A year ago, I said t…

A year ago, I said this about Air America (Al Franken’s show in particular):

Considerettes Prediction: Franken’s show is gone in 2 years. I’m going on the record with this.

Today, one year later, Brian Maloney notes these stats:

Despite a huge effort by radio syndicators and online supporters to make liberal talk radio appear successful, the truth is that it continues to struggle to gain listenership, as measured by the Arbitron ratings service.

…

[N]ew data released last evening by Arbitron shows again that Air America’s flagship New York station is failing to generate any audience growth, both in-city and in outlying areas. The ratings information is for the broadest listener measurement category, persons 12 and older, 6am to midnight daily.

WLIB has now had a full year, a generous amount of time in broadcasting, to build an audience and figures are still flat compared with the previous niche Caribbean format the station featured. Often in radio that would mean imminent cancellation, but backers continue to be so noisy, they have generated enough industry hype to sustain poor performance a tad bit longer.

Brian has more information on stats as well. (The link to RadioAndRecords.com from his post is broken, but I’m leaving it in just in case R&R puts the info back.)

I figured that the sheer force of money and PR would keep the network around at least a year (even while some overly exuberant folks predicted it wouldn’t last past the election). Apparently, those backing the network realize this, and are trying to buck the normal ratings pressures.

So I’m still standing by my original prediction. It still looks very likely, although I may have to modify the prediction to say that were it any other radio network, subject to the ratings for its survival, it would have died after two years, barring extraordinary life-support measures.

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