Air America a Lesson About Liberal Ideology

It's official: Air America is off the air.

This wasn't hard to predict. Teach a ten year old some basic economics, and they could have seen it.

The organization had already filed for bankruptcy once, in 2006, and its 1,000 or so stations were largely a hodge-podge of 3rd- and 4th-ranked broadcasters and single-show-buyers. While it launched the careers of a few liberal celebrities, most notably Rachel Maddow, and rejuvinated the careers of others (like now-Senator Al Franken), none of its programs ever achieved anything resembling the kind of success that were seen from Conservative and Libertarian talk show hosts like Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh.

Part of this is due to longevity: The Conservative talkers have been on the air for decades, by and large, and have developed strong radio audiences organically. In many ways, they resemble America's small business entrepreneurs: They got where they are by taking the long-term, organic approach to growth. The largest corporations today started as a business in somebody's garage (Hewlett-Packard) or a cramped studio above a store (Disney) or small workshop (Boeing).

Just like those businesses, the success of Conservative talk radio wasn't bought, it was earned. If talk radio hosts were good and had a product people wanted, they succeeded. If they didn't have it, they failed. Talk Radio was built by the very free market ideas that its most famous voices support and defend on their shows every day.

Air America, on the other hand, was the very essence of the centrally-planned system. Talkers were hired based not on what consumers wanted, but based on the message that Air America wanted to promote. While there might have been flexibility in the choice of programs, the fact was the radio listeners just didn't want the product. Despite it being differentiated from Conservative talk radio, the people who were open to the message that Air America provided were simply more interested in other media. Radio, being supported by advertising, is a ratings game. Better ratings means more advertising revenue.

Air America's ratings stunk. Like road kill or runny cheese. On a hot day, you could smell the headquarters from several miles away, it was that bad.

Neal Boortz explains it very well: Talk Radio is entertainment. Sure, it might be informative and be filled with news bites and political commentary, but in the end it must be entertaining to the listener or they will tune their radio to something else. Every radio talker is an entertainer, and so they must do something to entertain whether it be saying inflamatory things, airing the silliest or most invective calls or broadcasting audio stunts like Limbaugh's "The Philanderer" song (to the tune of "The Wanderer" by Dion and parodizing Ted Kennedy) or Boortz' "Cat Chasing" stunt. Listeners wanted to hear the political commentary to be sure, but they tuned in to be entertained.

Air America didn't see itself as entertainment, but as a political tool. The point of the network was not to entertain and inform, but to advocate. Rather than inserting a message into what is otherwise a form of entertainment, Air America focused on promoting the message. If any entertainment ensued, it was purely by accident or the initiative of the particular talker.

Americans, by and large, don't like to be preached at, which is part of why so many Public Service Announcements are ignored. That, and those PSAs usually just plain boring.

Air America was nothing if not preachy and boring.

Air America failed. It did not fail because of its message, because Public Broadcasting, various television outlets and online media demonstrate that there are people who want to be exposed to liberal ideology. They want to have a liberal slant in their news and to hear liberal commentary. No, Air America failed because those who built it so believed in their core ideology--that central planning could do a better job than the free market at delivering things people need and want--that they never conceived people wouldn't like the product. When it was clear America didn't like the product Air America didn't fix the problems, it just repackaged the same preachy, boring product and hoped people would think it was new and fresh and different.

Kinda' reminds me of health care legislation.

In fact, those in charge of Air America didn't understand that talk radio is an entertainment product. They simply saw the success of Conservative talk radio and made the assumption that what was important wasn't the entertainment, but the advocacy.

Well, what do you expect from people who read Marx and think it's anything other than the poorly-written, nonsensical ravings of a lunatic?

Air America demonstrates mightily what happens when central planning overrules free market incentive and illustrates to us how destructive such systems really are. Air America lasted less than six years, while the entrepreneurial talkers, conservative and liberal, have been on the air for decades.

Take a lesson from Air America: The free market, not centralized planning and preconceived ideas about what people should want, is the surest and most enduring system to prosperity and success.