When Air America announced its plans to shut down operations, most people were shocked, as they didn’t realize Air America was still broadcasting. The network that opened in 2004 with great fanfare closed its doors in 2010 with a whimper.
Air America was a great example of why leftists prefer working in the government and at nonprofit corporations. Whether by design or ineptitude, most on the Left are opposed to turning a profit.
Those of us on the supply side know that a successful business plan starts with creating a product that customers will enjoy. Instead, Air America’s crew forced themselves on the market. They took over radio stations – many of them foreign language stations serving minority listeners in urban areas – the same people that leftists claim to represent.
And like all totalitarians, they assumed once they had the stations that people would have to listen. They didn’t focus on programming, they just shoved their message out onto the airwaves for anyone who might care to listen. As you can imagine, few people did.
When that plan failed, they actually took money from a Boys Club to continue paying Al Franken’s exorbitant salary. When that failed, they started asking listeners to send them money. Absent a government payout, the network was competing with NPR for money, on an unleveled playing field, and the network ceased broadcasting on January 21.
I’m beginning to think that leftists hate corporations for the same reason that fat girls think all the pretty ones are anorexic. People of lesser spirits always come to loathe what they can never attain.
