I see only one problem with commercial progressive talk radio. No matter how much I try to visualize the situation, I don't see how it can possibly pay for itself. I think I do understand how right-wing radio can support its wingnut talkers; simple enough, the followers of the run-of-the-mill rethug huckster have the gullibility of your average Holstein and thus will buy any product that the corporatists advertise. On the other hand, the progressive listeners have inherited a discriminating ear and don't respond well to 60-second salesmanship. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will likely never hear any good or service advertised that I want to put my money into, but as long as
Air America Radio stays around, I will remain a happy camper. With or without my input.
I started writing this diary a few weeks ago, before I got the body blow this morning that Morning Sedition will likely go the way of everything else of any quality.
This is The Way I See It Working people (or sheeple, for those who associate with the morning zoo/sports crowd):
(1) Commercial right-wing radio stations have a relatively easy time making money. With a completely gullible and paternally-driven audience in wingnut listeners, advertisers can sell just about anything. Zombie listeners slurp up the products and the station makes money.
(2) Commercial progressive radio stations play to a largely sceptical audience. Listeners who enjoy the content tend to tune out the commercials, preferring to make up their own independent mind. In general, advertisers lose out, and the station faces an uphill struggle.
(3) "In news the rule is that liberals will watch the news, and conservatives will watch conservative news. A liberal will watch to see what you think, the conservative will watch to see how much you agree with him." (a favorite quote of mine from Stirling Newberry) Thus, progressive radio never gets any bleed-over audience from the right-side of the populace. For example, I do listen to the pretentious Hugh Hewitt to get lessons in how to bullrush an argument; an often useful technique in my own corporate setting (yes, I know, "how shameful, ignominious" quoteth Cardinal Milfington)
Look closely at Franken's Amazon commercial. He mocks the right-wing by kicking the Amazon "reviewer" in the nuts for admitting "One star. I didn't read the book". That's The Way It Works; Franken's book was at #2 on Amazon because progressives know how to read and think for themselves.
I listen to way too much radio. I used to hear that refrain all the time from my parents with the key substitution "television". The entire AAR network reminds me (in a good way) of those old TV sitcoms, where characters would drift in and out of episodes and cross-pollinate to other shows. So I see Air America occupying the insane Hooterville niche mixed in with enough SCTV and America/Fernwood Tonight to keep the listener constantly off-balance. And then putting in all things political, the programming has me hooked 24/7.
As far as AAR's lineup, I like it all. As long as the hosts don't start reading and obviously overly prepare, they can hold my attention without irritation. Half the time, I listen while blogging so only pay attention to the shows peripherally; it must act as a pacifier because like I said I never really get annoyed. Whenever I hear something informative in my field of interest, that of oil depletion (which no other broadcast media outlet will touch), I do my best to transcribe and give the network a plug. The fact that half the hosts have an east coast accent does not bother me in the least. I have listened to why people tune out and invariably it has to do with someone complaining about a host's irritating whine or screech. Can you imagine that having the right accent actually makes a difference to the commercial audience? No shrink-wrapped ready-for-radio voices on AAR I am afraid. (gack, I forgot about that miserable exception Michael Savage to disprove that rule!)
All the AAR hosts have distinctive voices as far as I am concerned. Weekend host Mike Papantonio has one of those grand Bill Moyers-style drawls. Cohost RFK, Jr. has a very nasally NewEngland voice that I really wonder about. I never verified this, but I believe he chose his speaking style to counteract the effects of a severe stammer or stutter he once exhibited. In any case, RFK, Jr. rarely misspeaks and I always love listening what the two have to say. On a week-to-week basis, one or the two invariably tries to out-provoke the other. A classic moment that I recall involved RFKjr talking to a youngster pen-pal friend of his that had quite an environmental activist streak. The whole setup appeared a bit staged, with the corny "hot-line" phone call, but it worked. Hooterville, bordering on Mayberry, RFK. In any event all the distinctive voices work for me.
