First Air America replaced the funny and informed, Sam Seder for the facile-tongued, mal-informed Lionel. Now they’ve replaced Thom Hartman, a true scholar, cilvil libertarian and national treasure for Ed Shultz. Well that only leaves the hours between 3 and 8 where Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow are still saying anything I want to listen to on Air America. I guess I should listen to Shultz before I badmouth him, but my gut reaction from listening to a few minutes of his show is not good. I called WWRL the Air America flagship station in NYC. They say it was a decision coming from Air America, though this post on ThomHartmann.com suggests contacting WWRL.

Update from Thom Harman on his site:
FYI, my show is still owned by me and syndicatd by Air America Radio Network. In fact, we added Miami and Destin, FL, today as new affiliates.

In New York, Access 1, the company which owns WWRL, bought another talk show last Friday. That show is not owned by its host, but by investors, who sold it to Access 1. Since the company now owns the show, they put it on the radio station they own. Just makes business sense - that way they own all the advertising minutes (normally a network keeps 15 minutes per day as inventory they can sell) - regardless of ratings, it’s more profitable for them to run a show they own than to run a show syndicated by a network.

My show was picked up in Miami today to replace the show now owned by Access 1, because of poor ratings by the other show. It’s my hope that Air America will soon find another New York station interested in carrying my program. And, unlike other shows, we won’t sell the show in order to get a station to carry us. That will *not* happen! smilies/wink.gif

Thom