I’m already on record as projecting this farce’s demise by no later than mid-summer. Looks like I got it right; Boortz notes this morning:
“The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that several employees still have not been reimbursed for their costs of attending the network’s launch. Investors and executives say they thought the network had taken in $30 million….But it turns out they have only raised $6 million. All of that money was spent in the first six weeks, and now they’re $2 million in the hole. That’s what happens when you pay radio stations to carry your shows…Something most real radio stations would never do to pick up a brand-new show. Those are called infomercials, and they run in the middle of the night or on weekends.
It won’t be long before Air America goes off the air…And it will happen, because they have no idea what they’re doing. The question I have is this: how long is Al Franken going to keep working for free?”
The answer is, The spotlight hungry Franken will continue to work for free so long as he’s got a channel to be heard on. The bottom line, here, though, is that nobody wants anything to do with paying for the idiot ramblings available on that net, Franken included.
Air America’s failure is not, as Boortz claims, simply because of Air America management not knowing what the hell they’re doing in a commercial radio sense, though I agree that factor does add to their problem… Particularly, Air America’s mismanaged because they actually believe the tripe they put on the air. Air America has not been well-managed because they don’t think like Capitalists… They think, rather, like Socialists, and thereby have no concept of how to run a successful commercial business.
But the other half, indeed, the majority of the problem, is the ideology being expressed on their air, turning listeners off. Without listeners, I don’t give a woodchuck how well the place is managed, it’s going bye bye. With Listeners, the ownership may not last, but usually, the concept and indeed the company will be snapped up by investors looking to capitalize (note the use of the word) on the niche that’s been stumbled over by the failing management.
I speak from some hard won experience, here. I spent nearly two decades as a commercial broadcaster, and can tell you that even when the station… Or for that matter the network… is grossly mismanaged, such mismanagement doesn’t prevent the operation from being at least a marginal success. If there’s people listening, someone will come along and buy the place, replacing the current mismanagement. I’ve seen it time and again over the years… and I suspect Boortz has, too, in his early years in the business. (though I suspect given Cox Radio being the fine outfit it is, he’s been somewhat insulated from this for the last decade, or so.)
Shorter version; Err America suffers from it’s own ideology in two ways:
1: It’s ideology is turning listeners off, which starves off it’s income
2: It manages within it’s socialist ideology and thereby is doomed to economic failure before it even hit air even if the first point weren’t true.
We’ll see their being offline within the month.
PS; Lying to the investors, as they’re on record as doing, doesn’t help their case for getting more operating capital, either.