant stream agreeing with a lot of the positions I already held. I didn't need to hear day in and day out it to feel even stronger about my opinions.

It. Just. Got. To. Be. All. The. Same. It's the same reason I stopped watching Olbermann and even Maddow on MSNBC.

[Sea Skimmer]

Not surprising at all, particularly since they already went bankrupt once before in such a short existence and engaged in enough shady financial operations to make anyone reluctant to give them money. Broadcast radio is a dieing format anyway.

[irishmick79]

Not surprising at all, particularly since they already went bankrupt once before in such a short existence and engaged in enough shady financial operations to make anyone reluctant to give them money. Broadcast radio is a dieing format anyway.

Tell that to Rush Limbaugh.

[KrauserKrauser]

And Hannity, Beck, Bortz, Savage, Dr. Laura, Levin and on and on and on.

Just because Air America went kaputt doesn't mean all Breoadcast radio is on the way out.

[Mr Bean]

Tell that to Rush Limbaugh.

It's still a dieing format. AM talk radio survives as long as people of the 30's 40's and 50's do. In 2030 when most of those people are dead (Even if Rush himself is still kicking around) the format will be dead for sure. It's getting harder and harder to even buy an AM radio even if I see Rush still doing fine as an Internet only version of his show. Once you have an audience it's hard to lose them as any number of long running shows can demonstrate.

Rare is it you can run a show for three or four years and then it blows up in year five with a multi-million man audience.

[Mr Bean]

Tell that to Rush Limbaugh.

It's still a dieing format. AM talk radio survives as long as people of the 30's 40's and 50's do. In 2030 when most of those people are dead (Even if Rush himself is still kicking around) the format will be dead for sure. It's getting harder and harder to even buy an AM radio (Not to mention the shitty way they track audiences*) even if I see Rush still doing fine as an Internet only version of his show. Once you have an audience it's hard to lose them as any number of long running shows can demonstrate.

Rare is it you can run a show for three or four years and then it blows up in year five with a multi-million man audience.

FYI if you ever wondered how they measure how much of an audience someone like Rush has well look no further than Arbitron which uses two methods to measure all radio audiences in the US(They are the Nelson of radio) one is a diary. It's given out to Arbitron listeners and only give out to those people who are self selected (You can't just be a household with a radio you have to be a household with a radio and regularly listen to radio) At the start of the two or four week period your given a diary and must write down what you listen to and which station you had whatever radio you had near you in fifteen minute blocks.

Listen to 5 minutes of a 1 hour show? By Arbitron standards that means you listen to the whole show. So someone like Rush with a three hour show gets tons of hits from people who tune in for a few minutes then tune away as do some stations where you listen to one or two songs then tune away they get credit for half an hour to a full hour of you listening. Arbitron's Diary methods were further hampered by the way they sell their data. IE we must take these two hundred people in the market filling out diaries then figure out how many people live in the market. Preform our extrapolation and produce a figure. In 2007 Arbitron started using PPM's which are small pager sized things you carry on you that can pick up high frequency dot dash style ID codes that programs put in their audiostream which is a better method to be sure but they've not stopped the Diary method and the two methods are averaged together.

It's been noted many times and I won't go into it here that Arbitron's methods are close on voodoo science most of the time because while their data collection is fine, they can produce absurdly high number of people listening. When other researchers go in and try and measure radio usage and compare their have been instances where certain markets have more Arbitron listeners than their are radios. Simple studies which go in and ask "Do you own a radio, "Have you turned it on in the past two weeks" turn up about 200k people who will say yes to both questions but the Arbitron numbers say they have 300k people listening to X show in this market.

[Serafine666]

Not surprising at all, particularly since they already went bankrupt once before in such a short existence and engaged in enough shady financial operations to make anyone reluctant to give them money. Broadcast radio is a dieing format anyway.

Yeah, heard something similar in the 1980s. Then came Rush Limbaugh and the myriads of those like him. Apparently, AM talk radio can last for over 20 years after it was "a dying format anyway" without ceasing to be a dying format. The only reason I wasn't surprised by it is that progressive radio shows seem to have a very short shelf life compared to even new non-progressive shows (I'm including advice shows, sports shows, etc that have little connection to politics).

[Sea Skimmer]

=
Yeah, heard something similar in the 1980s. Then came Rush Limbaugh and the myriads of those like him. Apparently, AM talk radio can last for over 20 years after it was "a dying format anyway" without ceasing to be a dying format. The only reason I wasn't surprised by it is that progressive radio shows seem to have a very short shelf life compared to even new non-progressive shows (I'm including advice shows, sports shows, etc that have little connection to politics).

In the 1980s radio didn’t have the alternative of a functional internet and citywide wifi projects. If everyone can carry around a handheld device that can bring them any internet radio channel they want then they don’t have much reason for a normal radio. A whole lot more cars come with actual hard drives for music now too, besides plugging in portable devices.

[Sarevok]

A lot of cellphones have the ability to play podcasts or internet radio. It is a device most people carry and audio takes up trivial number of kilobytes compared to web surfing from a phone with a full browser like opera mobile 10. Sooner or later someone is going to capitalize on this in place of traditional radio.

[Ariphaos]

And Hannity, Beck, Bortz, Savage, Dr. Laura, Levin and on and on and on.

Just because Air America went kaputt doesn't mean all Breoadcast radio is on the way out.

Their audience needs their opinions reinforced. FSTargetDrone pretty much summarized the need for progressives to learn what they already know.