Lionel
Y’know, I’ve technoratied “Lionel” with “Air America”, to guage the scope of opinion on Air America’s new “Lionel” show, and the opinions are in…
I found a poitive review somewhere in there. Really, if you look and shift around, you’ll see one.
But other than that, the mood is set with atrios asking “Are the people who run Air America on crack?”
A shame. I didn’t hear it, and probably never will. I always thought he was better than average, which is — in terms of things to have on the radio in the background — what counts for Absolutely Brilliant. But for something like Air America, picking up Lionel makes sense as a move of desperation, which I suppose it is. Sam Sedar was easily dropped on stations in favor of, say, Stephanie Miller. There’s an advertisement that has appeared in the pages of the Washington Monthly for a station — I guess in Washington. Once upon a time it showed a picture of a handful of Air America hosts. Perhaps at some point Ed Schultz edged into the picture. For the past few months, the ad has showed their talent for 6 am to 3 pm EST: three Jones Network hosts — Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Ed Schultz. That strikes me as significant for troubles with Air America. So, needing to plug something that might work to expand perhaps a network situation and perhaps a syndication situation, Air America management looks around the radio landscape for proven talent that is if not liberal than sort of liberal-minded and all they can really see is goddamned Lionel.
This doesn’t affect the local station here in Portland — at least not much (I think changes of sorts are in store for what they air on the weekend, if anyone cares), but witness the diametrically opposed new directions that are showed with their reformatting. You have Lionel, who is completely separated from anything of a “movement”. And you have something called “The Air Americans”, which combines a bunch of hosts with a very concerted attempt at branding into “Movement Radio”. Neither direction looks particularly appealing, actually, and while I would like to hear Lionel it does strike me as jarring to go from Lionel to… what would be on after him? Thom Hartmann and goddamned Randi Rhodes? It’s jarring enough for the liberal bloggers to ask… “WTF?”
I imagine Lionel will have to shift to fit his new listener base in various ways. Not least amongst them justifying his existence.
Ah well. I will place my disclaimer that I am obliged to have when discussing Air America. Morning Sedition, starting roughly a year into its run, was the only thing that counted for “Appointment Radio”, and the only thing that was particularly Original and Innovative. And I like Rachel Maddow. Everything else is mixed at best.