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COVER STORY | Vol. 7, No. 5, February 1, 2007
(Air America Radio Enters Golden Age?)
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Air America Radio Enters Golden Age?

by Duwayne Escobedo

Conservatives like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh regularly predict Air America Radio will die. They have ever since it began in March 2004.

Even Air America co-founder Sheldon Drobny claims its days are numbered.

In an interview a week ago with Air America Radio investor and talk show host Mike Papantonio, the Pensacola trial attorney scoffs at all the doom and gloom forecasts by critics.

Sure, the company lost $41 million before entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October to reorganize and find a buyer.

But Papantonio notes that Air America Radio continued operating and broadcasting. He predicts the new buyers, which company officials announced Tuesday, Jan. 30, will at least double the size of its listeners.

Air America now includes 81 radio stations that reach 1.9 million people a week. In contrast, an estimated 13.5 million listeners tune in to the "Rush Limbaugh Show" each week.

"The truth is the neo-cons hate us and fear us and they rightly should," Papantonio says. "We researched it and Bill O'Rielly has said on at least 30 occasions in the past three years that we're going out of business tomorrow. But we're here to stay."

Papantonio recalls the early days at the Manhattan-based radio company when he says he and other investors, like Doug Kreeger, an outerwear store chain owner, Rob Glaser, RealNetworks CEO, Eugene Keilin, a New York investment banker, and Drobny, a Chicago venture capitalist, were constantly scrambling to put together funding to keep Air America Radio alive.

Now, Papantonio says he's more optimistic than ever with the sale to Stephen L. Green, the chairman of the SL Green Realty Corporation that owns more than $12 billion worth of property, and Mark Green, a former New York City public advocate and past candidate for mayor and state attorney general.

"This is a guy who can stand toe-to-toe with Rupert Murdoch and not blink," Papantonio says. "The main reason I like them and they're so important to this is they have a long track record of huge business success. They're real businessmen and real progressives who I'm confident can turn Air America Radio into what it has potential to be."

Stephen Green says he's confident in Air America's potential, too, and promises it will turn a profit.

"To assure that AAR survives and thrives, we'll do three things," he says. "First, we'll stabilize its finances. Second, we'll build on its lineup to assure the best radio talent possible, since in the long run content is king. And third, we'll extend this special brand by partnering with other platforms beyond radio to make sure that Air America's content reaches the wide audience it deserves."

Mark Green says the first-of-its-kind liberal radio network, which now offers 19 hours of programming a day, is making an impact on American politics. He has occasionally filled in as a host and served as a guest on some of Air America's programs.

"Having been involved on both sides of the microphone at Air America, I understand its huge potential as a voice for progressive patriotism," he says. "And with the Democratic takeover of the 110th Congress and prospects in the next presidential election, it's the perfect time for Air America 2.0. If progressive values were a stock, now is the time to buy."

Others besides Papantonio, like Air America Radio afternoon talk show host Al Franken, also voice optimism with the new ownership, which is subject to approval by a federal bankruptcy court.

Franken, who plans to leave his show Feb. 14 to run for a Minnesota U.S. Senate seat, praises the move.

"I'll miss coming in and working with the best staff in radio," Franken says. "But they'll be in good hands with (my replacement) Thom Hartmann, a great progressive and a terrific host. And the network will be in good hands with the Green brothers: Mark, my friend for years and a committed liberal who understands the mission of Air America as well as anyone, and his brother Steve, who is very wealthy."

The Progressive Radio Group, a group of about 20 investors led by Terence Kelly, Air America's former chairman, will own a minority stake in the network. He says he hopes new ownership will rejuvenate the radio company's offerings with both entertaining programs and investigative reporting.

"The conservatives, they realized the value of media long ago, and today 95 percent of talk radio comes from the right," Kelly says in a New York Times story. "But it has been extremely difficult to keep Air America funded in spite of the fact that we clearly had an influence on the past election."

However, Drobny, who has created his own liberal radio network called Nova M Radio, says Air America Radio will fail. Drobny no longer owns a piece of the liberal-leaning radio network and made a failed bid this fall to become a majority owner.

"AAR at best will be another content company with a name tarnished by bad management bankruptcy," he writes on his blog on The Huffington Post. "And the prospective rescuers have no experience in radio. The Green group has expertise in real estate and are very 'green' about the radio business."

Papantonio, who also co-hosts "Ring of Fire" with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says like any new business it just takes time for people to catch on.

