http://www.onenewsnow.com/Business/Default.aspx?id=870518A conservative media watchdog isn't surprised that the liberal talk network Air America has finally gone off the air.
Air America was founded in 2004 as an effort by liberals to create a network that could compete with conservative talk-show giants like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The liberal talk-radio network had trouble lining up affiliates and attracting a sizeable audience, however, and it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just 30 months after its inception and was resold to an investor group in 2007.
The Washington Post reported last week that Air America's chairman said in a memo to employees that the company was done in by a "perfect storm" of plunging ad revenues, intense competition, high debt, and poor prospects for new financing.
Rich Noyes (Media Research Center)"This is a network that never really made much of a mark on America at large," notes Rich Noyes, director of research at the Media Research Center. "I think liberals liked it. What we noticed back in 2004 was you had your liberal media outlets, particularly NBC, going to town to help publicize the launch of this network."
The research director adds that Air America became a real money pit for liberals. "It was just something that liberals wanted to pour money into," he reports. "It probably kept the money from going into something more productive on the liberal side. So in that sense, it was probably a huge diversion that wasted a lot of liberal money rather than help push the liberal message."
Arbitron reports it was unable to detect much of an audience at all for Air America's Washington affiliate station during several weeks in December.
Topic: Air America - death of a diversion (Read 1064 times)