Air America Affiliates, Political Calculations, Radio Stations
THE REAL STORY?
Assessing Air America's True Station Reach
Between interviews and emails, it's the question we're most
commonly asked: how many stations does Air America Radio really have?
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, it's one we've never been able to answer.
However, thanks to new research done by Political Calculations, as well as our own additional analysis, we should finally be able to shed some light on the liberal radio network's real nationwide reach.
Why does it matter? If Air America can prove it's a viable, growing concern, it might be able to entice stations to carry their programs, or get advertisers on board.
At least in theory, that is.
What does the company actually claim? What can be verified? From either end of the debate over its performance, it's not as black and white as one might imagine.
As a result, this will not be considered a definitive report, just an educated guess.
Company No Longer Trumpeting Affiliate Count
Until a recent website redesign, Air America prominently touted its latest station count at the top of the main page. Because the number continued to increase, it was an obvious attempt at painting a picture of rapid growth.
In the early months, they actually were picking up stations, so there was little reason to question the tally. In addition, there's also a website affiliate page, so it was a simple matter of comparing that list with the stated number.
So how did this previously straightforward situation become fuzzy?
As with other syndicated radio and television programming, affiliates come and go over time. Whenever one signed on, Air America's website list was amended. When others were lost, however, were they removed?
And what about stations that kept just one or two AAR shows in their ongoing lineup? Are they still properly considered network affilates, or is that stretching the truth a bit?
Enter a key grey area.
And in the last year, a bigger issue arose: should they be able to count stations running only the syndicated Thom Hartmann Show as network affiliates? Clearly, they believed the answer was yes.
While Air America parent company Piquant LLC does distribute Hartmann's program, it isn't part of the network's lineup. In fact, he runs at the same time as Al Franken's show.
As a result, that's where criticism of Air America's public affiliate count becomes fair game.
The Difficulty In Determining An Exact Count
In a recent press release, the network claimed 89 affiliates.
Building on the report by Political Calculations, we attempted to look up website addresses for the stations listed at Air America's site, to find their current status.
Making it exceptionally difficult to determine whether they really run Air America, almost a third were too tiny to have any Internet presence.
Raising the possibility they serve merely as translators (and therefore probably aren't affiliates at all), a few others redirect to the websites of larger outlets in bigger cities.
Here's their most recent tally:
For their analysis, Political Calculations used Wikipedia's count of 84, closely matching the 85 on Air America's official list.
So why, in corporate press releases, does the company claim 89? We don't know.
While stations in Phoenix and Missoula have been dropped from their list, Cleveland's WTAM-AM remains, even though it is cancelling Jerry Springer's radio show.
Current count: 84.
Political Calculations couldn't find Air America on these listed stations:
While WTWK has been removed from Air America's site, the other four are still listed. KSRO (actually in Santa Rosa, not San Francisco as the company claims) hasn't a trace of their programming on its current schedule.
WPTT and KXRA run Hartmann for three hours daily, WINI for one. KXRA was actually set up as a left-wing outlet to counter Air America programming on nearby KOMY-AM.
We don't believe these should be counted.
Current count: 80
In PC's "low content" category are these:
Because Air America markets itself as a full-time network, we don't believe stations carrying just a small portion of the lineup should rightly be considered affiliates.
What's fair? That's a tough call, so we'll err on the side of caution and keep those running at least two shows.
Current count: 77
In addition, we found several double-counted translators or simulcasts in Massachusetts and elsewhere. In the western part of the Bay State, one station is counted on the company's list this way three times, while Boston's two signals are really one legitimate outlet.
In addition, we have questions about KIST-AM in California, which may be a simulcast of KTLK/Los Angeles, but will include it for now.
Current count: 74
Also, we found Eureka's KGOE to be carrying only Hartmann and Sarasota's WSRQ running Springer (next to Rush and Hannity!) Alaska's KUDO-AM 1080 runs Franken and Hartmann. We'll leave it in our count.
KAOI-AM in Hawaii runs Franken in the evenings, after Rush and religious programming! Sorry, Charlie.
Current count: 71
Other question marks- perhaps you can help us with these:
- KTXX-FM Texas (what is it running?)
- KIST-AM Santa Barbara (as mentioned above)
- Others on Air America's list we didn't mention because we couldn't track down station information. For instance, there could be a dozen additional stations running only Hartmann.
Are they in your neck of the woods? Please let us know.
To correct potential errors, omissions and to subtract other stations running little or no Air America programming, we anticipate revising this piece as needed.
