Air America and Al Franken are abject failures. Here are the statistics
http://radioequalizer.blogspot.dom/2006/05/air-am
04 May 2006
Air America Ratings
FUTILITY
After Two Years, Few Bright Spots For Air America
On the heels of last week's devastating New York City ratings release, which saw Air America Radio sink like a rock from already-low audience levels, subsequent news from elsewhere hasn't looked better. And in some cases, the results are even worse.
With data for two full years of programming now available, future liberal talk radio growth seems less likely than ever. Looking at markets across the country, only two cities continue to appear promising: Portland, Oregon and increasingly, Seattle.
To survive, Air America needs dozens of Portland and Seattle clones. After all this time, where are they? Stuck in line at Starbucks?
A round-up:
Despite the launch of a new live-and-local morning show featuring former mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco's KQKE-AM held steady at just a 1.2 listener share in the nation's fourth-biggest radio metro area. Over the past four ratings periods, KQKE has shown no overall audience growth.
In Washington, DC, the eighth-largest radio market, Air America affiliate WWRC-AM failed to generate any measurable audience figures.
Tenth-ranked Atlanta saw its AAR station, WWAA-AM, take second-to-last place, for a 0.5 overall audience share. The station is soon expected to drop its liberal format.
In Boston, now 11th-biggest, AAR's two combined AM stations also took a 0.5, to tie for second-to-last among all listeners 12 and older.
In Seattle (#14), KPTK-AM continued to grow, rising to a 2.8 share from a 1.4 in last year's spring book. Some have speculated that KPTK's gains have come at the expense of KIRO-AM, which features a mixed lineup with some liberal shows.
KXXT-AM/ Phoenix's (#15) last book before converting to religious programming saw Air America's programming fall from 1.2, to a 0.7 overall figure.
KTNF-AM/ Minneapolis (#16) continues to struggle, now down to a 1.0 share for listeners 12 and older. Only four stations in the market were ranked lower.
In San Diego (#17), ratings for AAR station KLSD-AM collapsed, from a healthy 3.1 in the Fall 2005 Arbitron Ratings Survey to a 1.6 now. KLSD's previously strong numbers now appear to have been a one-time fluke.
KKZN/ Denver (#22), despite featuring a live and local morning show, continued its long slide. Over the past four quarterly periods, KKZN has dropped from a 2.0 to a 1.4.
Portland's KPOJ-AM continues as AAR's strongest performer, in sixth place with a stable 4.1 overall share of the audience in the country's 24th-largest market.
Other than as a vehicle for political campaigning in this year's elections, why should Air America continue to function? If it can't make money and isn't seeing audience growth, what's the point?
What's quite obvious: admitting defeat now means damage to the "cause", meaning this sick puppy must continue to suffer. With this kind of weak performance, other radio format experiments would have shut down at least six months, if not a year, earlier.