US - Left wing Radio Goes Off the Air

Now this is funny. Read how all the players are blaming each other for the failure of this Left wing radio program. While the station makes this claim:

Just last fall, Cowan said, an Eastlan ratings survey in Missoula and the Bitterroot showed the Al Franken show with a respectable 3.6 percent of listeners – ahead of Rush Limbaugh, who runs on two area stations.

“Al Franken was huge,” Cowan said. “(He) clobbered Rush. The listeners were there – and the commercials were inexpensive.”

And despite the fact that "the commercials were inexpensive" "Cowan said that local businesses were reluctant to commit to the alternative programming."

You following this so far? They've got the listeners and the ads are cheap but local businesses along with their employees, who presumedly must make up some of the listeners, don't want to advertise on the program. Well somebody must be at fault.

"There seems to be concern from advertisers with being associated" with controversial programming, he said. "I didn't think that would be a problem in Missoula of all places."

KNS Sales Manager Jim Fisher agreed that business owners were shying away from the format – even if they were avid listeners to the station.

"A lot of them loved to listen, but they didn't want to put their name on it," Fisher said.

Got that? It's the advertisers fault for not wanting to be associated with the Left wing program.

They're not done with the blame game yet.

“The sales staff was not supporting it,” Lotto said, adding that while some sales team members had tried to market the liberal format, others, she felt, were against the programming and didn't have incentive to sell it.

Let me get this straight. The station claims their research showed the left wing program was popular with cheap ads but businessess didn't want to have their name associated with it and the sales staff didn't support it. Does any of that make sense?

The station eventually does take some of the blame.

“Some of it’s our fault,” he said. “Because we were so new, we maybe didn’t really try to sell the hard one.”

Both Lotto and Cowan believe a liberal talk radio station is financially viable in Missoula – if there is enough cash flow to survive downturns.

Wait a minute! "Try to sell the hard one" and "survive the downturns"? Remember at first the station told us this:

"Getting people to listen wasn’t the problem – liberal talk radio was a huge hit in Missoula from the beginning."

Well if the listeners were there, the ads were cheap and the show was a huge hit, why was it hard to sell?

The truth is, just like Air America, the listeners aren't there. If it weren't for Soros and Air America's dodgy financing, Air America would have folded long ago.

The station should get its money back from Eastlan.
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