What We've Learned
Very few land-based stations carry all, or even most of Air America's network line-up. Outside of Franken and Rhodes, several shows seem to have extremely limited reach outside of New York and a handful of other cities.
In addition, many affiliates are tiny. Three of its biggest stations, in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, are paid large sums to run network programming.
As we've mentioned previously, some of America's largest syndicated radio shows are heard on as many as 400 stations nationwide.
And just as importantly, we don't know how Air America arrives at the 89 stations it claims in press releases. Where are they?
Your Amazon orders that begin with clicks here, regardless of your final purchases, are vital to supporting this site's efforts. Thanks again!
AAR Economics by Pete at IHillary, AAR Crash by David A Lunde
Assessing Air America's True Station Reach
Between interviews and emails, it's the question we're most
commonly asked: how many stations does Air America Radio really have?Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, it's one we've never been able to answer.
However, thanks to new research done by Political Calculations, as well as our own additional analysis, we should finally be able to shed some light on the liberal radio network's real nationwide reach.
Why does it matter? If Air America can prove it's a viable, growing concern, it might be able to entice stations to carry their programs, or get advertisers on board.
At least in theory, that is.
What does the company actually claim? What can be verified? From either end of the debate over its performance, it's not as black and white as one might imagine.
As a result, this will not be considered a definitive report, just an educated guess.
Company No Longer Trumpeting Affiliate Count
Until a recent website redesign, Air America prominently touted its latest station count at the top of the main page. Because the number continued to increase, it was an obvious attempt at painting a picture of rapid growth.
In the early months, they actually were picking up stations, so there was little reason to question the tally. In addition, there's also a website affiliate page, so it was a simple matter of comparing that list with the stated number.
So how did this previously straightforward situation become fuzzy?
As with other syndicated radio and television programming, affiliates come and go over time. Whenever one signed on, Air America's website list was amended. When others were lost, however, were they removed?And what about stations that kept just one or two AAR shows in their ongoing lineup? Are they still properly considered network affilates, or is that stretching the truth a bit?
Enter a key grey area.
And in the last year, a bigger issue arose: should they be able to count stations running only the syndicated Thom Hartmann Show as network affiliates? Clearly, they believed the answer was yes.
While Air America parent company Piquant LLC does distribute Hartmann's program, it isn't part of the network's lineup. In fact, he runs at the same time as Al Franken's show.
As a result, that's where criticism of Air America's public affiliate count becomes fair game.
The Difficulty In Determining An Exact Count
In a recent press release, the network claimed 89 affiliates.
Building on the report by Political Calculations, we attempted to look up website addresses for the stations listed at Air America's site, to find their current status.
Making it exceptionally difficult to determine whether they really run Air America, almost a third were too tiny to have any Internet presence.
Raising the possibility they serve merely as translators (and therefore probably aren't affiliates at all), a few others redirect to the websites of larger outlets in bigger cities.Here's their most recent tally:
National
XM Satellite Radio ch. 167
Eastern
Akron, OH - WARF-AM 1350 AM
Ann Arbor, MI - WLBY-AM 1290 AM
