Ed Schultz's old boss goes to AAR , shuts down Democracy Radio.

[madfloridian]

UPDATE to post: Athans joined AAR just this month.
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=139969

I was not aware that Democracy Radio no longer existed. Tom Athans is the husband of Debbie Stabenow, former CEO of Democracy Radio...who sold Schultz to the old Clear Channel magnate, Randy Michaels. He is now with Air America Radio as a manager and cohort of Danmy Goldberg.

http://www.democracyradio.org/

As you may know, Air America had a few struggles during its first year. However, in recent months the company has been reorganized, its business model and strategy has been revised, and a dynamic new management team has been assembled with music industry titan Danny Goldberg leading the company as CEO. Air America is poised to expand and grow Progressive Talk like never before imagined - and they will need your continued support. To learn more about how you can support Air America, go to www.airamericaradio.com.

Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your tremendous support of Democracy Radio. Your support created the success of Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller and made Progressive Talk Radio a reality for all Americans. I encourage you to stay engaged in the effort. There's still much to do and with your support we will achieve the diversity of opinion on our airwaves that is reflective of all of America.

Best wishes,
Tom Athans
CEO, Democracy Radio

Please note...no date on this.

Ok, fine with me. I am just wondering how this might affect programming changes at AAR. I do know what Democracy Radio had some very very moderate Democrats at the helm of it. I have a lot of stuff on it, will look it up.

Ok, I found this from January of this year. It shows some of the bent of Ed Schultz at the beginning....pretty conservative, very in fact. It shows a little of the funding of Democracy Radio. I just like to be aware of stuff like this.

http://www.websterstrategies.com/websterinthenews/news.cfm?ID=1

Schultz, 50, has a long way to go before he approaches the influence of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and others in the conservative-dominated medium. His tale of how his second wife helped lead him out of the darkness of right-wing belief is a bit too neat, and some recent fundraising for the Democratic Party raises questions about his independence. But Schultz is an overnight sensation with a red-state base and a regular-guy sense of humor, all of which have been lacking in the liberal world.

The show was developed with $1.8 million from Democracy Radio, a New York nonprofit run by Tom Athans, the husband of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), with a board composed of three Clinton administration veterans. Another Democratic senator, North Dakota's Byron Dorgan, recommended Schultz to Democracy Radio. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) hosted a fundraiser about a year ago at her home for Democracy Radio and Schultz, which was attended by about 20 Democratic senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton and Tom Daschle. Such lawmakers "feel the acute pain of having talk radio be mostly conservative," Athans says.

Schultz, in turn, contributed $2,000 apiece to Dorgan and Daschle last year.

Ken Karls, North Dakota's Republican chairman, says he stopped listening to Schultz when the radio host became "more and more friendly" with the state's Democratic senators and kept booking them as guests. "He fed them what they wanted to hear," Karls says of Schultz's liberal audience. "When people disagree with him, he has hung up on them."

Insisting he's no Democratic foot soldier, Schultz criticizes John Kerry as a terrible presidential candidate and says "the righties connect with Joe Beercan better than the Democrats do." He also opposes abortion but doesn't talk about it on the air, calling it "a lousy talk radio topic."

But Schultz is clearly close to the party. In a 2003 speech at the Capitol, he urged two dozen Democratic senators to support liberal radio, after which he says Clinton offered to help. In recent weeks, he raised thousands of dollars by asking listeners to contribute to the party's successful effort to win a recount for Christine Gregoire in the Washington state governor's race. "I don't know the first thing about Christine Gregoire," Schultz admits, "but I know there were allegations of election fraud."

I have more on this, will check. This only touches the surface of those involved in the Democracy Radio. It makes me wonder how programming at AAR will proceed....will it become more moderate?

I don't listen to Ed Schultz anymore, not since his attacks on several Democrats I respect, including Kerry and Dean. There is more in the article. However, I find it odd that people in Austin would not like Randi Rhodes. I think Jason Kane who is pulling her off air and putting Ed on is/was a Clear Channel executive. Guess I remember the days leading up to and right after the war, the Clear Channel pro-war rallies with Jeb and Glenn Beck, etc. Hard to forget those. Yep, I doubt seriously that Randi is not liked in Austin overall.

[wryter2000]

1. Hmmm

I thought Ed was with the Jones network or something like that, not Democracy Radio.

They delay Randi here, too. Drives me nuts because I like to call her sometimes. I think they did it to give her her "regular" drive time.

[madfloridian]

2. I think he was syndicated by Jones Radio.

I may be confused. I often am...LOL

[madfloridian]

3. 2nd article by Howie Kurtz....grain of salt.

I can not find the website cache now, but I posted some of the contributors here a while ago. Guess I'd rather not have a monopoly even on talk radio. :shrug:

[CatholicEdHead]

8. I think he was produced by Demoracy Radio

but syndicated by Jones Radio.

[acmejack]

4. Tell me more about RR and Austin.

I haven't heard anything about that at all. Where and when did you learn that Schultz was coming to Austin?

[madfloridian]

5. Here is the GD post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5281003&mesg_id=5281003

The poster got a little carried away, but this did bother me. We love Randi in our area, which is very conservative. I realize business is business, but we excused Jerry Springer as a "business" decision.

[acmejack]

10. Terrific

Everyone I know here likes her. That other thread had a lot of posters explaining what we like here. I'll defer, I have only been here for a little over fifty years so I probably don't have my finger on the pulse like they do.

