The original fluffy article on Air America’s “success 

http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/5320455.html

A year ago today, former Minnesotans Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher were the first voices heard as the Air America liberal-radio network was launched from a funky New York City studio.

Conservative talk-show hosts hooted. Liberals already had a broadcast network, they said -- it was called National Public Radio. Radio executives were skeptical that a network based on politics could succeed.

Initially, it looked as if the skeptics would prevail. The ensuing months were turbulent, at times almost terminal. Air America lost its Los Angeles and Chicago affiliates. Then it lost its top executives, Evan Cohen and Mark Walsh, who, as it turned out, hadn't brought as much money to the table as they had promised. Yet the new network's ratings began to rise, and stations around the country began to pick up its programming.

A year later, new management and more than 50 affiliates -- once again including Chicago and Los Angeles -- have turned Air America into one of radio's biggest success stories in recent history. Its rocky ride to stability is chronicled, at times painfully, in an HBO documentary, "Left of the Dial," that premieres at 7 p.m. today on the pay-cable channel.

"There are some cringeworthy moments for some of the people here," said Danny Goldberg, the new chief executive of Air America's parent company. "I'm just in awe of all of them because they hung in there. Despite all these problems, they wouldn't let it die. The center held."

The network's second year will be devoted to growth, Goldberg said in an interview this week. The former music-industry executive and longtime political activist said Air America's programs now air in 17 of the nation's top 20 radio markets -- locally, Air America programming runs on KTNF (950 AM) -- and reaches 55 percent of the country's population.

"We'd like to be at 80 percent at the end of the year," he added.

The next year may bring other changes. Franken, who has said he plans a U.S. Senate run from Minnesota, confirmed Tuesday that he'd purchased a house in Minneapolis and plans to start broadcasting his show from the Twin Cities as early as January.

In a separate interview, co-host Lanpher was mum about a potential return to the Twin Cities -- but that appears unlikely, since she's working on a new project for the network.

"It will be an arts and culture show," she said. "If it takes off, it would be really exciting. I'd be returning to what I love."

Franken said he's learned a great deal over the past year, but for him the biggest lesson was: "If you work for someone who says he's invested money in your company, try to find the actual money."

Deborah Caulfield Rybak is at dcrybak@startribune.com.

My letter to the writer:

Where are the numbers in your article? How many daily listeners for each Air America show (Franken & Lanpher, Randi Rhodes, Garofalo, Morning Sedition and Unfiltered ) versus Hannity, Prager, Hewitt, Limbaugh, Ingraham, Medved, Bennet, How about head to head listeners in each market, or at least the Twin Cities? Nothing about content except they are on the left? Since you mention that the founders are gone because they didn't have enough money, who took over and how much money did it take to keep them afloat? How about revenue, are they even breaking even? Ad rate comparison? Isn't it fair to say that it is too early to talk about the success of Air America if it is still on the air only because the investors are buying the air time? Just how is your piece anything more than just an Air America press release? How did this article come about? Did Air America call you guys, or did an editor come up with the idea for the article, or did you? It appears that whoever had the original idea, it was never intended to actually dig out any facts about whether or not there was any real success or if it still just an experiment.

Her completely lame reply:

From: Deborah Rybak

Well, my article did have numbers. The kind of article you're describing general runs in trade publications...not a daily newspaper. But thanks for writing....

My response to that:

So is she saying that only people inside the radio trade need to know those things? Notice she avoids ALL of my tough questions about real success. As I said, this was a fluffy press release for Air America, and they should have to buy an ad to get this kind of coverage.

PS I spent about a half hour listening to Franken the other day before I had to turn it off. Same old MPR type crap- all the guests agree with the hosts, most of the “question and answer stuff is obviously prescreened, and 85% of the ad time was spent on promoting their own shows. That implies to me that they can’t sell very much of it. It seems to me that running ads for yourself on your own radio station is preaching to the choir. You may get more of your current listeners to listen more hours, but you won’t get many new listeners. If you want to hear it done right, listen to Medved, Hewitt, Prager, Ingraham, etc. on AM 1280. All of them routinely have guests they disagree with, and often invite calls from people with opposition views only, and let callers who disagree with the guest directly question them. At AA, they like the same situation they had at college, everybody in the room agrees with the same loony leftist claptrap, so they think the whole world must be that way.