'Air America' Gets Awful Ratings in Washington, DC

From the Washington Post:


How strong is the signal?

We've got a local 1260 AM station.

On the other hand WTOP's 107.7 FM broacast out of NoVA comes in pretty clearly down here.

It sounds quite "static-filled" for me, and i live just inside the beltway.

Also, morning is when i normally listen to talk, as i'm driving, and Imus is on.....not the most progressive voice in the world..

I'll occasionally listen through the static on my way home from work though, until i get sick of the loud buzzing sound every time i drive near a power line.

Anywhere outside of 10-15 miles from center of dc, the signal is very erratic. Power lines are a killer.

could afford some advertising.

They never advertise, their signal can barely reach the beltway in many areas, and Imus in the am will turn off more liberals than it attracts. Hardly a fair test if most of your potential audience doesn't know you exist and can't listen to you if they do.

I didn't know I could get Air America in my car until I strolled around the AM station looking for WTOP for some traffic news.

AM isn't exactly the spectrum progressives like to spin around, so without good advertising, I cant see why this is a surprise to anyone.

Furthermore, the signal is terrible! I have clients all over downtown dc and its always static sounding. I'm sure they'd pick up more listeners in DC if they stepped up the signal strength and dropped a few ads in some of the papers. No really knows its there!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I can't get it in the morning or evening, during the winter months. Only can listen a few minutes at lunch. And watch out for power lines.

Imus in the morning doesn't help either.

is working during the day when Franken is on. More important to work for NRDC, Planned Parenthood, Rep. Kucinich or whatever other liberal cause than to stay home and listen to the radio to bring up the ratings.

When I could get it in my old apt, I occasionally listened to Janeane Garofolo's show, but to be honest, it wasn't a super great quality show, IMO. Not near as good as Al Franken.

I told them I'm very happy DC has a progressive talk station, but I think they would benefit from some changes in their line-up.

--First, I think they need to stop airing Don Imus. What is so progressive about Don Imus? They need to carry Air America Radio's morning programming.

-- I told them they need to discontinue airing Ed Shultz, and air the entire 4 hours of Randi Rhodes. I'm also concerned because as you all know, they usually air 2 hours of Randi's show, from 6-8 PM. But as I write this, it is after 7:00 PM, and they are playing Majorty Report. So I hope they have not reduced Randi's show to only ONE hour!

-- Lastly, I told them they need to stop interrupting progressive talk with sports programming. There are plenty of sports programs on AM radio in DC. And since 1260 AM advertises itself as a progressive talk station, they need to stick to that---no sports programming!

they do need to get rid of Imus. He is no progressive, just a rambling and angry old man.

I would suggest moving Randi on after Al Franken and then moving Ed on after Randi.

I love Big Ed, I'd be dismayed if I couldn't hear him here. I love Randi too, but I'd sacrifice her show for Ed's. That being said, I live very close to DC and get OK reception. There's probably about a million things 1260 is doing wrong, the biggest one is interrupting talk radio with sports sometimes. Also, they really repeat ads but thats more because it's hard to find adveertisers for such a poor station. I really hope they can turn it around, Air America is truly a great cause.

Hate to say it, but it's true.

One of the worst...after about 4:00 in the afternoon you can't get anything. I'm not surprised by these ratings