Asheville, NC - WPEK-AM 880 AM
Atlanta, GA - WWAA-AM 1690 AM
Bennington, VT - WBTN-AM 1370
Binghamton, NY - WYOS-AM 1360 AM
Boston, MA - WXKS-AM 1430 AM
Boston, MA - WKOX-AM 1200 AM
Brattleboro, VT - WKVT-AM 1490 AM
Buffalo, NY - WHLD-AM 1270 AM
Burlington, VT - WVAA-AM 1390 AM
Chapel Hill, NC - WCHL-AM 1360 AM
Charlottesville, VA - WVAX-AM 1450 AM
Chattanooga, TN - WDOD-AM 1310 AM
Cincinnati, OH - WCKY-AM 1530 AM
Cleveland, OH - WTAM-AM 1100 AM
Columbia, SC - WOIC-AM 1230 AM
Columbus, OH - WTPG-AM 1230 AM
Detroit, MI - WDTW-AM 1310 AM
East Longmeadow, MA - WHNP-AM 1600 AM
Grand Rapids, MI - WTKG-AM 1230
Greenfield, MA - WHMQ-AM 1240 AM
Huntington, WV - WRVC-AM 930 AM
Ithaca, NY - WNYY-AM 1470-AM
Key West, FL - WKIZ-AM 1500 AM
Miami, FL - WINZ-AM 940 AM
Montpelier/Barre/St Johnsbury, VT - WDEV-AM 550
New Haven, CT - WAVZ-AM 1300 AM
New York, NY - WLIB 1190 AM
Petoskey, MI - WWKK-AM 750 AM
Pittsburgh, PA - WPTT-AM 1360
Portland, ME - WLVP-AM 870 AM
Providence-Warwick-Pawtucket, RI - WHJJ-AM 920
Rochester, NY - WROC-AM 950 AM
Rocky Mount, NC - WEED-AM 1390
Sarasota-Bradenton, FL - WSRQ-AM 1450 AM
Springfield, MA - WHMP-AM 1400 AM
State College, PA - WBLF-AM 970 AM
Washington, DC - WWRC-AM 1260 AM
West Palm Beach, FL - WJNO-AM 1290 AM
Central
Austin, TX - KOKE-AM 1600 AM
Baton Rouge, LA - WYNK-AM 1380 AM
Brainerd, MN - WWWI-AM 1270 AM
Chicago, IL - WCPT-AM 850 AM
Corpus Christi, TX - KCCT-AM 1150 AM
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX - KXEB-AM 910 AM
Davenport, IA - WKBF-AM 1270 AM
Duluth-Superior, MN - KQDS-AM 1490 AM
Ely/Hibbing, MN - WELY-AM 1450 AM
Lafayette, LA - KEUN-AM 1490 AM
Madison, WI - WXXM-FM 92.1 FM
Marion/Carbondale, IL - WINI-AM 1420
Memphis, TN - WWTQ-AM 680 AM
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN - KTNF-AM 950 AM
New Orleans, LA - WSMB-AM 1350 AM
San Antonio, TX - KTXX-FM 103.1 FM
Mountain
Albuquerque, NM - KABQ-AM 1350 AM
Denver, CO - KKZN-AM 760 AM
El Paso, TX - KHRO-AM 1650 AM
Santa Fe, NM - KTRC-AM 1260 AM
Taos, NM - KVOT-AM 1340
Pacific
Albany, OR - KTHH-AM 990 AM
Eugene, OR - KOPT-AM 1600 AM
Eureka, CA - KGOE-AM 1480
Fresno, CA - KFPT-AM 790 AM
Los Angeles, CA - KTLK-AM 1150 AM
Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz, CA - KRXA-AM 540
North Bend / Coos Bay, OR - KBBR-AM 1340
Portland, OR - KPOJ-AM 620 AM
Reno, NV - KJFK-AM 1230 AM
Riverside, CA - KCAA-AM 1050 AM
Sacramento, CA - KCTC-AM 1320
San Diego, CA - KLSD-AM 1360 AM
San Francisco, CA - KQKE-AM 960 AM
San Francisco, CA - KSRO-AM 1350
San Luis Obispo, CA - KYNS-AM 1340 AM
Santa Barbara, CA - KIST-AM 1340 AM
Santa Cruz - Monterey, CA - KOMY-AM 1340 AM
Seattle, WA - KPTK-AM 1090 AM
Spokane, WA - KPTQ-AM 1280 AM
Victor Valley, CA - KSZL-AM 1230 AM
Alaska/Hawaii
Anchorage, AK - KUDO-AM 1080 AM
Honolulu, HI - KUMU-AM 1500 AM
Kihei, HI - KAOI-AM 1110 AM
Lihue, HI - KQNG-AM 570 AM
For their analysis, Political Calculations used Wikipedia's count of 84, closely matching the 85 on Air America's official list.So why, in corporate press releases, does the company claim 89? We don't know.
While stations in Phoenix and Missoula have been dropped from their list, Cleveland's WTAM-AM remains, even though it is cancelling Jerry Springer's radio show.
Current count: 84.
Political Calculations couldn't find Air America on these listed stations:
* (4) KSRO 1350 AM - San Francisco, CA
* (23) WPTT 1360 AM - Pittsburgh, PA
* (136) WTWK 1070 AM - Plattsburgh, NY
* (235) WINI 1420 AM - Carbondale, IL
* (79) KXRA 540 AM - Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz
While WTWK has been removed from Air America's site, the other four are still listed. KSRO (actually in Santa Rosa, not San Francisco as the company claims) hasn't a trace of their programming on its current schedule.
WPTT and KXRA run Hartmann for three hours daily, WINI for one. KXRA was actually set up as a left-wing outlet to counter Air America programming on nearby KOMY-AM.
We don't believe these should be counted.