It is fortunate I stream AAR, so I get Thom and Rand anyway. And I can do Stephanie or Liz in the morning. I would be extremely pissed if it was back before streaming audio!

Thanx for the link.

[LittleClarkie]

6. That second article doesn't ring true to me

I listen to him. He's quite good with folks who disagree. He only gets snippy when they get rude. But anyone would do that.

But I wonder if his background and the people who support him explain why he seems to be pushing Hillary quite a bit. But then if he's a Dem, he's a moderate one, so I suppose it makes sense.

I agree about Dean and Kerry, though he will occasionally comment about something that Kerry said during the campaign, which showed he was at least paying attention to what he had to say.

But I do seem to remember a quite snippy interview with Dean. Or heard about it rather.

But if he's getting popular, I appreciate him. We need liberal radio. And Big Eddie fits the bill. He's the one I can pick up on a regular basis in Milwaukee.

Stephanie is good too. I hope she's also picking up stations.

[madfloridian]

7. I am not into the liberal/ not liberal stuff as much as a driven agenda.

That is what is on my mind. He is not for a woman's right to choose, and several other stances that he won't talk about on air.

I just like to examine who is behind things, rather liberal or conservative radio or whatever. I think money drives the agenda.

I corresponded with the show reps several times, and though they were proven wrong on things...they would not correct them. They said Big Eddie doesn't apologize.

[whometense]

15. Interesting.

He's on from 3-6pm in Boston. I listen now and then - he pisses me off more often than not, but he does speak to a slice of the population. I wonder of his is the kind of voice that can win back Reagan democrats.

The money trail is always informative. With the flap over Morning Sedition I've been wondering what Danny Goldberg's agenda is. Full disclosure - I love Morning Sedition and have been (nicely) harassing them to keep it on the air.

[Walt Starr]

9. Schultz has had it in for Randi Rhodes for a while now.

[whometense]

16. He is undeniably

a big blustery blowhard. He's so full of himself - it's that quality, more even than his extreme admiration for Hillary that keeps me from listening regularly.

We in Boston are handicapped by an extremely weak radio signal that cuts its powere at sunset. So I almost never get to hear Randi, who's on here starting at 6pm. It's a shame because I admire her toughness amd strong opinions.

[Rosco T.]

17. There is a reason for that...

Schultz and Randi were BOTH up for the afternoon slot. Randi got it.

[madfloridian]

11. Tom Athans thoughts on progressives....interesting.

As I say, in my mind, this is about who drives the agenda. Here is an article from Common Dreams on this subject. Just a few snips, but you need to read it all. Tom is now in management at AAR.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0101-08.htm

The efforts among influential Democrats, particularly liberals, range from a grass-roots talent search for progressive radio hosts to the creation of research organizations to provide a Democratic spin for the news media, to nascent discussions by wealthy supporters about starting a cable network with a liberal bent.

In one of the more ambitious of the ideas circulating, a group of wealthy Democratic supporters is toying with the idea of starting a liberal cable network. That endeavor would cost in the hundreds of millions and require the backing of a media company with enough leverage to force it onto the major cable systems.

Democrats said a far more readily achievable goal would be to foster national liberal radio personalities.

The task has fallen to a newly formed group, Democracy Radio Inc. It is overseen by a former Democratic Congressional staffer, Tom Athens, with help from, among others, Paul W. Fiddick, the Clinton administration assistant secretary for agriculture and a co-founder of the Heritage Media Corporation.

"We're going to go out and identify talent and help them to create programming and actually connect them with local stations," Mr. Athens said. "We want to plant a thousand seeds and see how many flowers actually arise."

Mr. Athens said his group would encourage its hosts to be more brazen and entertaining.

"Progressives have this problem: They sound too erudite, it's like eggheads talking at you," Mr. Athens said. "We believe that progressive talk radio can be every bit as successful as conservative talk radio if people present and format a show that people like."

My concern is that the two new Democratic alliances for media don't really disclose much who is with them. Democracy Alliance and NPI (Simon Rosenberg's group) don't really let us know how they are spreading the word. And who is driving the agenda.

[kohodog]

12. Sounds like DLC'rs are taking over AAR

I don't have anything to back that up other than my gut, but I've always seen Schultz as a DLC guy, going after Dean, MoveOn and anybody on the "progressive" side of the party.

Morning Sedition is going down. Springer and Franken are moderates. We'll have to see what happens with Randi, Sam and Mike Malloy, biut I see AAR moving to the middle (perhaps to promote Hillary?).

[bbgrunt]

13. well, if the DLC takes over--and I can't imagine that they

won't try, we will be back to square 1. Randi, Mike, and Sam have kept me from going bonkers over the past year and a half.

But it is too good to last. There is no doubt that there are efforts out there to co-opt the progressive voice. I guess it is an indication of AAR's success.

.......but if bigeddie is what they are sellin, I'm not buyin and my satellite subs will end.

[kohodog]

14. It's all about the $$$$$

And the DLC corporatists are all about the money and their corporate bosses. Clinton sold out and with things looking good for Hillary the Democratic Party is in great shape to sell true democrcy and Jeffersonian ideas down the river.

Neither Bill or Hillary will accept the religious right, but they will allow corporations to rule the world.

[Drewskie]

18. Kerry ran a piss poor campaign

and deserves any criticism layed on 'em. Not so with Dean, though. Dean has been doing a decent job.

Schultz has a huge ego, but is a talented radio guy, and can be humorous at times.