"Air America Radio" only has one station in Ohio.

[Eric J in MN]

Columbus, OH - WTPG 1230 AM.

I wonder if "Air America" had stations throughout Ohio, if Kerry would have won.

[USA_1]

1. AAR

I don't listen too often to AAR: they put on too many commercials, the program hosts criticize each other or compete with each other to say the last word on certain issues, they allow reich wingers to call up and use too much air time (this is not true for Wendy Wilde who says that she refuses to give much time for reichsters because they have so much time on other networks; this is something that I agree with), too much time is spent on satire rather than in dealing with concrete issues or making solid solutions for the nation's problems, and they often complain too much about yesterday's news.

While I'd like to wish AAR a great deal of success, it needs to awaken to its deficiencies if it is to grow into many other markets.

[Philostopher]

2. You know how they got that station in Columbus?

Hang onto your hat -- Clear Channel owns it. They were losing money on it because all the Clear Channel stations in Ohio (edit) cities (and there are at least three or four, AM and FM, in almost every Ohio city) were broadcasting the same hateful crap 24/7. They decided to try out a 'progressive talk' format like some stations in California and Up East have found very successful.

If WTPG's revenues are good, which they weren't with the standard right-wing hatefest format (due to too much right-wing hatefest competition), I wonder if Clear Channel will decide to take other 'loss leader' stations in places like Toledo, Dayton and Cleveland, that tipped or went more heavily for Kerry, and replace one in each city with progressive talk radio and AAR?

As to whether it would have made a difference -- when one out of six or seven stations is running a progressive format, and the others are all running the same sh*t, do you really think it would make a lot of difference? I'm skeptical -- hate radio is the 'passive listener' default. I don't know that it would matter all that much if one station that you had to go looking for was running progressive talk or not. The only metro area in Ohio that didn't go at least weakly for Kerry (Montgomery County, where Dayton is, was the weakest, but it went for him) was Cincinnati.

Maybe it would have mattered, I can't honestly say -- Ohio's an odd case. Those of us here who are liberal are frequently very liberal; those who are conservative are very conservative; everybody else is uninformed and happy to stay that way, and they're usually swayed to vote one way or the other by their ministers or their boyfriends or wives or whomever hits them the hardest.

But, then, I was the one who kept telling everybody before the election that it was hard to find anything on the radio spectrum that wasn't full of vividly spouted hate rhetoric against gays, liberals and women. Maybe if there were choices, it wouldn't be that way -- maybe you're right.

[Eric J in MN]

3. So greater Cincinnati voted for Bush? nt

nt

[Philostopher]

4. Yeah, it did.

If you look at any of the 'red/blue' county maps, Montgomery County's all alone as a blue county, down in the SW corner. The counties around Toledo, Cleveland, Youngstown and Columbus are blue, and a few of the counties down in Ted Strickland's district (District 6, I believe) are blue. All the rest are red, including Hamilton County, where Cinci sits. It's not the city that causes that -- it's the suburbs and exurbs. It's the only county in Ohio with that kind of population density that went to Bush. If it had gone to Kerry, it would have meant enough Dem votes that Ohio might have gone to Kerry. I grew up down in that area, though, and I can tell you -- the odds of that happening are slim indeed.

[LTR]

6. Clear Channel votes for President Money

Sure, the Mays family are big Bush supporters, but their company, Clear Channel, will always vote for money. Clear Channel likes to get in on the ground floor of up-and-coming formats (they've been on a big Spanish-language format roll lately). Liberal talk is one of them.

Why the hell is a company like Clear Channel so gung-ho on liberal talk? First, it's a credible format for some seriously underperforming AM stations. Strong, new AM-oriented formats don't come around everyday, and conservative talk and sports have been beaten to death. AM doesn't work for Spanish language formats either - that audience listens to FM. So why not liberal talk, which draws a demographic that rarely tunes in to AM? Imagine a talk format drawing younger listeners, women, and college educated professionals. Conservative radio tends to draw an older crowd that is mostly male. Advertisers prefer targeting younger people. Liberal talk just makes sense, and who wouldn't want to get in on the ground floor of that?

Liberal talk radio will grow quickly in the coming year, once ratings results are in for many stations. AAR won't replace Rush and Hannity on local stations - these guys still bring in the ratings. But if there's a dog of an AM radio station in your town airing automated music formats, FOX Sports, or all business, don't be surprised to see liberal talk pop up there. The potential is just too good.

[LTR]

5. I don't think it would have made that much of a difference

Remember, just because it's on the air does not mean people will automatically listen to it. If that was the case, the US Government-owned Radio Marti down in Florida would have caused a Cuban uprising against Castro, and Voice of America would have brought forth an end to Communism in Europe decades ago. People have to listen to it first.

AAR is just getting it's start, and currently the audience tuning in consists of the already converted, talk radio fans, political junkies, and maybe a few of the curious. Did AAR change any minds or bring hoards out to the polls? I don't think so. AAR is a long range project, and liberal talk radio will take time to make its presense known. Rush didn't become huge overnight, and neither have any other talk radio hosts. This kind of thing takes time.

As for liberal radio changing minds this year, I think most of the people tuning in were already converted. The undecideds were likely listening to FM music stations or CDs. They ain't listening to talk radio.

[Catchawave]

7. Is it accessible on satelite radio?

I'm seriously thinking of subscribing to Sirius, screw the commercial media.

[Touchdown]

8. Yes, but still with commercials.

Sirius has to break whenever AAR does, so they usually have PSAs, and some adverts.

Sirius also has Sirius Left, with Tom Hartmann, Lynne Samuels, Young Turks, Ed Schultz, and the apologetic Alan Colmes (what a tool! Mostly RW callers too. :puke: ) Then there's OutQ, the gay station, with Michaelangelo Signoreli, and John McMullen, both get into heavy criticism of Bush policies. Except for Colmes and Schultz, There's less commercials on these.

There's a station in Denver Metro with AAR (A CLearchannel one), but it's so staticky and prone to dropouts, that I use my Sirius anyway. Not a blemish in the signal.