Big surprise huh?
Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005 1:20 p.m. EDT
Al Franken's Radio Partner Splits
Are things coming unraveled over at Air America?
Last Friday, Al Franken's radio partner Katherine Lanpher abandoned ship, explaining that she had to leave the show because she snagged a book deal.
Announcing Lanpher's departure last week, Air America's web site said that her book would be a "memoir of her move to New York" - a move she made to co-host Franken's show in the first place.
"Her deadline in mid-January is unusually aggressive and necessitates an almost immediate departure," the message insisted. It was signed, "The Staff of The Al Franken Show."
Lanpher's final broadcast was filled with tributes from some of her favorite guests - but co-host Franken decided to bug out early, insisting he had a plane to catch.
A veteran of Minnesota public radio, Lanpher was brought on board when the network launched to help Franken make the transition to live radio.
Earlier this year, Franken himself said he was considering leaving the airwaves to pursue his dream of running for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota, his home state.
While there's no apparent connection to Lanpher's departure, the troubled network has recently come under investigation by the New York State attorney general's office over an $875,000 loan obtained under suspicious circumstances from a local social service organization.
Lanpher's abrupt leave-taking left listeners perplexed. In a post to the comments section of the network's web site, one Franken show fan wrote:
"I hope someday, maybe in a later book, Katherine comes clean about why she left. The whole, 'I need to leave to write a book' reeks of manufactured credibility. For a station that continually takes swipes at Fox broadcasting for not being completely up front, it seems Air America has an awful lot it likes to 'diplomatically' relabel."
Hey at least the stuff I listen to on the radio is profitable. I wonder why the MSM isn't picking this up... wait I forgot we have a HUGE liberal media bias here. Anyone who tells you otherwise is mentally disabled.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
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7 comments:
Accusing someone who disagrees with your view as being "mentally disabled" quite clearly stems from a defensive posture, protecting the fact that you have no proof to back up your idiotic claims.
If you would actually like to learn something, read this. http://screamingdeer.blogspot.com/2005/09/liberal-media.html
How'd that Kool-Aid taste, by the way?
Funny, I thought the right wing she-devil mascot Ann Coulter admitted on Hannity that “we have the media now.” Doesn't sound like there's a liberal media to me.
Btw, that debt has been paid off in full. You need to catch up on your news.
how is my claim idiotic? I have proof, watch the NBC night news and if they cover it I'll admit I'm wrong, but how can you call me idiotic? And show me proof, you two are drinking massive kool-aid on your side anyway
Well, radio is a business. Al Franken's show's going under for one reason and one reason alone. it's !@#$%^& boring. He has about the same amount of charisma as my brother's ducks.
bloom: "Btw, that debt has been paid off in full. You need to catch up on your news."
You need to catch up with reality, because you are dead wrong. The debt hasn't been paid; no money has been turned over to the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club.
Air Idiot claims to have put the full amount in an escrow account controlled by one of their attorneys. There is a)no proof the funds are actually in said account since, if that escrow account truly exists, it is blocked from inspection by lawyer/client privilege, and b)if the money move did occur, doing so was specifically counter what the NYC Dept. of Investigations told Air Idiot to do. DOI instructed them to put it in their hands while they continued their probe of the financial chicanery going on at Gloria Wise.
Will's Blog said (wow, a talking blog!): "Also, why does it matter how profitable it is? The radio station I work at is non-profit and its programming quality is about 10 times better than the commercial stations around town."
Run that "why does it matter how profitable it is?" by investers like Richard Glaser, CEO of Real Networks, and others who have sunk millions in keeping this scow afloat while they are paying Clear Channel to carry their programming on some of those "affiliate" stations because they are not producing enough advertising revenue to cover their broadcast costs.
It's not a matter of "how profitable," it's about "at least breaking even on the overhead." Your non-profit station may indeed be, quality-wise, smoking your competition, but Air Idiot is not supposed to be NPR; it has investers, not donaters; it's supposed to make money so those folks' dollars don't just disappear down a drain.
If they don't pull listeners and generate ratings that can convert into advertiseing dollars, Clear Channel will pull the plug on their stations and switch the format to something else, as they did when they started clearing Air Idiot's programming. Those stations are already tossing some of the programs coming out of AAR's Park Ave. offices over the side, or relegating it to tape delay and slotting in local hosts or "progressive" talkers like Ed Schultz or Stephanie Miller. CC don't care one way or the other about the content of the programming they carry, they only wanna see the Benjamins. Franken & Co. ain't generating any worth counting.
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