Bad News! For me anyway. Sam Seder Show cancelled at Air America Radio

My bad news is that Sam Seder's show on Air America Radio is being cancelled. His last day for his daily show is Friday, April 13th. The Greens say they want something less substansive in that time frame. Now that blew my mind!!! Less substansive? The whole idea of Air America was to give you substance and truth.

My opinion is that AAR is making a big mistake here. Seems like the station has been gutting their talent since before the 2004 election. I've had to stream the show for over a year now, since Sam took the morning slot because my local affiliate decided not to carry Sam's show when Jerry Springer left.

Air America got into trouble by not selling advertising. Of course there was a right wing led campaign to get sponsors not to advertize on AAR also. There was a list of companies that would not advertize so in essence AAR was blacklisted. However, the former owners had no idea how to promote their station nor did they realize they have to sell advertizing to keep on air.

Sam started with Air America the day it went on air, March 31, 2004, with Janeane Garofalo and they were on in the late evening with their show called Majority Report Radio. There also was a blog attached to the show and Sam interacted with the bloggers from time to time.

When Janeane left Sam took over the whole show and he was great. He had great guests and did wonderful interviews and always linked info for the guests to his blog. After other changes and when Jerry Springer left, Sam, wanting to have earlier hours, took the 9-12 AM ET slot.

I can't say how much I admire Sam. When I heard this news, I was immediately sick to my stomach and angry.

Sam did say he might have a Sunday show on AAR. He'll let us know more next week. If it's a Sunday show for him then that will be the only day I listen to AAR.

Here's more from blatherWatch:

Air America pulls the plug on Sam Seder

Sadly, it's true this time: Friday the 13th of April is the last day for the Sam Seder Show as we know it.

Seder's been at the troubled Air America from the beginning. A close-in source says he'll probably take a Sunday afternoon show as a consolation prize.

"It's like a gold watch," she said. "Besides, they'd owe him a shit load of severance."
Who's next in the 9a-12p (East coast) time slot? Mark Green told the staff Thursday that the person hadn't been locked in, but should be by Monday or Tuesday.

"We think," he said brightly to the troubled assemblage, "you'll love the replacement."
It's been a death of a thousand cuts- not great for a slasher film plot, but serves a passive-aggressive (read chicken shit) executive AAR executive well.

In February, chief operating officer Scott Elberg, the network's corporate Jason Voorhees, and sixth CEO in three years, slashed Seder's budget and salary by 40%.

Elberg is a veteran radio guy, and was the last AAR man standing after the bankruptcy. Many however, say Elberg simply doesn't even believe in the liberal talk format.
"He voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004," staffers grumble.

Elberg never worked in a network or in syndication, they say, "He's a sales manager."
The whole deal is mysterious. It's not based on data because there isn't much- there's been no full book since Seder inherited in September from Jerry Springer, who'd bled ratings from that key anchoring position before he was finally fired.

And here is the "substance" part:

New owner, Mark Green reportedly told people he wanted "less substance" in the 9-ta-noon timeslot. Hence they offered it, to no avail to comedian Marc Maron, and tried unsuccessfully to get Jones Radio's Stephanie Miller with her comedic format.

Many think Elberg is enamored with Free FM "hot talk," the testosteronic, hyper-sexual audio foreplay like Anthony & Opie, or The Radio Chick except he'd have it with politics- a coupling of hot libs with hot libidos in sweaty, partisan, lizard-brain, 9-ta-noon, weekdaily orgies.

"I think he [Elberg] thought Maron could morph into that," says one staffer, "and when Maron balked, he'd gotten himself in a position he couldn't back off of- that there was something wrong with Sam's program."

Read the rest here and there is also more at Liberal Talk Radio.

I'd welcome comments on this. I might want to send them to the Greens at Air America Radio.

Poverty in America, worst in 35 years!

Weekly, if not daily, Bush or one of his minion is on TV saying how great the economy is. For who? The upper 10% of the richest of the rich? Even Bernanke admitted in a Senate hearing last week that the devide between the rich and the poor is growing.

Here's the report from the US Census from 2005:
"Almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure".

And that was over a year ago. It would certainly be over 16 Million now.

Many headlines today mention this report:

Severe poverty in U.S. hits high
The Buffalo News - 2 hours, 36 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

Poverty level is at a 32-year high
Baltimore Sun - Feb 25 12:53 AM
Nearly 16 million Americans classified as severely poor, McClatchy report shows The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's haves and have-nots continues to widen.

Here's some of the McClatchy report via the AFP via Raw Story:

Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure.

For individuals the "deep poverty" threshold was an income under 5,080 dollars a year.

"The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005," the US newspaper chain reported.

"That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period," it noted.

The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion.

"Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.

"That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

"These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty -- the highest rate since at least 1975. The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades," the report said.

Just about two more years of Bushco will deepen this devide since he thinks he is the "decider". More like "dictator"!

Sam Seder Show on Air America

One of my favorite radio shows is the Sam Seder Show on Air America Radio, 9AM to 12 noon EST.

I have been listening to his show since Air America first came on the air. His first show was with Janeane Garafolo and was named Majority Report Radio and was on in the evening. Now he is alone and has moved to mornings.

Sam is a great supporter of the netroots blogosphere. He has many from the Liberal blog world on his show. Kos from Daily Kos, Atrios from Esheton, Firedoglake, Liberal Oasis are just a few.

If you have a chance, listen in on his show. Here's the stream addy:

http://play.rbn.com/?url=airam/airam/live/live.rm&proto=rtsp

or you can link from here.

If you have an XM radio, you can listen at AARXM 167.