Air America has failed
After weeks of denial, the lefties file for Chapter 11 protection
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Liberals — Comments (38) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Air America, the lefty attempt to create a warped version of Rush Limbaugh , is near death. They've filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after weeks of denial. The New York firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP is now handling the bankrupt network's disposition.
On Friday, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn told The Associated Press that the filing became necessary only recently after negotiations with a creditor from the company's early days broke down.
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Horn declined to name the creditor with which talks had reached a logjam. The company will operate in the interim with funding from its current investor group.
While the federal government protects them from the entities to whom they owe money and their existence, they say they'll keep spewing the lefty claptrap for, in the words of brand new CEO Scott Ellberg, "the coming months." (Danny Goldberg had quit the post in April.)
(Read More ...)
It can be assumed that they tried to hit up some additional charities for cash but were rebuffed, though I've found nothing to document this. However, Brian Maloney tells us that lefty fundraiser and MIA Huffington Puffington blogger Sheldon Drobny tried to purchase the ratty network but couldn't pull it off.
One wonders when they will have their epiphany, realizing that this was a bad idea to begin with. It's not a "make it and they will come" proposition. They seem not to understand that Rush Limbaugh is not popular because he got there first. Limbaugh created a product which they people wanted, and this came from knowledge and instincts honed from years in the business. You can't pull some third-rate comedy writer with a miserable attitude off the streets and plop him into a studio expecting success.
Air America, it's time to cut your losses and repay the kids. You've failed.
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Air America has failed 38 Comments (0 topical, 38 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
For how little scope they have and how short of a span of time they've operated, they're already $20 million plus in the hole and owe Franken over $350,000...
One of these days we should be nice and tell our lefty friends that just because they like big government doesn't mean that they can make a successful business venture spending in similar fashion. :)
"I could explain, but that would be very long, very convoluted, and make you look very stupid. Nobody wants that... except maybe me."
The tab for AA should be picked up by the feds, like RFE or Radio Marti. After all, AA is just bringing the truth to the American people who've been conditioned by the Bush cabal to accept the lies of FoxNews and the Bush press conferences without question.
And just for grins, where is the $850,000 that was supposed to be returned to the Boys and Girls Club?
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
Garbage should always be tossed out.
To survive in the free market. Supply and demand. Not enough moonbats buying a lousy product.
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us - Voltaire
Never mind. Just tune into their next special: "Criminal Negligence - The Bush Deficits".
Where are all the rich lefties? That's right they are only left when its OPM.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Anyone actually listen to Air America? I tried a couple of times just to see what the other side of the ditch was thinking about and had to say and could not stand for the most part what passed for talent on their network. AA failed as much for lousy talent that no one outside of committed Moon Bats wants to listen to as for its failed ideology. There’s lots of Lefties out there that are at least entertaining in some way, but are at least not kooks, I’d put Ed Shultz in that category.
During my listening to AA, I’d say I disagreed which what I heard 99 percent of the time on an intellectual basis, and was entertained about 10 percent of the time. Ideology is one thing, but radio is a business, you have a product no one wants, you go out of business.
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Another South Park Republican spouting off !
available, and I think it was live. I tuned in once to hear Jeannine Garofalo and some guy talking. I thought it would be kinda cute to hear her pretend to be serious.
It ended quickly with me asking myself aloud: "Why am I listening to this $**+?"
Now, I can see how the lefties who aren't uptight could disagree with but listen to Limbaugh: he runs a good show and he can be genuinely funny. I'm not at all uptight, but I just couldn't listen to those clowns on AA. I can't understand, really, how anyone sane could.
Most definitely a low entertainment value from AA, but I have to admit that some Conservative talk radio hosts are my cup of tea ether. Nice thing about the R side of the dial, more offerings to choose from, most of which are entertaining.
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Another South Park Republican spouting off !
Rush isn't first an activist, a politician, or anything like that. He's an entertainer, and he runs a tight ship. Anything and everything that threatens to make the show less entertaining is slashed.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
always agreed that Randi Rhodes was absolutely repelling. That is, the ones who ever listened to AA themselves. Many never did.
Air America was never needed. One can get the same claptrap, at taxpayer expense, from NPR -- no ads, slicker production, in business for decades.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
of being coherent. Still, have you ever noticed how NPR can take the most amazing, astounding current events and present them in such a way that you fall asleep?
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
...NPR leans a little to the right. Of course that's relative. But by right, I mean right of, say, CNN. Which is devoted to being firmly in the middle. Totally subjective of course. NPR seems about on par with the Economist. The whole idea being that its listened to by decision makers and they need the best information even if that might appear a piece at a time to undermine some ideological position of theirs. So it's not opinion and there's no agenda other than avoiding upsetting the listeners while keeping them listening. Hence the extremely laid-back tone: So that the medicine can be swallowed. But what they are selling is a feeling of being above the fray.
