Taking To The Air
Late last month HBO premiered “Left of the Dial,” their latest America Undercover documentary that takes a hard look at the rise, fall and rise again of nascent liberal talk show network Air America Radio. It’s a fascinating documentary not for it’s political leanings, but simply the unbelievable drama that if scripted you’d find hard to believe.
Soon before Air America Radio was to take to the airwaves I had lunch with an old radio buddy of mine. I asked him if he knew the people putting the network together and he said he didn’t personally, but knew them by reputation and had talked to a lot of people about it. I asked if he thought they knew what they were doing and he immediately responded, “Not at all.” When you watch this documentary and you see them in rehearsal and the first few weeks of broadcast, it becomes painfully clear my friend was right. The producers they hired for this network seem completely inexperienced. They don’t know how to handle talent and they freak in the most unhelpful ways during a crisis. The majority of the show hosts have no on air experience. From the top down, save Executive Producer Carl Ginsburg, it seemed like no one knew what the hell they were doing.
I recall listening to the network the first couple of days it was on in LA and was unimpressed by the quality of the broadcasts. Constant mistakes, dead air and what not. It was an inauspicious debut for the network that was under intense scrutiny.
Two weeks after they began broadcasting, word of bounced checks got out and the network lost two of their three affiliates – Los Angeles and Chicago. This is where the documentary gets REALLY good. The main guy behind the company, one Mr. Evan Cohen, is as far as we can tell a massive crook living in a dream world. Twice, on camera, they catch him blatantly lying to employees. In one scene he’s approached by one of their sales guys who said he just sold HP Computers a $6,000 ad sales contract. Moments later Cohen’s on his cell phone downstairs telling the caller they just landed a $16,000 contract with HP. They guy’s a major piece of shit having successfully pulled the wool over a lot of people’s eyes. It’s not clear if he stole money or not, but it is clear they never had as much money as he was saying they did.
The network is suddenly broke and there’s little to no money coming in. The staff is basically left to itself to figure out how to make it work. Ginsburg and previously silent investor Doug Kreeger take over, finding what little money they can just to keep themselves on one more day. The battle went from winning on the air to just how can we pay our health care insurance premium today? Ginsburg and Kreeger work their asses off finding any kind of investor they can and they do it with unbelievable calm in the face of a horrible storm.
What follows is an interesting success story. Trial by fire, to be certain. Suddenly producers who looked like children in a candy shop start acting like producers. Talk show hosts who were once without direction had focus and drive (Marc Maron’s transformation into a truly entertaining broadcaster is the most fascinating in my book). Although Randi Rhodes is still a highly self-centered, crazy woman.
Ultimately it’s an unqualified success story. The network continues on to this day, having secured a large sum of investment money late last year. The broadcasts are now heard in 41 markets and the programs are showing quite a bit of success. Al Franken’s program has been taking on Limbaugh with some noticeable success in a number of markets. They all still have a lot to learn about broadcasting, but the ship is running much smoother today than it was those first few months on the air.
If you’re a hard core right winger who hates hard core left wingers, the stars of this documentary are going to say things to piss you off, but you should be able to ignore it long enough to enjoy the drama of the situation. This really isn’t about the politics. It’s more like watching a car crash, multiple times, but ultimately the body shop puts things all right again.
