Originally Posted By Eric Paddon Despite all the free publicty from the media elites, Air America has never been able to gain much of a following with those who they need to impress most: The people. And amidst that ratings failure across the nation as a whole is a sea of financial mismanagement touched on in this latest overview that shows how this experiment is fast on the verge of extinction: <a href="http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2006/05/air-america-budget-cuts-al-franken-jim.html" target="_blank">http://radioequalizer.blogspot .com/2006/05/air-america-budget-cuts-al-franken-jim.html</a>
Originally Posted By jonvn From the article: "Who says liberals don't know how to function in the private sector?" Not exactly an unimpeachable source for information. When you can come up with a source that is not got some sort of political agenda, and is simply reporting on radio happenings, it might be worth reading. Otherwise, it's just junk.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-04-29ba.html" target="_blank">http://www.city-journal.org/ht ml/eon2006-04-29ba.html</a> >>Just past its second birthday, Air America, the Left’s great hope to defeat the Right in the talk radio wars, has no reason to celebrate. Winter 2006 Arbitron ratings, leaked to Matt Drudge earlier this week and reported in greater detail by the invaluable Radio Equalizer blog, show Air America registering a weak 1.0 share in Los Angeles, an even tinier share in Chicago, and a catastrophic drop in New York City, where flagship station WLIB hemorrhaged nearly half its listenership over the last ratings period, falling from a mediocre 1.4 to a pathetic 0.8 share. That’s smaller than the all-Caribbean format the network replaced when it first launched in New York and nowhere near the ratings of conservative heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in the city. Air America’s Gotham numbers are so dismal that WLIB is booting the network off the station later this summer, industry publication Mediaweek has just announced. You’d think that the public’s growing dissatisfaction with President Bush and the Iraq War would translate into lots of listeners for Air America’s “progressive†talk, especially with the fawning free publicity the network and its top host, comedian Al Franken, have enjoyed from the mainstream press. But even hard-core liberals (who make up only about one-fifth of the American electorate, it’s important to remember) must find Air America’s incessant and often moronic Bush bashing monotonous and unentertaining—the kiss of death for talk radio. Further, liberals already have NPR—and for that matter, the New York Times, network newscasts, CNN, and most of the mainstream media. Conservative and libertarian voices dominate the radio dial because they offer a much-needed response to the liberal media mainstream. The Right has done well on cable television and in the blogosphere for the same reason. Air America, created and kept afloat by a handful of wealthy liberal financiers, meets no such market demand. Even as Air America’s hosts snicker about President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, the network seems destined to disappear from the radio dial before the president leaves the White House.<<
Originally Posted By jonvn And what part of my post was not clear? When you can find an article not written by someone with a political agenda, it will be worth reading. This second article is just more of the same. One of the articles by this guy is called "The Plot to Shush Rush and O’Reilly." If you can't come up with something that is impartial, then your quotes are of little worth.
Originally Posted By Moderation I personally don't care if AA lives or dies- as a moderate I find thier strident checken little act only slightly less annoying than the 'revise facts to fit opinion' right wing talking heads- but I am going to join in with a yellow flag for source. If this had legs it would be on Fox not blogspot.
Originally Posted By jonvn I used to listen to them myself, and also got sick of them. Talk radio is basically annoying. Someone making some ridiculous extreme statement so people will call up and argue with them. Even if Bush DID do something right, they'd still bag on him. What's the point in listening to that?
Originally Posted By Beaumandy << When you can come up with a source that is not got some sort of political agenda, and is simply reporting on radio happenings, it might be worth reading. Otherwise, it's just junk. >> Are you trying to say that Air America has strong ratings and that they are not losing money? Why would you call the story junk just because there is a little sarcasm thrown in. Do you even know what a Arbitron rating is?? If you do, then you will know that Air America is a disaster. Are you saying the Arbitron ratings are not junk?? Rush Limbaugh on the other hand is still gaining listeners ( he has 20 million ) and is gaining markets. How can this be??? Fox news is crushing it's liberal competitiors. Yet jonvn calls the story junk?? OK... back it up.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And what part of my post was not clear?> It's clear; it's just not authoritative.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Are you trying to say that Air America has strong ratings and that they are not losing money?" Did I say that? No. And you know why? Because I don't know if they are or are not. What I actually did say was that when you can find a source of information that does not have a political agenda, then the information will be worth reading. Otherwise, it's junk. "Why would you call the story junk just because there is a little sarcasm thrown in." Because it is written by someone with a clear bias. I would think that from my original post, that would be plainly obvious. "Do you even know what a Arbitron rating is??" This has nothing to do with what I said, and is irrelevant to my point. "Rush Limbaugh on the other hand" I couldn't care less about him. That has nothing to do with my point on the subject, to which you were responding to. And that point was, if you can find an article without agenda behind it, it will be worth reading, otherwise, it is not. "OK... back it up." Back WHAT up? That the article is biased and the author has a political agenda? I already did that with the quote I made in my original response. What you are engaging in is called a "strawman" argument. Putting words in my mouth and then saying they are wrong. I said NONE of the things you are attempting to ascribe to me. I simply said "find a non-biased source, otherwise, a biased source is worth very little." And it is not. It is not an objective reporting of the news, and therefore not necessarily reflective of the actual situation. There, in only 50 lines of text, I reiterated for you the exact same thing I said previously in 5 lines. I suppose I could say the same thing again in 200 lines, if that will help make it clearer.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<Did I say that? No. And you know why? Because I don't know if they are or are not.>> You said the story was junk which means the numbers and the other points in the story were not true... junk. I know the Air America problems from many sources, all say they have beyond bad ratings, and they are losing money by the millions. So the story was not junk. It was full of facts along with some sarcasm regarding librerals trying to be capitalists. <<Because it is written by someone with a clear bias. I would think that from my original post, that would be plainly obvious.>> You called the story junk just because the reader has a bias, yet you admit you don't know if the writer has his facts correct. The writers facts are correct, so you blew it jonvn with your own bias. A story is junk only if the FACTS of the story are incorrect. This writer, a republican I suspect, had his facts correct. So why did you call the story junk?
