Why Does Air America Suck?

I've been meaning to comment about Air America Radio for some time now, and since the shit has hit the fan this week over controversial statements made by Randi Rhodes, one of their main radio personalities, I figured now would be an opportune time.

When Air America first hit the airwaves, I was instantly hooked. Although they had a rough start financially due to shady characters, not for lack of listeners as right wingers would have you believe, AAR took off and did fairly well with their programming. Their main faces at the start included Randi Rhodes and Al Franken - the latter being the high profile name that a startup company like AAR would need to garner some initial interest.

Here's my beef with Air America. Their flagship station is supposedly based in New York City, although you wouldn't know it since they've changed bands from 1190AM to 1600AM, practically to the breaking point on the radio dial. There are certain times when I'm driving where the weak ass signal is so bad, that stepping on the brakes causes interference. You can also drive in sections of NYC when you get the sense that AAR is constantly playing background music for their hosts, only to realize that its another station overlapping and competing for the same frequency.

This is supposed to be the flagship station and it's become a fucking joke. Not to mention the programming changes that have happened over the last 3 years or so. They've rid themselves of shows like Mark and Marc with Mark Reilly and Marc Maron, who were very entertaining and spoke of progressive issues. They were bumped for a short lived Jerry Springer show which, believe it or not, wasn't bad. But then AAR got rid of him for a show hosted by Sam Greenfield and Armstrong Williams. Armstrong Fucking Williams! The conservative commentator embroiled in controversy after being paid to promote Bush administration policies. What the fuck was he doing on a progressive talk station?! If I wanted to listen to someone like him, I wouldn't be tuning in to AAR. Mike Malloy was on for a while at night but he's been gone for a couple of years now, summarily fired without warning or reason.

And now AAR is in the middle of another programming shake up. The "flagship" station of New York's progressive talk has bumped morning Air America talk completely off it's scheduling in favor of health talk and some guy named Coz Carson. Progressive talk doesn't even start until noon. The noon hour would start off with a bang bringing Thom Hartmann's syndicated show to New York, but now even he's been replaced with Ed Schultz. Yeah, you heard me, Ed Schultz. Randi Rhodes, the only mainstay for the entire Air America run so far is on from 3pm to 6pm; Rachel Maddow has been bumped around from her early days in the morning, to a weekend show and now luckily, is on daily from 6pm to 8pm. Just this week AAR has decided to add Al Sharpton to its lineup from 8pm to 10pm. Alan Colmes rounds out the evening from 10pm to 1am and then it's back to crap for 11 hours.

Mark Green, President of AAR who took over a little over a year ago is in the middle of running the company into the ground. And speaking of Green, I have to talk briefly about the Rhodes suspension.

Randi Rhodes was suspended after a public appearance on behalf of AAR in San Francisco in which she called Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "big fucking whores." If you don't already know, Mark Green is a Clinton supporter. Here's the video.




Was it over the top? Perhaps. But to me it looked like a comedy routine. A slap on the wrist may have been in order if she were there on behalf of AAR, but a suspension? For something she said off the air? Here are a couple of comments on the blogs at AAR.

Less happy every day
As if it wasn't bad enough that the website is rediculously [sic] slow, and I can't even listen online anymore without having media player "buffer" every 30 seconds, AAR is now censoring it's talent over crap they said OFF AIR?? What is this, Murdock? We're no better than the neo-cons when we start punishing people about what they do off air. So.... can't listen online, can't read online, and when I do get to a radio... I can't listen to one of my favorite talents on this station because she offended Hillary Clinton? This is a load of crap and a surefire way to guarantee ANOTHER bankruptcy for this station.
By magplad April 3, 2008 - 3:40pm

I can't believe this
Randi gone??? What a disaster. I just watched the clip on the Huffington Post side. She was doing stand up, what's the big deal??!!?! I hope I will listen to Randi, Sam and Mark Maron on NovaM soon. Please hire them!!!!! The CEO's of Air America have destroyed the greatest radio station there was. Very sad
By daboerst April 3, 2008 - 9:16pm

Greene- Get a Set
Randi's stand up was unfortunate. I disagree with her approach. But her show is one of the very few left on AAR that make it worth even scrounging around looking for. But for Hartman, Rhodes, and Maddow the network now sucks. I listen less and less to AAR. You are losing stations and now even "streamers". I can admire 16 year old debaters, but I really don't want to listen to them for days on end any more than I want to listen to your weird science. You don't want to eat meat, good for you. But that message is not why I tune in. At a time when Limbaugh is gaming the electoral system on hundreds of stations, you are worried about one off air performance? WTF are you thinking about?
By hamblin02906 April 4, 2008

There you have it. Randi was "Shustered." Apparently Randi Rhodes was planning on going back home but I don't know if she was planning on continuing her show from Florida. Put on your tinfoil hats because it seems really strange to me to be doing all these programming changes, losing even more hours to vegan shows and endless drivel about what vitamins to take and now the suspension of their most popular host just six months before the 2008 general election.

I was told the AAR was sold not too long ago by the Green family although Mark Green remained its president. I haven't done it yet, but follow the money and maybe we'll see why this station has gone into the crapper. I'm sure there will be more to emerge out of this situation.