XPost: alt.fan.air-america, alt.fan.barbra.streisand, alt.fan.j-garofalo   
   XPost: alt.fan.julia-roberts, alt.politics.democrats   
   From: Dr.Goldblatt@G00GLE.0RG   
      
   Liberal Radio Talks And Nobody Listens!   
      
      
   April 06, 2004, 8:41 a.m.   
   Liberal Radio Talks, Nobody Listens   
   The real story about liberal radio is the size of its audience.   
      
   As the new liberal talk-radio network finishes its first week in   
   operation, industry insiders say the most impressive thing about the   
   effort is not its performance - that has gotten mixed-to-negative   
   reviews - but the fact that the network, Air America, has received   
   such extensive press coverage relative to the tiny size of its   
   audience.   
      
   "It was off the charts in terms of how much ballyhoo and hoopla it   
   generated, considering what it is," says Michael Harrison, the editor   
   and publisher of Talkers magazine, which tracks the talk radio   
   business. "It's a modest startup, and it was treated like some kind of   
   revolution."   
      
   While it is not possible to measure the audience for a radio network   
   that has just begun operations - radio ratings just don't work that   
   way - it is possible to make some estimates about the size of that   
   audience from information about the stations which carry Air America   
   programming.   
      
   The management of Air America originally said the company would   
   purchase a group of stations which would broadcast the liberal   
   network, but, at least so far, that has not happened. Instead, Air   
   America is heard on five stations: WLIB in New York, KBLA in Los   
   Angeles, WNTD in Chicago, KPOJ in Portland, Oregon, and KCAA in Inland   
   Empire, California. That means the network's programming is on the air   
   in five of the 285 radio markets in the United States. It is also   
   available on the Internet and on XM radio.   
      
   All the broadcast outlets are AM stations, and in the past all have   
   been rated near the bottom in their respective markets. According to   
   published ratings from Arbitron, the company that measures radio   
   audiences, WLIB was ranked 25th (out of 38 stations measured) in the   
   New York market in the last quarter. KBLA, which broadcast   
   Spanish-language programming before switching to Air America, was   
   ranked 38th (out of 51 stations measured) in Los Angeles. WNTD, which   
   also broadcast in Spanish, was rated 36th (out of 43 stations   
   measured) in Chicago. KPOJ was rated 25th (out of 28 stations   
   measured) in Portland. And KCAA did not have ratings high enough to be   
   measured.   
      
   In terms of actual numbers, Arbitron officials say the so-called   
   "cume" rating, which refers to the cumulative number of listeners who   
   tune in to a station each week, was 315,000 for WLIB in the fall of   
   2003. For KBLA, it was 201,000. For WNTD, it was 74,000. And for KPOJ,   
   it was 41,000. Again, KCAA was too small to measure.   
      
   Each station was struggling before the switch - after all, it is   
   unlikely a station that is doing really well would change its format.   
   It is not clear whether the change will result in more or less   
   listeners in the long run, but it seems reasonable to conclude that in   
   the short run, each station will lose a portion of its old   
   listenership.   
      
   For example, there is a growing controversy in New York over the new   
   identity of WLIB. Some listeners who were loyal to the black-oriented   
   message of the station - as well as its Caribbean-music programming -   
   are angry at the ownership for leasing most of WLIB's broadcast day to   
   the mostly-white Air America team. "Air America is in no way offering   
   a satisfactory substitute for local community programming," one   
   activist told the New York Daily News.   
      
   In Los Angeles and Chicago, listeners who tuned in to hear   
   Spanish-language programming now hear politically oriented talk in   
   English. It seems likely that both stations, along with WLIB, have   
   lost at least some of the listeners who enjoyed the old programming,   
   and it is not clear if that loss has been compensated by the addition   
   of new listeners who want to hear Air America. (Another station, WMNN   
   in Minneapolis, Minnesota, broadcasts the program of Air America's top   
   talent, Minnesota native Al Franken, but does not carry the rest of   
   the network's programming).   
      
   In any event, given the stations' performance in the past, plus the   
   effect of the recent changes, it is unlikely that the entire   
   nationwide listenership of Air America exceeds the number of people   
   watching the local TV news on any given evening in a single large - or   
   perhaps even medium-sized - television market. And that casts a new   
   light on Franken's stated ambition to use his radio program to defeat   
   President Bush in November.   
      
   "This show is about taking back our country," Franken said on the   
   first day of his program, The O'Franken Factor. "It's about   
   relentlessly hammering away at the Bush administration until they   
   crack and crumble this November, because, don't get me wrong, friends,   
   they are going down."   
      
   Given the size of the Air America audience - one radio expert called   
   it "microscopic" - it seems reasonable to say that if the president   
   indeed goes down, it won't be because of the new liberal talk radio   
   network. After the intense media attention that surrounded Air   
   America's debut fades away, the network will likely spend the rest of   
   this year trying to build a tiny listenership into a small one, and   
   then to go from there. In any event, it won't be shaking the world.   
   "Everybody deals with it based on the premise that it is big, that is   
   somehow has a chance to make an impact on the world on a level that is   
   far beyond its physical ability," says Michael Harrison. "It's not a   
   national audience."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)