How I wish Air America would reshuffle itself

Alot of people here are talking about Air America like they're pissed off that some others are critisizing it as if we're somehow apostates for doing so. And that we shouldn't concern ourselves that it might not be working as well as we'd hope.

Well I do think alot needs to be done and I'm not convinced it's getting good ratings just because alot of people are streaming. Anyway, like a baseball team I think a reshuffling of the lineup a bit and a couple of big hires would do the trick just fine. I've never heard either the Phil Hendrie Show or the Mike Malloy show but I do know that they are both liberal and they have both been successful and I think that with Hendrie he'd make the station on balance less serious and that's a good thing cause the only decent show on it that get's light enough is O'Franken I think. And everything before noon is unlistenable and almost surely has zero relative listeners up against Stern, Imus, and all the local turds.

Anyway here's what I'd do. Feel free to send this idea to the network. Actually, please do. If I were management there, I'd have on Eastern Standard Time:

6 - 8 TBD, rework of existing shows with some entertaintment value
8 - 12 Mike Malloy (Live from Chicago)
12 - 3 O'Franken
3 - 7 Randi Rhodes
7 - 10 Majority Report w/ Jeaneane Garofalo, Chuck D, & Sam Seder
10 - 12 Phil Hendrie (Live from LA)

This would also make the network more national with some non new York based programs.

Morning: TBD, not sure.
Noon to Four: Randi Rhodes.
Four to Seven: Guy James
Seven to Ten: Mike Malloy
Overnight: Peter Werbe, Thom Hartmann, whoever.

That line up would effin' ROCK.

I get the joke, the show is fake, but I don't understand why people like Phil. His characters are so annoying and the show is pointless. All IMO of course. :)

The only AAR change I'd make is to put Malloy on after the Majority Report. I don't think Malloy is a good fit in the morning.

he's a popular syndicated show and that alot of people find him funny and that he's a democrat. And he's NOT on in New York or Boston.

Why not have one light silly show on a network? SILLYNESS is not mutually exclusive from liberalism. The Daily Show has sillyness, the Simpsons has sillyness, and they're great satiracal shows.

And as far as Malloy goes, I thought somebody said he used to do midmornings, I don't know why he couldn't do 8 - 12. All I know is that we need something that can attract a good audience before Franken, and I have absoltely no confidence that the nobody's on now are doing the job.

.. he is funny, but he's made more than one Pro-Bush rant (mind you, I haven't heard one lately, but neither have I heard and Anti-Bush material either).

I tuned out to his show weeks ago after hearing one pro-Bunnypants diatribe too many.

they need to have some moderates or someone who can at least address republican arguments and views with reason and evidence not screaming and personal attacks. Otherwise you have one station that preaches the choir and that small ammount of people will doom it to failure on the national level. In another thread I pointed out that if they would syndicate certain shows and not force stations to take the whole line up, they would get many more takers and much more air time.

oops meant to respond to #1. And Phil Hendry is still funny even if he is pro bush. He rips just about everyone and his pro bush stance is that he really believes that we are in a war with Extremist Islam and he doens't view the democrats as a party that realizes that. That how he has explained it.

party" doesn't realize it as far as elected officials in congress go, I'd say that alot of the sort of activist type left doesn't get it

Phil Hendrie - his show is sometimes amusing for a few minutes, but totally ridiculous, if he's the one I think he is. No one could possibly take him seriously, could they? Is he the guy who has a caller (sounds like the same caller every time - Hendrie himself??) purporting to be someone like a teacher, a scout troop leader, or some such thing, and who says something ridiculously stupid, usually sexual or racial, and sometimes involving beating children or sometimes something that sounds almost pedophilic, and then has "angry" callers call in? If he's that guy, I think he should stay off Air America. I realize that it is satire, but it is totally tasteless satire. If he's not "that guy" then I apologize.

I totally agree with Mike Malloy in the morning, though. Franken is okay where he is, I guess, but I wish he'd stop being so "kissy" with Republican friends.