Current count: 80
In PC's "low content" category are these:
(36) WHJJ 920 AM - Providence, RI (Randi Rhodes)
(52) WHLD 1270 AM - Buffalo, NY (Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy)
(63) KUMU 1500 AM - Honolulu, HI (Al Franken, Randi Rhodes)
(73) WARF 1350 AM - Akron, OH (Al Franken, Randi Rhodes)
(172) KUDO 1080 AM - Anchorage, AK (Al Franken)
(179) WYOS 1360 AM - Binghampton, NY (Al Franken, Randi Rhodes)
(192) WWKK 750 AM - Petoskey, MI (Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Jerry Springer, Majority Report)
(219) WWWI 1270 AM - Brainerd, ND (Al Franken)
Because Air America markets itself as a full-time network, we don't believe stations carrying just a small portion of the lineup should rightly be considered affiliates.
What's fair? That's a tough call, so we'll err on the side of caution and keep those running at least two shows.
Current count: 77
In addition, we found several double-counted translators or simulcasts in Massachusetts and elsewhere. In the western part of the Bay State, one station is counted on the company's list this way three times, while Boston's two signals are really one legitimate outlet.In addition, we have questions about KIST-AM in California, which may be a simulcast of KTLK/Los Angeles, but will include it for now.
Current count: 74
Also, we found Eureka's KGOE to be carrying only Hartmann and Sarasota's WSRQ running Springer (next to Rush and Hannity!) Alaska's KUDO-AM 1080 runs Franken and Hartmann. We'll leave it in our count.
KAOI-AM in Hawaii runs Franken in the evenings, after Rush and religious programming! Sorry, Charlie.
Current count: 71
Other question marks- perhaps you can help us with these:
- KTXX-FM Texas (what is it running?)
- KIST-AM Santa Barbara (as mentioned above)
- Others on Air America's list we didn't mention because we couldn't track down station information. For instance, there could be a dozen additional stations running only Hartmann.
Are they in your neck of the woods? Please let us know.
To correct potential errors, omissions and to subtract other stations running little or no Air America programming, we anticipate revising this piece as needed.
What We've Learned
Very few land-based stations carry all, or even most of Air America's network line-up. Outside of Franken and Rhodes, several shows seem to have extremely limited reach outside of New York and a handful of other cities.
In addition, many affiliates are tiny. Three of its biggest stations, in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, are paid large sums to run network programming.
As we've mentioned previously, some of America's largest syndicated radio shows are heard on as many as 400 stations nationwide.
And just as importantly, we don't know how Air America arrives at the 89 stations it claims in press releases. Where are they?
Your Amazon orders that begin with clicks here, regardless of your final purchases, are vital to supporting this site's efforts. Thanks again!
AAR Economics by Pete at IHillary, AAR Crash by David A Lunde
published by Brian Maloney at
15:00
9 Comments:
and once again we have one of those (rare) occurences when Brian actually seems to be doing some actual, honest investigative reporting.
Please, Brian, stop me from laughing and keep moving onward with an honesty track. Remove the irrational hatred and stick to the facts, and you might actually succeed in re-creating yourself as a reporter.
Good, honest stuff...reporting that Air America as a body deserves. Their affiliate count is, at best, vague...at worst, it's deliberately misleading.
That's a story.
Virtually the only AAR show I find at all informative & entertaining is the much-maligned and hated Al Franken Show. The only remaining show I find entertaining is Randi Rhodes (not informative, just entertaining - but, then, I find Bill O'Reilly entertaining, too - only because he's nuts).
Lose the snark, and keep the honest reporting!
(see, unlike many people, I can be reasonable :)).
By
TJ, at 20 March, 2006 17:27
I'd be very interested in the transmitter power and area covered by those stations, as well.
By
James Jones, at 20 March, 2006 17:50
Brian - KIST/Santa Barbara is a mirror of the LAX affiliate KTLK on 1150. Radio-locator.com lists the station address as in Covington, KY, so there is no actual brick-and-mortar station in Santa Barbara proper.
Its signal is 650 watts unidirectional, but due to the mountain range there in SBA the signal is bounced mostly to the Channel Islands. The 'local' node of the signal barely reaches north past Isla Vista (UCSB) and barely reaches Ventura to the south. The 'distant' node of the signal can be received from Solvang to Thousand Oaks, thus "serving" most of the SLO-SBA DMA.
I don't know if you consider straight-up mirror sites to be actual serving 'stations' in the calculations or not, but there ya go.
By
SierraSpartan, at 20 March, 2006 22:45
You crappin on me B.M. I broadcast AAR with call-letters WHT at 88.1 FM from my satellite receiver.
The thing runs 24x7.
