Air America: It's Getting Old Fast

On March 31, Air America Radio (AAR) celebrated its first birthday. The celebratory rhetoric by the tin-foil-hat crowd at leftist website Democratic Underground would seem to indicate that Air America, conceived as a left-wing counterweight to conservative talk radio, is doing quite well. "AAR is kicking ass and doing far better than anyone could of imagined ... AAR continues to grow faster than any network in the history of radio, and has become a national powerhouse," crowed the moonbats at Democratic Underground.

Realistically, the opposite is true. A sampling of AAR's ratings performance in major liberal cities illustrates the point: In San Diego, AAR's ratings on station KLSD have sunk from a 2.6 to a 1.6 market share. In Philadelphia, AAR affiliate WHAT-AM's ratings have sunk from a tiny .8 to a microscopic .6 and in San Francisco, arguably America's most liberal city, Air America's ratings have flatlined at a lowly 1.0 market share, placing it a dismal 25th in that market.

However, the most telling evidence of AAR's slide towards oblivion lies in its positively disastrous performance in my home state, Rhode Island. Last year, just prior to the November elections, Clear Channel Communication's RI station WHJJ replaced its conservative talk programming, featuring popular right-wing host John DePetro, with Air America's. (Keep in mind that Rhode Island is among the bluest of the "blue" states.) Since making the switch to liberal talk radio, WHJJ's ratings have plummeted from a market share of 4.1 to an astounding 2.6.

Its main competitor in the RI market, Citadel Broadcasting's WPRO-AM, which features Rush Limbaugh's program, captured many of the listeners chased away by Franken & Co.--WPRO's audience share rocketed from 4.4 to 5.1 during the same period.

In trying to explain his failed attempt to become the world's first popular liberal talk radio host, former NY governor Mario Cuomo, in an interview in 2000, blamed his failure on the inherent incompatibility of the talk-radio format with the liberal message, positing that left-wing ideas and positions are too thoughtful and complex to effectively package into easily digestible sound-bites. "[Conservatives] write their messages with crayons," said Cuomo. "We [liberals] use fine-point quills."

As one who listens to talk radio primarily to be entertained, I say that the main reasons Air America appears destined to suffer the Mario Cuomo Show's fate has less to do with leftism's so-called "complexity" and more to do with the fact that, unlike its conservative counterparts, Air America’s political message is negative and depressing, its programs are terribly boring and its hosts are insufferably lame.