Air America had no chance: they were competing against CPB-funded NPR. Their market is being distorted by big government checks subsidizing their established competitor.
What a shame. We need to kill CPB so they can try again.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
have a monopoly on the moonbat marxist crowd, because they had to compete with Pacifica.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Air America failed because it was neither funny nor insightful.
I listened a couple of times and found it to be mostly shrill.
NPR is quality programming.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
Franken came here to Missoula to do a show at the U. Apparently it was enough to up one of our sleeping senile old Stalinists, who promptly wrote a letter to the paper about how she'd discovered Air America, great liberal talk, here in Missoula! Everyone listen to Air America, please!
It was dropped from the local station THE VERY NEXT DAY.
Randi Rhohdes. I have tried listening to her show more than once, just to see what she was saying, but every time I couldn't stand to listen. Anyone who has heard her shrill knows what I'm talking about. She rants about the same things non-stop. If you listen to her show for five minutes on Monday, you will know what she is going to say all week.
Another thing about AA is that they rarely ever talk to people who call in, unlike virtually any other conservative show.
Evil prevails only when good men do nothing.
Everytime one of my liberal friends sends me some YouTube clip of Olbermann spouting off, I just start looking at the time elapsed and after a minute, I decide that I'm so bored that I can't suffer through another 4 minutes of it.
His ratings show that I'm not alone. LOL
What is MSNBC going to replace Olbermann with? Radio stations can pick up other syndicated shows to replace AA, but I think MSNBC has already drained the boring-no-talent-hack well dry...
was that you could hear the same things on NPR, PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN, and your hometown paper. The supply of left wing media was already vast.
Rush Limbaugh tapped into a market that was starving for outlets. I to this day remember the first time I heard Rush Limbaugh's show in 1989. I happened on it by accident as I was driving out to lunch. Those of you under 35 could never appreciate the shock I felt when I heard someone on the radio that agreed with me as a conservative. I remember being completely stunned. Things have certainly gotten alot better!
That is what the left can't understand about Rush. The conservatives were already out there waiting for a voice in the media. Rush did not create conservatives.
I don't know a single Liberal that listens to Air America. They have tried but they find it vapid.
Rush Limbaugh was a single talk show host who brought a new idea to radio. Air America was an entire network trying to do something that's already been done. Not the same thing.
If you think that Air America resembles CNN or NPR in any way then I suspect you listen to none of those stations.
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw
and its the same liberal tripe. The only difference is their were more insults and hatred on Air America. NPR creates issues only a left wing nut could be interested in. It is extreme to the left. The clinton news network speaks for itself.
You also made my point. Your liberal friends did not have to listen to Air America. They had so much other liberal media they could watch.
There was political talk radio before Rush. In fact one of the talk shows he replaced was a liberal talk show by a guy named Michael Jackson (not the one with the glove). I was also stunned when he first started. I'd listen to the liberal talk (because at the time I did a lot of driving for work and that's what would come in the whole way), and I'd either be angry or amused by the crap that he was spewing. Then when Rush came on (I think about the time Dukakas was running) and replaced an hour of Michael Jackson (later the entire show) I was thrilled. The guy was saying things that actually made sense!
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
"It isn't that Liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so." Reagan.
Air America Radio is a sort of National Endowment of the Arts, with private funding.
Our local AA affiliate wanted donations from listeners so they could stay on the air. That really is an amazing business model.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
So the taxpayers can pick up their share of that generous contribution you make to get the handy dandy tote bag. This station wasn't giving the tax writeoff OR the tote bag.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
AA sought protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. That means they're planning to rehabilitate the company rather than liquidate it. If they can get their hands on cash, they can operate for maybe a year or so before the Bankruptcy Judge (political affilation unknown) kicks them out.
One benefit of filing is that it will allow AA to reject onerous leases and compensation packages.
During the meantime, their investor group can probably buy up enough of the claims (for pennies on the dollar) to gerrymander a "Plan of Reorganization," and thereby cut the debt load to something managable. So AA may be down, but they're not out yet.
If the insiders fail, the creditors get to punch their tickets on the Chapter 7 express. Til then, don't get excited.
That should certainly be a criminal rather than civil matter. Unfortunately Mr. Spitzer only seems interested in politically correct justice against people that earn money.
Is that the hosts, the few times I heard them, were really unpleasant to listen to. Grating actually. It just wasn't any fun. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert make it fun so people go with it. But it's not about the jokes, its about the lack of shrill pitch and utter hopelessness.
I'm neither surprised by this or particularly saddened.
nope...just Texas hayfever...never mind.
Whatever will we do without the fair and balanced coverage they gave us to offset the shrill kook fringe conservative control of our minds?
Proud to be: politically incorrect, straight, white, pro-life Christian, and of the opinion the spotted owl tastes just like chicken.