Air America Radio falls silent in Western Montana.

[John Q. Citizen]

http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/6640/C8/L8

Interesting blog entry on the behind the scenes problems/politics that caused KKNS, a station with a 3.5 market share rating (to die for in commercial radio,) to stop doing progressive talk radio in a progressive town.

[Jim Warren]

1. Hmmm, curious

Wonder, so was this bad marketing/sales or.........big repug donor sabotage?

It just seems to me like high market share is THE definition of where advertisers usually spend their dough.

One thing for sure, wingnut talk radio will spin this sort of thing with a "librul radio doesn't work" meme.

An AAR affiliate closes shop in Phoenix as well.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Well I corresponded with Leslie Lotto

who was the host of a locally produced show, Focal Point, and she said the sales staff didn't get it. They figured the product had no value and so how could they sell it? I think the sales staff expected businesses to not want to buy time.

The program format was only in operation for about 6 months, which is even more reason to believe market share potential could be even a lot higher. It takes time to build an audience.

The station originally was severly under capitalized and then the new owners just didn't care.

Our local Weekly Alternative Newspaper, The Missoula Independent{/u] is doing a piece on it that comes out today, so as soon as that's up I'll post it. It should provide a lot more background and detail, hopefully.

My guess is with that kind of audience, progressive talk radio will be back. Hopefully this time they will get some lefty ad reps. I know I'd have a hard time selling ads for Rush or Hannity.

[Jim Warren]

3. I'm interested to know what the Independent says

from the Dana Green followup post:

This Salt Lake City, Utah-based corporation, Simmons Media, purchased Mt. Sentinel Broadcasting a month ago. I just “open secrets‿ed the board chair and CEO of Simmmons Media — David Simmons. Lo and behold: he’s a big Republican donor. He’s given $1500 to the Utah Republican Party, plus $1000 to G.W. Bush in each of the 2000 and 2004 election cycles. (Check it out yourself at http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/i ndex.asp )

Probably just that good ol' "level playing field of the free market" ya hear repugs talk so much about.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. I read the Independent onlive, but it wasn't very enlightening. The

New West has this follow up on the new owner of the station.

Radio CEO Responds to Angry Missoula Listeners
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/6681/C8/L8

[Frangible]

5. It's just partisan BS

What the CEO said simply isn't true, there are quite a few stations here playing exactly the same music they switched to, so I fail to see the "opportunity". But now there are no progressive talk stations, several conservative talk stations, and at least one new XM radio subscriber.

Perhaps they weren't turning a good profit, but I'm curious as to why a progress station in a progressive city can't get advertisers, yet multiple conservative stations in a progressive city can.