9/22/2005
One of my favorite blogs, Powerline Blog, has been keeping tabs on various media sources as they chronicle liberal talk radio network Air America’s ongoing woes with debt and scandal.
Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog had an interesting post up just this morning. Here’s a piece of it:
Brian Maloney has the latest installment of the Air Ameriscam saga: “Panhandling next?” In a message early this morning, Maloney wrote: “Air America’s now resorting to begging for money from listeners. Don’t miss your chance to get an Air America bumper sticker before it shuts down for good!”
I’ll admit, if Air America folds tomorrow, I wouldn’t shed a tear or offer up a moment of silence. I might smile a little, though. I’ll let you know what I do when Air America finally closes its doors.
And make no mistake, they will close their doors. They were doomed from the start.
And not because liberal talk radio cannot do well in this country. There are MANY examples of liberal radio hosts who do very well. Michael Moore, for example, and Alan Colmes.
In truth, Air America was doomed from the start because it is a product of institutional thinking; something which comes quite naturally to many liberals. These liberals saw a massive, conservatively dominated, radio market, assumed that it was all planned and coordinated by conservatives operating cooperatively, and decided to do the same thing.
The only problem with that whole assumption, and the actions which flowed from it was that it was not true. In fact, the conservative radio market grew up gradually, with Rush Limbaugh leading the way in the 80’s and others who were inspired by his success following his lead soon after.
Now, about 20 years later, conservatives dominate this medium. But all of those conservative hosts built their shows up from scratch, with quite a few of them having already worked in the radio industry for decades.
They honed their style, their approach, built their audience, and generally rose up through the ranks by finding ways to draw their own audience. Some liberals followed suit and have been successful in exactly the same way.
But then you have the creation of the monolithic “Air America.” This was a company that was created on the assumption that conservative radio was an institution, not a competitive industry. So they created this institution to compete with what they thought was a conservative institution and, of course, they are failing miserably.
Institutions in general struggle in hypercompetitive markets like radio. In smaller, less competitive markets, where choices are limited, they do just fine. But, overall, in a national market, where only the strong survive and consumers decide who wins and who moves on to new careers, they just can’t compete.
When Air America finally folds, will it spell the end for all their on-the-air talent? I doubt it. The ones who have built an audience will likely just venture out on their own and continue doing what they were doing before; probably with a few tweaks to better meet audience demand. And, before very long, they’ll likely find out they’re doing far better on their own than they ever could have done as part of a monolithic orgnization like Air America.
As for the others, they’ll move on to new careers, or back to old ones. Who knows, though, perhaps the Air America concept will inspire more young liberals to move into radio. If so, then I wish them well.
David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com
1 Comment
[…] In regards to my previous post, “Air America’s Biggest Weakness is Its Institutional Mindset,” I made the point that the decision to create the liberal radio network, “Air America,” came from a false assumption on the part of liberals that the dominance of conservatives in the talk radio market was through a coordinated effort. Well, some notes sent to Power Line Blog, taken by a student who attended the Dean’s Lecture at Yale Law School where Al Franken was talking, give weight to the points I made in that post. […]
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