Why the Liberals Can't Keep Air America From Spiraling In

Here is an article by CityJournal author Brian C. Anderson in which he looks at why AirMoonbat has been an utter and total ratings failure.

The left likes to argue that talk radio, and Republicans, have been successful largely because of better marketing. But AirMoonbat has had plenty of positive spin from just about every major source one can think of for the year it has been on, with the most recent example being an HBO documentary.

Ultimately what it really comes down to is proof that this theory, like so many others from the left, has no basis in reality. The fact is that the popularity of the largely conservative new media and the failure of AirMoonbat are both the result of content.

AirMoonbat's anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-individualist, anti-freedom content no longer sells, if it ever did, to the American public. Americans have a choice about which ideas they will support and they have made it. And that is why their ratings are sinking like a stone.

And look at Air America's ratings: They're pitifully weak, even in places where you would think they'd be strong. WLIB, its flagship in New York City, has sunk to 24th in the metro area Arbitron ratings — worse than the all-Caribbean format it replaced, notes the Radio Blogger. In the liberal meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Air America is doing lousier still.

Unable to prosper in the medium, liberals have taken to denouncing talk radio as a threat to democracy. Liberal political columnist Hendrik Hertzberg, writing in the New Yorker, is typically venomous. Conservative talk radio represents "vicious, untreated political sewage" and "niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive," Hertzberg sneers.

If some liberals had their way, Congress would regulate political talk radio out of existence. Their logic is that scrapping Air America would be no loss if it also meant getting Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Bennett off the air.

To accomplish this, New York Democratic Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey has proposed reviving the Fairness Doctrine to protect "diversity of view," and John Kerry recently sent out some signals that he too thought that might be a good idea.

Under the old Fairness Doctrine, phased out by Ronald Reagan's FCC in the late '80s, any station that broadcast a political opinion had to give equal time to opposing views. A station running, say, Hannity's show, would also have to broadcast a left-wing competitor, even if it had no listeners.