Originally Posted By Eric Paddon "When you can find an article not written by someone with a political agenda, it will be worth reading." Gee whiz, the objective truth about how bad Air America's ratings and financial situation really hurts, doesn't it?
Originally Posted By jonvn "You said the story was junk" I said the story was junk because it came from a biased source. "which means the numbers and the other points in the story were not true" Don't tell me what I mean. I tell you what I mean. And what I mean is exactly and precisely what I say, and nothing else. "You called the story junk just because" I've already told you several times now why I called the story junk. You do not know why I do or do not do anything, and your suppositions into my mindset are pointless and meaningless. "A story is junk only if the FACTS of the story are incorrect." SO, now that you've decided to stop telling me what I mean, and why I said what I said, you're going to actually get to your opinion on the matter? Finally. You don't know if these "facts" are incorrect or not (ignoring the FACT that a FACT is by definition true, and can't be incorrect). What you can determine from the article is that the author has a bias, particularly against the politics of the radio network in question, and so there is a good chance that the information provided in the quoted articles is slanted and not necessarily accurate, which is exactly what I have said several times now. That you feel a need to indulge in fiction on the subject of this topic is beside the point. The main point of THIS TOPIC is that these articles are biased, and so the information contained therein is not necessarily accurate, and are therefore junk.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Gee whiz, the objective truth about how bad Air America's ratings and financial situation really hurts, doesn't it?" It might hurt, if 1) You found something that actually supplied the objective truth, which you have not. Instead you've found politcal polemic which is not the least bit objective. 2) It would bother me that much if this company failed. Given these two points on the subject, your posting is a falsehood.
Originally Posted By Eric Paddon Exactly right Beau, and this is an endemic problem with many I note. They think they can find cover from the facts by refusing to address the specifics and instead let their prejudice rooted in "shoot the messenger" carry the day. That's a far cry though from what conservatives did when the CBS Bush National Guard story was ripped to shreds. We didn't just let blind prejudice for Dan Rather be our only statement we got down to the nitty gritty *facts* that showed how fraudulent their story and reporting was. So let's see if those who hate hearing that Air America is a ratings disaster despite media puffery similar to that given DVC, or is in financial trouble have some facts of their own to offer rather than the kind of blind prejudice that never helps their arguments any.
Originally Posted By Eric Paddon "You found something that actually supplied the objective truth" I did that. Your problem is you have a prejudicial hang-up regarding the source that is not valid criticism from my standpoint. Furnish some alternate sources of your own if you've got a gripe with the facts the source presents. And if #2 is correct, why do you have a hang-up regarding an honest report about how bad the fortunes of this ballyhooed "network" is?
Originally Posted By mele Rush's high volume of listeners means one thing to me: His listeners like listening to hours of anger and hate. They like to hear how awful "the libs" are, they like being stirred up. They like spending a few hours a day listening to negative crap. I think it speaks highly of "libs" to not listen to Air America if Air America is, indeed, as bad as Beau wants us to believe. That means that the "libs" don't want to sit and listen to hours of anger and hate, even when if the hate is aimed at the other side. They've got better things to do than to sit and stew about how "evil" the other side is. Well, done "libs"!
Originally Posted By jonvn "They think they can find cover from the facts by refusing to address the specifics and instead let their prejudice rooted in "shoot the messenger" carry the day." I didn't "shoot the messenger." That is, again, simply false. Are you not able to come up with an unbiased source of information? If you are not, then that says even more about what you have posted here originally. Again, find an unbiased source. That's what I said. "That's a far cry though from what conservatives did when the CBS Bush National Guard" I find it interesting that you are now attempting to change the subject to another matter entirely. What's the problem? Can't argue this one effectively, so you have to talk about something else? The basic truth here is that you posted an article with a political agenda, were asked to supply a non biased article, and instead of being able to do that, are now making attacks on a poster, and changing the subject.
Originally Posted By Eric Paddon "Rush's high volume of listeners means one thing to me: His listeners like listening to hours of anger and hate." That remark is quintessential liberal elitism at its height.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy << Don't tell me what I mean. I tell you what I mean. And what I mean is exactly and precisely what I say, and nothing else. >> Yet you have a message in what you say, which is that the writer's story was junk because he was "biased". I have told you that the story was indeed accurate. << The main point of THIS TOPIC is that these articles are biased, and so the information contained therein is not necessarily accurate, and are therefore junk.>> No... the main topic of this topic is Air America's woes, which are real based on flat line Arbitron ratings, losing their flagship station, and the loss of millions and millions of dollars even with massive free publicity from fellow liberal media. These are facts that can be found in many places, not just from a writer who happens to think Air America and it's liberal format is pathetic and another failure by the left. So your premise that the story is junk is bogus. It's how you try and make the writer not credible even though you have nothing ( once again ) to disprove what he is saying. If you can show where the writer is wrong then you could spout off that it is junk without being nailed. If you want non biased reporting on the story you can go check the latest Arbitron ratings book and the financial records of Air America radio. That''s where the writer of this story got his information that you call junk.
