Somewhere Sam Seder is Laughing

Well, they finally killed it. Air America has declared bankruptcy and halted programming they announced today. They were too failed to be big. For just over six years the liberal network tried to make inroads against the predominantly conservative talk radio landscape. While there is little doubt that conventional wisdom, driven by those radio hosts and the corporate media who listens to them, will attribute the failure to what they consider the inherent conservative-ness of America. The truth is much more simple--the people who ran Air America really sucked at programming a radio network.

Air America's legacy is manifested in the talented alumni the network either couldn't keep or drove away. Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes are stars on TV and radio respectively. Marc Maron maintains one of the most popular and critically acclaimed podcast in the country. Senator Franken wasn't great on the air, but that's because no one was comparing him to Montel Williams. Thom Hartmann continues to be an impressive, nationally syndicated presence.

In the end I'm glad to see the network gone. They killed Morning Sedition, The Majority Report, fired Randi Rhodes, fired the Young Turks, fired Mike Malloy, fired Sam Seder and Marc Maron multiple times--at least three times each! Seriously, what kind of twisted, sadistic shit is that? Tell Conan that NBC's programmers don't have shit on the clownfuckers that ran AAR into the ground. Any corporation that shits on that caliber of progressive talent is not on our side, no matter what their imaging says.