Who Wants Liberal Talk Radio To Fail?

Taylor Marsh wrote a piece called Democratic Strategist Slams Air America http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taylor-marsh/democratic-strategist-sla_b_31744.html in which she suggested that it may be some Democratic strategists who do not want liberal talk radio to survive. My experience with AAR and our new network, Nova M Radio, is that she is on target. We got no help from any power brokers and strategists either in the DNC or DLC.

The interesting thing is that Clear Channel is taking liberal talk radio very seriously and had at least 25 of their stations broadcasting AAR content. Clear Channel distributes the Jerry Springer Show and Randy Michaels, former Ceo of Clear Channel Radio Division is syndicating Ed Schultz and was in conversation with AAR before they declared bankruptcy. I offered AAR a deal to save them from bankruptcy. Randy Michaels was looking to do something with AAR after they filed bankruptcy and may be negotiating with them as we speak. Neither Randy Michaels not Clear Channel are liberal idealogues. They believe as I do that there is a viable market for alternatives to conservative talk radio which is a very "crowded space." The success of Countdown with Keith Olbermann is another example of alternative programming that is taking market share away from Fox. In addition, Fox is syndicating Alan Colmes. XM and Sirius have devoted full channels to left leaning talk radio. It is clear that the business people in radio believe in the project and are going to put lots of money into syndicating their talent.

The next step for non-conservative radio is for programming to appear on the tier 1 more powerful stations which attract much larger audiences. It is our plan at Nova M Radio to appeal to stations like WABC and KABC as well as many 50KW stations to broadcast good entertaining content. And our goal at Nova M Radio is to speak truth to power whether they be Democrats or Republicans. That was my goal when we founded AAR which has definitely established a "beachhead" for non-conservative talk radio.

Randy Michaels
Former Ceo
Clear Channel Radio Division