So I present a critical run-down of the AAR programming schedule:
Rachel Maddow: A disclaimer: I had a serious jones for her previous show on Air America, Unfiltered. Why that show really got cancelled I don't know; it occupied a lousy time slot of mid-to-late morning (the worst possible time to sneak a listen during 9-to-5 working hours). But Rachel has retained the jinx with this ridiculous 4 to 5 AM CST slot. I either listen to it in a half-asleep haze when my inner alarm clock goes off in the morning, or I try to download the MP3's when I can. I do think the idea for her show holds great promise. Rachel tends to do the news highlights with a lot of punch and she packs more content in the 35-40 minutes of her show than anybody else on the network (yes, AAR follows the industry standard and broadcasts a huge number of commercials). Rachel makes no bones about her disgust at lots of popular culture, "that television machine", but I can see how that could happen given her love of arcane politics nurtured by her Rhodes scholarly PhD days. Her vigilant sidekick, Kent Jones, carries on from the Unfiltered days, providing the news, and who also happens to provide a wigged-out character in my favorite program which follows immediately after hers ....
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Morning Sedition: My favorite show on the schedule. I love waking up to this program. This show has worthy news content, nebbishness, oh-PINE-ing, whining, bickering, angst, and a great cast of supporting characters. Marc Maron carries the lead role but Mark Riley provides strong support. Maron plays the tortured soul while Riley maintains stoicism. Maron quotes from all sorts of odd beat-poet references while Riley recites political facts and figures from his experiences in local NYC circles. Maron hails from all over the nation while Riley has deep roots locally, having transferred directly from WLIB when AAR took it over as its flagship station. Marc makes wild claims, while Mark hits it spot on (he guessed right on the Miers nomination). Rachel visits the Hooterville to provide top-of-the-hour news segments for the first hour, while the NewsDaddy, WLIB veteran Wayne Gilman, takes over the news for the rest of the show. Everyone on AAR appreciates music to some extent, I could not take it if they replaced the occasional music talk with sports talk (dig that Riley talks about English football and marching bands when he gets the chance). I bought my XM radio as soon as the local AAR broadcast station decided to make room for some local talent not too long ago. No thanks, I am sick to death of the "homerism" that local talent always seems to infect on the landscape. So I am thankful I can continue to listen to Morning Sedition, even though it may be only for another month.
While the two cohosts run the show, the supporting cast puts it in a class by itself. I still don't know how they can pay these people anything more than slave wages, but the writers provide classic bits. Go to the theSnotGreenSea blog to listen to the MP3's that a big fan of the show has archived. Writer/environmentalist Jim Earl plays both the Cardinal Milf Milfington and the correspondent Mort Milfington with his clinically insane Sammy the Stem Cell providing uber-comic relief. Kent Jones stays around from Maddow's show to mock red-staters with his Lawton "Two-terms Mandate" Smalls character. And then the writers keep on coming on, Johnny K-Street, Bruce Cherry (more on him later), Barry Lank, and the mysterious stalker/Pendejo who got let go by management (poor Stompers). Did they ever reveal what Pendejo translates to from Spanish? Did they have the heart to tell Pendejo?
Show producers Dan Pashman and Brendan McDonald also provide very good background chatter and they did a great job when the Marx brothers both took time off during the Katrina hurricane timeframe.
James Wolcott appears regularly on the show. Incredible as it may seem, Wolcott provides banter equivalent to his considerable writing skills. I love the live morning shows from locations such as CBGB's nightclub. How could anyone not like this show?
Wake up sheeple, sign the petition to keep Hooterville central together. I recently watched the HBO documnetary "Left of the Dial" and saw the writing on the wall -- when they showed a scene of the original management speaking in hushed tones not wanting to give Maron a 3-year contract ("He may not be up to the job"), you realized these guys are just show-bidness weasels.
I don't drink the coffee; I need Sedition to get me to bolt up and out of bed in the morning.
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Jerry Springer: I thought Springer was by definition bad but then blogger J said that you've got to listen to one of his intricate, elliptical, yet low-key rants and you will get sucked in. I don't usually listen in that time slot other than over the weekend, so I downloaded a show and Springer got on a spiel that weaved around and circled back on itself. He's actually pretty clever. But if you think about it, and realize that Jerry Springer is probably the most staid part of the AAR lineup, it makes me grateful that this network can even exist in the same solar system as TV's Springer Show.
