In the latest development in what has become a chaotic inaugural month, Air America Radio is losing two of its top executives, including the network’s co-founder.
Mark Walsh, the former AOL executive and Democratic National Committee operative who announced the network’s launch to much fanfare five months ago, said Monday that he has stepped down as chief executive officer.
Separately, the network confirmed that Dave Logan, Air America’s vice president for operations and programming, has been replaced.
I’d describe myself as a loyal Air America listener. I try to listen to some of it daily, because I’m in late-stage early crushlove of it. Every day I go through a few hoops in order to listen, unobtrusively, at work (I keep the volume down so I don’t disturb others, but I might come under fire for hogging company bandwidth). And because of the work firewall, I have to content myself with listening to the non-Real Audio feed offered by KPOJ. I want for it to succeed, and succeed big. The future of the country is at stake in the coming election, and I personally feel that a “throw the rascals out” grassroots movement ought to get a lot of momentum out of the existence of a liberal radio network.
However, it’s hard to ignore the many stories that have been filed detailing its problems-of-the-week: this week it’s now apparently an executive shake-up that’s not a shake-up, and a couple of weeks ago it was the dispute/misunderstanding/complete and total cockup that led to 2 stations going off the air, and only one coming back. Also this week, the Chicago affiliate (the one that you can’t even hear at night, and barely hear in the day) is going off the air for good at the end of the week, so there’ve been plenty of PSA’s about how to listen using streaming audio on the Internet.
To quote Han Solo: I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
It’s important that there be some kind of officially liberal talk radio format in this country to balance the large number of conservative talk radio (and television commentary) shows on the air. I never used to listen to talk radio or watch commentary shows before; too boring for one thing, and too irritating for another.
It’s important that a liberal radio talk show format exist… and it’s important that it not be boring and also that it not be flaky.
AAR is taking a while to find its feet and overcome the first challenge; if it doesn’t get its act together over broadcast problems and internal static it’s unlikely to overcome the second.
In the weeks that I’ve been listening, I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of what I’ve been hearing isn’t all that interesting. However, there have been enough good, articulate guests and fun, entertaining segments of selected shows that I’ve kept listening in order to get through a dull patch of wonkery in order to get to a yummy slice of satire.
I’m indifferent to Morning Sedition – I can’t follow it during morning drive time on the car radio unless I turn the volume way up, and can’t turn up the volume high enough to hear what all the chatter is about at work. Which is a pity, because I’ve really liked Sue Ellicott’s work on “Wait, Wait.”
Maybe it’s “Unfiltered” that I can’t follow – the time difference between WNTD and KPOJ thing, remember.
I try really hard to listen to “The O’Franken Factor” because it’s occasionally funny (though too infrequently laugh-out-loud funny). Quite often it’s informative and interesting, too – but also quite often it does the wonkery thing. Sometimes the wonkery goes on and on and on.
Here we are Al; entertain us!
Because of the time difference, the next show up on KPOJ is some guy that looks and sounds like Al Bundy. I turn off the stream or change to listen to KUNC-FM, an eclectic :NPR station in Fort Collins, CO. I can listen to it for hours and hours… and lately, I’ve been tuning it in earlier. Careful, Al.
On the way home, I flip back and forth between Randi Rhodes and WBEZ, the local :NPR affiliate. Randi’s too much into the wacky conspiracy theories, but she does raise important and under-reported points. However, she’s abrasive and talks endlessly, then cuts callers off without a word. Still, I keep listening… maybe in the hopes that she’ll play another outrageous song like “Bounce Your Boobies” again.
In the evenings, if I’m not watching TV or out, I’m an unabashed Majority Reporter. I read the comments. I keep whining about how they need a robust moderated forum. I chat on IRC (us.undernet.org) in #majorityreport while listening to the Real Audio streamcast. And I laugh a lot more than I do listening to the other shows, partly because I have people to share it with, and mostly because it’s pretty funny most of the time (with some glaringly dull exceptions). I endure the commercials (thank goodness, a lot of the most often-repeated ones from the first 2 weeks are gone).
And still, it could be better. It could be less about being incensed (Sam Seder and his spinning Bowtie of Outrage come to mind) and more about getting the word out about worthy causes and great people doing unsung work. They’ve done all right about publicising things; there could be some actual comedy (hello, Janeane) and satire. It’s probably the show most likely to find a good niche; it’s definitely got a LOT of avid listeners.
But it could all go away if they all don’t get their axes together, rather than grinding them away to nothing. And that would be a terrible loss to the democracy, I think. Not that I think it’s the greatest thing on the air – because it’s about the ONLY thing on the air as far as the view from the left side of the dial is concerned. And we all need that balance.