6 - 8 TBD, rework of existing shows with some entertaintment value
8 - 12 Mike Malloy (Live from Chicago)
12 - 3 O'Franken
3 - 6 Anybody but Rude Randi Rhodes
6-7 current programming
7 - 10 Majority Report w/ Jeaneane Garofalo, Chuck D, & Sam Seder
10 - 12 Phil Hendrie (Live from LA)

to Phil Hendrie but not Randi Rhodes, there is no help for ya, friend. :-)

Hate to break it to you, friend, but Randi Rhodes
is a ratings monster. She was number one in her
market for years and years and years. You might
think she's rude. A lot of us think she rocks.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Randi rubs people the wrong way, I get it. Sometimes
she's too much for even me. But there is that old thing
about how they want either love or hate, they'll take both,
but apathy is a killer, you know?

I froze in stunned silence. After a suitable pause, she said that Air America should write the check!!

`

moring sedition is on too early for me on
the west coast so I haven't had a chance to
listen to it .

what I'd like to hear is more TALK RADIO and less talking radio.

Randi is the ONLY real talk radio.

bring on Malloy, Guy James and others who really engage callers.

the other shows, esp. Franken, barely tolerate the occasional 'real' callers in favor of guests and scripted routines...

the balance is off, imho of course.

there are so many boring interviews and so little allowing callers to have conversations with the hosts.

By the time majority report rolls in, I am radioes out. I don't care what comes after Randi, really.
Except that reading on DU the pearls of malloy, i know I wouldn't listen to your icon. Sorry. If I want "no difference" rhetoric, i could tune in Pacifica.

<scratching head>

maybe you should pop over to www.whiterosesociety.org and listen to the 'best of malloy' or one of the archived shows...

"no difference" rhetoric does NOT sound like the "have I told you how much I hate these people" rhetoric I remember from MM

:shrug:

and hired the "local" liberal hosts who already have been doing shows and have somewhat of a following.. Guy James is a prime example.. He broadcasts from the "belly of the beast" , and has a "relationship" with the station that he's on already.. They should have offered the station MONEY to have Guy do a daily show, and when the ratings picked up (as they would), the station would have probably been eager to have MORE programming.. It IS about the money after all..

Instead of top-down...they should have worked bottom-up in local markets.. They could have still had their "celeb" shows , but there are many hours to fill and the local stations around the country are in it for the money..

The amaterurish way they "rented" space in Chicago & LA, has hurt them.. The "station" they chose in LA sucked.. I do get the Loma Linda station, but they only carry Franken 3-6..

There ARE some people "out here" who are hungering for our fix, but it's hard because the ones with the money keep wasting it..

But it looks like they're learning from their mistakes.
I heard (don't remember where) that they might be going
the syndication route and letting stations pick and choose
the programs they want to pick up.

Just give me my Randi. That's all that matters to me.

We have "The Ed Schultz Show" instead of Randi Rhodes. I've heard that Ed Schultz was a conservative talk radio host in one of the Dakotas, who saw the light and now is a liberal. I'm not sure how many stations are carrying his show, but I think his market is growing. He definitely knows how to do the talk radio routine.

But everything else. His whole Style and cadence is like a carbon copy, and I've heard him sort of "play dumb" on subjects he doesn't want to talk about just like I've heard Rush do.

He broadcasts from Fargo, ND. I used to live there and for the longest time he was a complete asshole. I was blown away when I heard he had "seen the light" and that my mom now listens to him.

My mom listens to his local show religiously. She cannot stand his national show BECAUSE he is so Rush-like. She claims his local show(airing in the Fargo area) is much, much better.

Then work the rest of the schedule back.

I'm a big Malloy fan. He should have been their first pick. Since they won't give him his own show....what about having Malloy join one of the present shows as a co-host?

...are called? Laughing stocks.