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R I P
Unfiltered
Springer replaced this great show which had a one-year run on Air America. Although I caught it only about once a week because of its late-morning time slot, Unfiltered had a great trio of voices. Brainy, funny, and hip, but with the sudden departure of Lizz Winstead, it never regained its bearings. I never knew what to expect on that show, they actually had the guts to feature long segments where they discussed things like fuel efficiency standards. Lizz was particularly adept at reading the Unfiltered blog and getting a sense of what the web listeners wanted to talk about. Shame they lost someone as talented as Lizz; she helped start Comedy Central, then this great comedic treasure trove called AAR, and then unceremoniously booted out by removing her picture from the blog one day last spring. This show had humanity written all over it; with Lizz, who ended up losing her WWII-veteran father last summer, it was clear over the airwaves that she loved her parents deeply and I really felt for her loss even though she was no longer on the radio. It was my own Urban Home Companion when I listened to podcasts or rebroadcasts over the weekends. A lesbian, a SWF, and a black dude; what a combo. I do miss it.
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Al Franken: During the 2004 campaign, Franken broadcast many of his shows from the road. No matter how many times he seems to mumble his words, he just electrifies from the podium. Some might think he comes from the Clinton/DLC wing, but I actually look forward to his run for the senate. One of the only AAR shows that doesn't take many listener calls at all, Franken makes up for it with good guests and comedy bits from irregular contributors like Tom Davis, Pat Proft, and Meg Ryan. I had to listen to the Ryan skit twice because it cracked me up and I couldn't believe that was her.
I used to listen to Katherine Lanpher when she broadcast locally. I agree with others who say that Al needs a straight-woman. Weekly guest Joe Conason has got the radio presence down pat. If Joe wants a permanent radio gig, I bet a lot of people would listen.
Al Franken has made lots of appearances on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion over the years, and it is obvious from the way he paces the show that he wants to follow in Keillor's footsteps. If politics doesn't work out, Franken could give Lake Woebegone a Jewish makeover.
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Randi Rhodes
The other Rhodes scholar on the nework. From what I have heard, I like her show. It hasn't been broadcast locally except for late at night (thanks to bio-diesel fool Ed Schultz), but I stream it in at work on occasion. Now that she has gained in popularity, it regained its local daytime slot, but that caused everything else to get shifted around. I like my XM for that one reason.
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Majority Report
I started listening to this show when AAR first started broadcasting. Janeane and Sam are both great yappers and get on each other's nerves like a brother and sister. Janeane hates taking calls, and appears to suffer the audio equivalent of an aneurism whenever she fields one from a right-winger. She hilariously goes overboard on her favorites in music, with Sam playing the causal fan. IMO, best bumper music on the network (HuskerDu, Replacements, GreenOnRed, DreamSyndicate, EchoBunnymen). I typically listen to this show on my way home from work and the opening BillyBragg/Jam intro with Janeane intoning "Hello, welcome" gets me primed for the latest political volleys to come.
Early on Sam could barely get the words "Majority Report" out of his mouth without completely mangling them, but has since turned into a seasoned pro. Since Janeane started doing the West Wing episodes, Sam has more than held his own. I have yet to see the new episodes of West Wing with Janeane -- facts on the ground seem a bit stranger than fiction these days and my need for fiction is at a low ebb.
Majority Report is driven much like the Franken show by its regular stable of guests, in this case mainly from the blogosphere, Markos, Atrios, and Bill Scher from Liberal Oasis. I have to admit that Scher really gets into his role better than the other guys-- laughing and playing along with the hosts; it really helps to be in the studio where you can read everyone's body language.
And the proletariat Majority Report bloggers occasionally make an appearance; you would think that persistent abstract blogger SunshineJim needs to be locked up from what he writes, until he sounds reasonably sane calling in some pertinent comments.
The ultimate allure of this program is Janeane's passion for her favorite commentators of the day. She has in the past brought in Amy Goodman, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Harry Shearer, Eric Alterman (sparks fly), Mark Crispin Miller, Katrina van den Huevel (curiously, I haven't heard a peep out of Katrina since The Nation wrote a kind of hit-piece on AAR), George Lakoff, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Her constant reminding me of framing and projection techniques coming from the right wing have helped me understand the way they think.
