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By JULIA ANGWIN and SARAH MCBRIDE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 20, 2005
Today's inauguration of President George W. Bush may depress many Democrats, who had hoped to take back the White House this year. But at Air America, the upstart liberal radio network, there's at least some cause for celebration.
Coinciding with the presidential ceremonies, Air America will launch its brash Bush-bashing talk-radio format onto the airwaves in President Bush's backyard -- Washington, D.C. -- as well as Detroit and Cincinnati, bringing its total nationwide reach to 45 markets.
It's a remarkable feat for a network that was nearly given up for dead just last year. After a hype-filled launch in March, stoked by the passion of the presidential-election campaign, the network ran out of money within six weeks and was kicked off the air in Los Angeles and Chicago, leaving it with just a New York station and two smaller markets. Critics predicted the company wouldn't recover, especially after the election ended and interest in politics faded.
But with an infusion of new financing and new management, the radio network has won high ratings in some of its local markets and has garnered the support of radio-industry giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. It has signed three-year contracts with its top two stars, Al Franken and Randi Rhodes, and raised an additional $19 million from private investors. People familiar with the situation say Air America is also finalizing a deal that would get it back on the air in Los Angeles via KXTA-AM, a Clear Channel sports station.
In fact, President Bush's victory might be the best thing that could have happened to the network. Just as Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio voices flourished during eight years of President Clinton, Air America's hosts now have an inviting target for the rest of the term.
"What happened on Nov. 2 may have been bad for America but it sure was good for Air America," says Rob Glaser, chairman of Air America.
Since the election, Air America hosts have had plenty of fodder. The network has called the move to privatize Social Security "risk-based Social Security" and poked fun at the peccadilloes of Bernard Kerik during his ill-fated nomination for homeland-security chief.
This week, Mr. Franken is broadcasting from Washington, while Ms. Rhodes mocks the inaugural parade, especially the stuffed buffalo on Vice President Dick Cheney's float. If it were up to her, she says, she would deploy a red-state float and a blue-state float, and have them bash into each other the entire length of the route.
Definitive ratings for most of Air America's markets won't be released until later in the month. But local market research and anecdotal evidence indicate that the network is gaining traction. On the Internet, Air America is the fourth most popular radio station, with almost 200,000 weekly Web listeners, according to Webcast Metrics. (The top rated online radio station is Digitally Imported, which offers "electronic dance music.")
In New York, Ms. Rhodes is tied with conservative Sean Hannity for the talk-show host that listeners spent the most time with each week in the fall season, according to Arbitron. Ms. Rhodes points out that she reached that level after just a few months of national exposure, and without the television show and book Mr. Hannity has to boost his public profile.
Phil Boyce, program director at Mr. Hannity's New York home, WABC, says time spent listening is irrelevant when the audience is so small. In the afternoon time slot Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Hannity share, "he has almost four times the audience she does," says Mr. Boyce. "He crushed her."
Indeed, of the big-time political talk-show hosts, approximately 75 to 80 percent are conservative, says Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers, a magazine devoted to talk shows. And a June 1 study from Washington, D.C-based Democracy Radio reported that national and local conservative programming totaled over 40,000 hours every week, while progressive, or liberal, programming totaled just over 3,000 hours.
As it competes with the giants, a definite plus for Air America is the support from Clear Channel, which syndicates conservative talkers such as Mr. Limbaugh, Bill Handel and Laura Schlessinger through its Premiere Radio Networks. Clear Channel executives have made large donations to Republican causes, and last year the company
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