shotbanner.jpeg

April 15, 2004

The Dog Ate Our Financing

Air America FrankenNet, the liberal talk radio network that launched two weeks ago with much ballyhoo and saturation coverage from a media that desperately wants to see it succeed, seems to be having trouble. Yesterday, Drudge broke the story - the network's Chicago and Los Angeles affiliates threw FrankenNet employees out of the studios and change the locks after a million dollar check bounced (says station management) or was stopped (according to FrankenNet spokespeople).

Here's what a FrankenNet representative has to say.

Highlights:

After just two weeks on the air, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, and that really loud woman from Florida, appears to have encountered serious cash-flow problems.

Stop the presses!!! There?s nothing more exciting than half a story from a third hand source!!!!

Insiders tell SLUDGE, that the reason the network was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, was because, the owner of both stations, Arthur Liu of Multicultural Broadcasting, said, the network bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million! The run-on sentence, tortured grammar and the exclamation point clearly means it?s true!!

Only it isn?t.

Normally we?d let this go because ?habitual liars? like Drudge are laughable, and ridicule is our business.

Which is a good thing, because talk radio certainly wouldn't seem to be treating you well.

Onward:

But Arthur Liu --- not funny. He lied to us, he ripped us off and now we?re chasing him down with a pipe wrench. It?s a metaphor.
Right.

So was "We start bombing in five minutes".

No, wait. That was a joke.

I get so confused when I have to deal with the greater minds in liberal talk radio.

Back to FrankenNet's response:

Here?s what really happened:

This Liu-ser was ripping off our boss Evan Cohen big time (he can?t do that, that?s our job). Evan found out about it and he stopped payment on a check to keep Liu-cifer from ripping him off even more. You can touch Evan for the occasional meal or drinks but a million bucks is crossing the line. And if we ever get low on cash, we can always call Barbra Streisand. Or any of the Baldwins. Except Stephen.

So let's accept this completely at face value.

FrankenNet may not be in the toilet financially. However, they'd seem to be completely inept at negotiating contracts, or getting relationships with affiliates.

After two weeks, two of your affiliates are already ripping you off? To the tune of a quarter mill per station per week?

That comes to $10,000 per broadcast hour per station.

Say the words out loud: Ten Thousand Dollars Per Broadcast Hour. Per station.

If we're to believe the press release, that's above and beyond what FrankenNet is already paying for its airtime.

That's right. Paying for airtime. FrankenNet has had to either buy every station that carries it, or buy the time at thousands of dollars per hour.

So maybe FrankenNet is still solvent; I'm sure Barbra Streisand or George Soros values the McCain-Feingold loophole that the "network" provides them.

The memo - which has a Franken-y cadence to its writing, as differentiated from the "Ummmms" and "Y'knows" and audible mental strain that marks Franken's spoken cadence - continues:

So we got screwed, Liu?d, and tattooed. How Liu can you get? In Liu of payment. Liu?d and lascivious behavior. These write themselves. [But FrankenNet has staff writers for all its shows, anyway...Ed.] What we?re getting at is that we hate him.

So now everyone?s saying we?re going down the dumper in Chicago and Los Angeles, but what they don?t tell you is that we?re still on in Portland. And we OWN Portland. And let?s not forget Riverside and Plattsburgh. And New
York. And streaming on the internet. And XM. And Sirius. Actually we?re fine.

So cool your jets. Air America Radio isn?t dead, we?re in court and we?re going to slam Liu?s head in a car door. Another metaphor. We hope to be back on the air tomorrow or the next day in those markets.

We'll be waiting.

And let's be clear - it's another violent "metaphor". Just like tackling hecklers and threatening conservative journalists. And like...

Arthur Liu, I wouldn?t show your face around here.

Or Riverside. Or Plattsburgh.

DEVELOPING??

I thought it was conservatives who were supposed to be hateful degenerates?

The FrankenNet press release gave the office phone and website for the owners of the stations, Multicultural Broadcasting of New York. They've also used their remaining stations (including WMNN in Minneapolis - a station I'm taking off my presets tomorrow) to attack Mr. Liu:

Jean Heinemeyer, general manager of Multicultural's New York station, said the station has been flooded with calls from irate Air America listeners over the past 36 hours.

And he lashed out at a tongue-in-cheek Air America "press release" in which the network was going to resolve the matter, vigilante-style, by putting a crowbar to Liu's head.

"It's more than sophomoric," said Heinemeyer. "It's disgusting and frightening."

The release was removed from the site Thursday.

No. It wasn't.

Posted by Mitch at April 15, 2004 04:31 PM
Comments
hi