He says radio listeners have finally done that, pointing out Democratic leaders acknowledging AAR made the difference in eight congressional races in 2006.

He hands over a list of his radio guests that include, Howard Zinn, Bill Moyers, Tim Robbins and Alanis Morrisette.

And he brings up the mock funeral procession for Air America Radio in Madison, Wis., in which listeners there protested a station pulling the network's programming in December. Some carried signs that read "Death of Free Speech."

"You can have great ideas but can't deliver them to America and unless you can do that those ideas are meaningless," Papantonio says. "We're the only national media institution that will go after corporate America, the corrupt GOP and the president. People want information and people want to distribute information, which they can't do on ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX."

Papantonio says AAR isn't for the timid and he expects it to keep up its hard-hitting commentary and news reports.

"We're not fair and balanced but we tell the truth," he says. "We go after people. That's the democratic process. Most progressives are afraid to go after conservatives, like conservatives go after progressives. We are not. We are just the opposite. Everyone at Air America has abandoned that play nice attitude. We're not NPR. We're not nice and warm and fuzzy. We're like '60 Minutes' with a real bad attitude."

Papantonio, who has been involved on the financial and radio side of the network from the beginning, takes issue with anyone who calls it a flop, fly-by-night or liberal folly. He forecasts rosy years ahead. He even predicts profits in 18 months.

"Rupert Murdoch loses $100 million a year just to keep his signal up," he says. "We've been through $45 million in three years, but now there's very few people who don't know what we're about. I'm not in it for the business but with a few tweaks we can be very profitable."

  

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT AIR AMERICA RADIO

The first 24/7 progressive radio network, which launched in March 2004, is coming out of bankruptcy under new ownership it announced Tuesday, Jan. 30. Here's what media, political and industry leaders are saying according to press reports.


"Many people feel Air America would be much better off going the syndicator route. The costs are much lower."
—Tom Taylor, editor of the trade magazine Inside Radio.

"I hope they can make it viable. But it won't happen unless Mr. Green listens to people who understand how radio works. Network radio is like stacking midgets. You need a lot of shows that can do modestly well because there are so few home runs. Progressive talk will absolutely survive. Because there's a demand for it and because there are stations that need profitable programming."
—Paul Woodhull, president of Washington, D.C.-based Media Syndication Services, which creates and produces radio shows.

"There will always be a niche for liberal talk. That's what people miss when they say talk radio is 'dominated by conservatives.' It's not. Conservatives have a niche, and it's a very profitable niche, but it's still a niche. You also have NPR, you have 'shock jocks,' you have sports talk. There's room for all of it. None of those shows succeed because the hosts are well-intentioned. They succeed because they work as a business."
—Michael Harrison, editor of the trade magazine Talkers.

"The metaphor I used, 'from search and rescue to search and recover' is a term used in rescue initiatives of plane crash victims and missing people in other disaster situations. After too much time passes, search and rescue becomes search and recover since the presumption is over time that a rescue is unlikely. Too much time has passed for a real rescue of AAR."
—Sheldon Drobny, co-founder of Air America Radio

"When you combine Steve Green's business skills and successes—with his brother Mark Green's history as a respected progressive policy voice, including as a frequent guest and host on our network—Air America will be in the best hands to sustain our powerful radio voice, expand our reach and broaden the audience."
—Scott Elberg, Air America Radio CEO

"Air America The Playbook: What a Bunch of Left-Wing Media Types Have to Say about a World Gone Right"
By Chuck D., David Bender, Thom Hartmann, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and C. Welton Gaddy
352 pages. Rodale Books. $26.95

Critics predicted that Air America would be a fly-by-night adventure in liberal folly. Readers can decide for themselves by re-living some of the funniest and most incisive exchanges in this radio network's short three-year history in the book. There are interviews with high-octane visitors, such as President Jimmy Carter and actor Robert Redford. It also includes 12 in-depth essays from progressives, including "Quick Profits, Dead Patients," by Pensacola attorney and "Ring of Fire" radio show co-host Mike Papantonio.

Air America Radio: "Leaking the Truth 24 hours a day" Jan. 20, 2005 

Two years ago, Editor Duwayne Escobedo and then-Art Director Nick Claeboe traveled to New York to vist the fledgling Air America Radio's operations up close and personal. To read that story go to: http://www.inweekly.net/article.asp?artID=964

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