Boo f'in hoo.
By
@whut, at 21 March, 2006 02:14
Brian,
Thank you for the link! It's kind of cool to read through the comments here to see the blogosphere at work sorting through what is and what isn't with regard to AAR. I'm pretty confident that you'll have the definitive list in short order.
By
Ironman, at 21 March, 2006 08:30
>>While WTWK has been removed from Air America's site
yes that was the 1070 licensed to Plattsburgh; last year the AAR was
switched to WVAA 1390 (Burl VT)and 1070 is now ESPN (simulcast
with 1490 WFAD Middlebury VT). 1070
is a daytimer while 1390 is fulltime
http://www.wtwk1070.com/
By
raccoonradio, at 21 March, 2006 12:51
Since this was sort of a hobby of mine in the early days of AAR:
* Here in Akron, WARF/1350 does indeed carry Al Franken (now 1 PM-3 PM) and Randi Rhodes (6-10 PM), and a number of the AAR weekend shows - but not all, as they run some "Best ofs" of weekday non-AAR shows.
* WTAM/1100 Cleveland dropped Springer in full a week ago Friday, and is running a rotation of local hosts before announcing a permanent local host - who will debut reportedly next Monday.
* KIST/1340 Santa Barbara CA is as far as I know, run locally in the CC Santa Barbara cluster and is not a direct simulcaster of KTLK/1150 in Los Angeles. They may run similar schedules, including the usual CC libtalk diet of AAR, Jones and other shows. I'm pretty sure they have at least one local weekend show. They were doing liberal talk a few months before 1150, and had to change calls back to KIST because of that move.
I have not actually heard the station, though.
* About KCAA - for whatever reason, their mindset seems to involve running hour long shows. I think only Don Imus in morning drive lasts more than 2 hours! They also have G. Gordon Liddy for an hour. Maybe they're trying to squeeze as many shows as possible into a daytimer's schedule.
* It appears KSRO/1350 Santa Rosa CA very recently dropped Thom Hartmann. He was on their schedule until a couple of months or so ago. Perhaps it was to make room for two local afternoon shows (which pushed Jones' Clark Howard into nights, bumping Hartmann).
* KTXX/103.1 Karnes City TX (a far San Antonio rimshot) is owned and operated by the same folks as KXEB/910 in the Dallas market (Frisco TX) and KOKE/1600 Austin. I found out this week that the three stations apparently simulcast after 7 PM and probably on weekends. KXEB carries many of the AAR shows, and I assume the others do as well. KXEB is in itself a Dallas rimshot, though not an awful signal in Dallas and areas north of downtown Dallas. It probably doesn't carry well into Fort Worth. It's not the worst signal in the market, at least east and north, but is not even close to established signals like 570, 820 and 1080.
It is certainly not as bad a rimshot as KTXX, which basically counts as a San Antonio station with an asterisk.
By
Ohio Media Watch, at 21 March, 2006 21:12
About KXEB - my only experience with the station was within their stronger Dallas-area signal reach, so I'm only guessing how badly they'd do from, say, DFW west to Fort Worth, and south of downtown Dallas.
I've heard worse rimshots, but it most assuredly is a rimshot - and not very professionally run, either. The station imaging voice sounded for all the world like a college kid, and the actual production sounded worse than I've heard high school students putting together.
If I recall right, KXEB is a move-in from the Sherman/Denison area, like about half the new stations in the DFW market these days...
Anyway, it's not AWFUL signal wise for places like Dallas, Plano, Richardson and the Rt. 75 corridor, but the Metroplex is a LOT bigger than that.
By
Ohio Media Watch, at 22 March, 2006 16:13
I am in Columbus, Ohio, and we have a station that carries AAR, in parts. They have Stephanie Miller in the morning and Ed Schultz in the evening, so they aren't totally AAR. There are some interesting facts about this station:
1) It is a Clearchannel station (that evil Clearchannel to liberals)
2) They are having a very hard time getting anyone to advertise, especially for the AAR shows. During the commercial breaks, the majority of the time is used for public service announcements, and when they run out of those, they simply play music for a while until the break is over (not bumper music, this lasts for several minutes)
3) I wrote once to complain about Stephanie Miller talking over a live Bush speech, and the station manager called me personally and apologized, and said if I wanted real news, to listen to their other station, the one that carries Rush and Hannity. Even the station manager can't stand the format.
I can't imagine they will keep this station as a liberal station for much longer, they can't be making any money here, this is a very conservative city.
By
lbinoh, at 24 March, 2006 17:18
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