I know. The first station I worked for had a station manager chicken out of a format adjustment before a ratings book came in. When the ratings books came out, the then non-existant station had tripled it's numbers and gone from the ratings wastelands to second in the market... except that it exist anymore.

Do you know how hard it is for a #50-60 market station to make the front page of the Radio and Records newspaper without some form of obscenity involved? Well... we managed.

Translation: Would you please shut the hell about Air America until you have some ratings in hand and then have a remote fucking clue what the hell you are talking about.

Sam and Jeanene is a good idea!

Rely more on listeners, and be less offensive with those darned commercials, as well as getting more done in an hours worth of radio.

and that, especially for a start-up, is a GREAT thing.

So I'm happy to put up with those (sometimes obnoxious) commercials.

>Well I do think alot needs to be done and I'm not convinced it's getting good ratings just because alot of people are streaming.<

What radio station or network do you currently manage?

RealNetworks has sent out multiple press releases over the past several weeks detailing the record breaking streaming of Air America. AA got 2 million streams the first week it was in business, and is still averaging 50,000 unique streams for each of its programs.

The above is a higher number than any non-news-related event. Period. It also far outnumbers anything else on RealPlayer.

If the ratings were so unacceptable, AA wouldn't have been able to attract A-list advertisers. They also wouldn't still be signing up affiliates. After the recent cleanup of the executive suite, they have a much better chance of survival as well.

Of course, this is my opinion, but I'll take an imperfect AA over more of the same right-wing crap on the airwaves.

Julie

Would you rather have an unlistenable morning show block than Mike Malloy, someone who clearly already has a big following here? Would you rather not pick somebody up who can play a live show instead of a Franken re-run? What's the big deal.

You have yet to demonstrate that you have a clue about radio, and the fact that you ignore their streaming ratings isn't contributing to your credibility in this area

and the fact that 50,000 people stream per show out of a nation of 280 million people and probably at least 10 percent of the streams are coming from non Americans does not give me any reason to believe that the Arbitron ratings are going to be good.

Saying "I'm not convinced it's getting good ratings just because alot of people are streaming" is NOT "addressing the issue". Also, pulling lines like "probably at least 10 percent of the streams are coming from non Americans" from your ass doesn't help

Smart huh?? Man that'll keep em tuned in by re-runing a show that was just on 6 hours ago. They could hire Mike and put him back on at his 8:00 pm slot.

I'd listen daily LIKE I USED TO when Malloy was on.....

David

That fuckface Hendrie is another DINO who admit that he likes Rush and is in full suppotr of the war and administration. The day they put that blowjob hack on the AirAmerica lineup is the day you can herald the demise of the network.

And is hacky at it.

You don't explain how it would be bad for the network. Remind me not hire you as CEO of any company. That replacing a re-run with an extremely successful syndicated show in markets where he's yet to be heard live would be bad for a network.

You don't explain how it would be bad for the network

And you dont explain how it would be good for the network. You just claim that it will.

.

MOrniing sedition is not bad--mostly because of Marin's energy.

Unfiltered-- at times lacking focus. Too much high pitched screaming or laughing and not enough commentary.
Too giggly.

Franken--boring. Not enough commentary. I get the feeling it is because Al Franken wants to retain friendships that are important to his career and these friendships are with people who have the opposite political point of view. See--Randi or Malloy or others, do not have to worry about this, Apparently, as it seems to me, Franken does NOT want to go out on a limb--so he is rather soft on the oppostion party because he does not want to jeapardize his career. He also tends to drift--

My two cents

I would like to see Mike Malloy at 8-11 Pacific M-F time slot

The following as full time, replacement, best of replay or weekend in no particular order:

Bernie Ward and Ray Taliaferro from KGO San Francisco (overnight?)
Mike Webb (and possibly, Erin Hart) from KIRO Seattle
Jim Hightower. (Hightower with Molly Ivins?)
Robert Scheer (Left, Right and Center on NPR)
Tavis Smiley (NPR)
Guy James
Peter Werbe

probably forgetting someone, but these are my favorites.