The producers on the show offer the occasional concise commentary. Many of them appear to have side projects as musicians (Jason Isaacs band)
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Mike Malloy: Malloy is like an earwig who gets under a person's skin and then starts to penetrate the skull. I know for certain that people either hate him or love him. I use his line, "Have I mentioned yet today how much I hate these people?" all the time at work. I have my boss saying it. I know everything about Malloy's like and dislikes. He detests sports. He likes mood and light classical music. His show has got some truly retro bumper music. His producer/wife Kathy has got the most delectable voice on the radio, with ascerbic comments to rival those of Imus's producers -- minus the racism. Malloy tends to cater to the BuzzFlash, BartCop, DeomcraticUnderground, and TruthOut part of the blogosphere, which balances well against the Eschaton/Kos/LiberalOasis axis at Majority Report.
All you have to know about Malloy's rare guests is that he knows how to pick them. It seems like eons ago already, but I think Cindy Sheehan really got her start on Mike's show. Her boldness even seemed to disquiet Malloy at one point. When Cindy spoke of her strategy of confronting Bush directly during one interview segment, Malloy seemed to be genuinely concerned for her safety. That segment ended with Malloy wishing her the best, and then an audibly shaken Mike trying to regain his bearings as best he could over witnessing one lady's courage. It may have been theater, but these are the kinds of radio moments that will stick with me forever.
More than anyone else on AAR, Malloy has his regular stable of callers: Marge from Indiana, Jerry from Long Island, Doug from Staten Island. These callers I believe share the trait of not having access to the internet, but their passion shows through; they sound like they would go crazy without the chance to vent their spleens. But for the power of the blog, we would all be waiting in the phone queue behind Marge and company.
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Ring of Fire: I talked early on about Papantonio and Kennedy. This show more than any other takes on populist crusades. Mike's PapAttack! segment used to be a regular feature on Unfiltered. If you want to be entertained by a couple of take-no-prisoner attorneys, this one's for you. One of my favorite programs.
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Thom Hartmann: He has a great program that gets rebroadcast on the weekends. His "Brunch with Bernie" segment is interesting because of congressman Bernie Sanders sincerity and his deep appreciation of his constituents. Hartmann understands our energy predicament better than any other broadcaster out there.
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Laura Flanders: Her forte is straight out of the DemocracyNow! style of broadcasting. Laura had the best discussion format of any AAR show prior to the election. She would routinely bring in multiple guests at one time and have them bounce off of each other. The only show of comparable quality, perhaps exceeding it in wonkishness was the short-lived Rachel Maddow/David Bender weekend show on the election, called "Campaign Countdown", which has since transformed into Bender's "Politically Direct" (which is another good hour-long show BTW).
Laura's voice draws some people batty. She has a great radio delivery, sounds kind of English, but some claim it is an affected new england accent. When Studs Terkel was on over the weekend, he claimed that he knew her father back in the day traveling across the USA. Whatever, we need more women like her on the air and less of the other Laura BushWomen (Ingraham and Schlesinger, shudder).
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The Revolution Starts Now w/Steve Earle: A prerecorded one hour music show that folk-country musician hosts. He usually brings on guests that share their musical tastes with the audience. Perfect for podcasting.
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Kyle Jason Show: I like this show even though it's really just tunes because Jason has an encyclopedic knowledge of music and is a very good musician himself. My favorite bit was when he joined in a vocal duet with a woman who works as a staff administrator at Air America.
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On the Real: Chuck D's return to the airwaves after the demise of Unfiltered. He co-hosts with Gi'ana Garel, and gets to basically talk about whatever he wants to. Lots of music discussion, which was a fun part of Unfiltered, and he has gotten comfortable enough to start taking calls from listeners. I found it interesting how in the most recent show, Chuck paid homage to morning host Mark Riley for being a real force and source of insight on the local NYC radio scene during Chuck's formative years.
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Ecotalk: A show that has long been hosted by enviro-journalist Betsy Rosenberg, and subsequently picked up by AAR as a public affairs program. You could tell too, because they broadcast it initially at 6AM Sunday morning. Eco-wonk that I am, I would try to catch it often and like it a lot, Rosenberg is a fast-talker and tries to pack as much into a one-hour segment as she can. Fortunately, AAR has since moved the Sunday morning show to a more reasonable afternoon slot.
