How's Air America Really Doing?A lot of the liberal posters over at
Radio Equalizer are yapping that Air America's doing great in Denver, or Greenville South Carolina, or someplace similar. The irony is of course, that they may be doing well in those markets in listenership, but are they going to have an impact? Bush won South Carolina by 17 percentage points in 2004 and Colorado by four and a half.
And Greeneville is hardly a large market; Arbitron ranks it 59th in the country.
So here's a look at how Air America is doing in the largest 20 markets.
1.
New York: Air America ranks 24th, with a 1.0 share, down from 1.2 in the prior quarter.
2.
Los Angeles: AA ranks 31st, with a 0.8 share, but that is a pretty hefty jump from the prior quarter's 0.3 share. LA's a fairly new market for AA and so the growth rate and the ranking aren't really indicative of future performance.
3.
Chicago: WCPT does not register, but there is a note that the call letters were changed from WAIT which is not listed either. I believe this is another new market for Air America; there was a big problem with the LA and Chicago affiliates almost immediately after the launch, so it looks like they are just getting established in these two cities.
4.
San Francisco: KQKE ranks 24th with a 1.2 rating as compared to the prior quarter's 1.0.
5.
Dallas: KXEB is tied for 38th with a 0.5 rating, but again, the station hasn't been around long enough to establish itself.
6.
Philadelphia: As I have noted before, WHAT dropped off the Arbitron ratings because they were too low to be measured. This means that at a maximum they were rated 0.4, and would rank at least 29th in the market. And Air America can't claim that this one's due to a new station not yet finding its audience.
7. Houston: Air America appears to have no affiliate in Houston.
8.
Washington, DC: WWRC is not registering a pulse on Arbitron, which means they are at best 31st in the market with a 0.4 share.
9.
Boston: Boston is so liberal that they have two Air America affiliates, but neither WKOS or WXKS are showing up in the rankings. If we assume that they both just missed and that their ratings should be combined, they'd be at a 0.8 share and ranked in a tie for 24th.
10.
Detroit: WDTW-AM doesn't show up in the rankings, so at best they're 30th in the market.
11.
Atlanta: WWAA doesn't show up in the rankings, so they're at best 23rd.
12.
Miami: WINZ seems to be doing quite well, with a 2.0 rating (up from 1.2 in the prior quarter), which ranks it 23rd.
13. Puerto Rico: No Air America Affiliate.
14.
Seattle: KPTK ranks 24th with a 1.4 rating, down from 1.5 in the prior quarter.
15.
Phoenix: KXXT ranks 23rd with a 1.1 rating, up from 0.8 in the prior quarter.
16.
Minneapolis: KTNF ranks 18th (last shown) with a 1.0 rating, up from 0.9 in the prior quarter.
17.
San Diego: KLSD (appropriate, eh?) has a 1.7 rating, up from 1.6, which ranks them in a tie for 22nd.
18. Long Island, NY: No Air America affiliate.
19. St. Louis: No Air America affiliate.
20. Baltimore: No Air America affiliate.
So in sum, Air America ranks above 20th only in one major market (Minneapolis). Only in Miami have they got even a 2.0 rating. They are showing growth in some markets, but the good news has to be leavened with the markets where they don't even register a blip.