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RIP
So What Else is News? Marty Kaplan, professor of media studies at UCLA used to host this show. To me it seemed like a highly scripted show and perhaps overly prepared.
I swear that one of the hokey NPR-like segments that Kaplan did, with punny multiple choice questions, featured Bill Penn, who is/was actually Bruce Cherry from Morning Sedition. This proves what kind of anal retentive radio basement-dweller I have become. Recognizing a voice from the ether, sheez. They put a list of guests on the last blog posting, here.
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So you get the idea, I like all the shows on AAR.
I have listened for 25 years to community radio and as a teenager got hooked on the last-days of the prog/underground/free-form stations of the 70's. With a plethora of good radio coming out where I live (The Current and a 24-hour Radio-K and the community KFAI), I have many more options but stay with the AAR. Unfortunately, local talk radio does not cut it for me. I am absolutely fed up with the homerism that has imbued news and information over the years. I get much more of a kick and information content from listening to national progressives. They attract better guests and have better material through their better equipped support staffs.
I haven't a real clue about ratings. Given the problems with our own political voting system, should we even believe in Arbitron ratings? Are those things cooked and driven by kickbacks? Why does every taxi in NYC have AAR blaring out of the radio, when overall their ratings apparently suck? Saving that, is there no acceptance of those with a different kind of taste than the mindless hordes?
How many people enjoy listening to Ornette Coleman?
How many people enjoy cross-country skiing?
How many people enjoy reading Harper's?
I've learned long ago that you don't have to blindly follow what the average populace does to get your jollies.
So perhaps Air America doesn't get as many listeners as those who buy Olsen-twin videos. Is everything built off of this magical Arbitron bible that the radio cognoscenti pray to? To know what the average Joe enjoys; what priceless information the ClearChannels of the world have at their fingertips.
So what happens when the entire radio industry bifurcates, and we are left with a smorgasboard of satellite broadcasts, podcasts, WiFi streams, customized programming, and local micro-broadcasters (and pirates, as in Europe)?
Many broadcasters will be left in their 20th century hovel, that's what.
But there will always be something interesting for me to listen to, just as there will always be people that produce radio like AAR because that's what they enjoy doing with their lives. Try watching the documentary on AAR (more below), see how many people went paycheck to paycheck at first, and probably still do, at the network.
So what other radio formats are out there? Forget anything public, as in supported by tax dollars. Forget religious broadcasters, leeches that target high-school radio stations and all. Radio stations can make a go of it without guvmint or commercial support. DemocracyNow pays for itself with listener support and the great, great WFMU.org does 24-hour programming of the free-form sport with a once-a-year-fund drive that happens to be incredibly entertaining as well. This station is the epitome of a democracy; the on-air hosts actually rotate in and out of the lineup, to give fresh talent a chance to be heard. It is mainly free-form music programming, but the DJ's will occasionally play long speeches by Noam Chomsky, etc. So there is room for a progressive station to grow in the United States.
I don't have a problem signing up as an Air America Associate. Kind of dorky, yes I know. I had actually signed up before they actively sought membership. Among community radio stations (and of course the Corporation for Public Radio), the right of passage is to always ask for pledges. I know that conservatives hate this attitude, but when done right it works out quite nicely. As I said, my favorite station of all time, WFMU - the Free-Form Station of the Nation, has one membership drive a year, and can sustain an amazingly creative radio environment off of the power of begging. More power to the stations that do this right.
Last point concerning the HBO documentary "Left of the Dial" about the birth of AAR. The name is taken from the classic Replacements song, hinting at how historically fashionable it was to get positioned as a progressive, free-form type at the lower FM frequencies. Or pinned as a long-hair hippie freak. Either way, we own the broadcast spectrum, we will go where we please, back of the bus, left of the dial, it doesn't matter where end up as long as we have a voice.
Viva le revolution!
Vigilance!
Peaches!
Watch your back!
Let's land this thing!
oy.
Air America Radio
641 Sixth Avenue, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011.
Phone: 212-871-8100
FAX: 212-871-8133