Just got this in my inbox from Thom Hartmann, and I thought I'd share in its entirety (as Sundays can be a bit lazy):
We haven't been issuing press releases as this stuff has happened, so if you want to be the one to break the news feel free to put this stuff into your own words...
1. In addition to our commercial Dial-Global syndication, we're now a Pacifica affiliated show, providing a 3-hour live and delayed show to Pacifica non-profit and community stations around the world *with no commercial content* through the Pacifica audioport. We're doing this by simultaneously generating two identical shows; one commercial and one non-commercial (where the commercial breaks are filled with content like Labor Radio News, Hightower comments, a Science show, etc.). As a result of this, we've picked up just in the past few months since this affiliation began several dozen new stations, including one that covers an eighth of England and one that covers about a third of Ghana. Yep - our show is the only US-based mainstream political talk show, left or right, that (so far as I know) is carried now on local independent radio stations on 3 continents. And we're on more stations, have more listeners, and have more live clearances then any other progressive show in the country.
2. We also started doing a TV show - simultaneous with our radio show. We first migrated it to our new channel on YouTube, with whom we started a commercial relationship a few months ago, at www.youtube.com/thomhartmann. The show was picked up last week by Free Speech TV (on Dish Network satellite TV) and is now carried live from 2-3 PM ET following "Democracy Now" and "GritTV." We're also producing a half-hour TV show that will begin in the next week or two on FSTV, with most of its content cut down from our 3-hour radio/TV show. We'll also be offering this half-hour show as a video podcast.
3. We've re-established our relationship with Air America in that they're carrying my show on their Washington DC radio station and on their website. We're working on ways to strengthen that relationship, and pleased to see our name again on their brand new website at www.airamerica.com and that their DC listeners can hear our show on the weekends. (So our show is now "brought to our listeners - and viewers - by Dial-Global, Air America, Pacifica, YouTube, and Free Speech TV"...)
Keep up the great work with LTR, and if there's ever any way we can help, let me know!
Thom
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Update from Thom Hartmann
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Eureka, CA 
3 comments:
At the end of the last sentence of item 1 I should have said "progressive *talk show*" instead of just "progressive show," as Democracy Now is on way more stations than us; I think Amy Goodman may even have more clearances than Limbaugh, and I don't know Laura's count for Grit but she's doing great, too...
Is it just me, or did somebody suddenly at long last inject the management at Air America with some smarts?
I've argued for years (and often in LTR comments) that what the network missed from the beginning was a footprint in the Nation's Capital. How can you be an entire media network devoted to the discussion of public policy without a D.C. presence?
Now Randi's here and there's an actual affiliate...and now the affiliate will be running the smartest guy on radio? Nice.
So. How's about a D.C. news bureau? And a left-tinged Sunday morning show, complete with stuffy lefties in coats and ties? (I'm looking at you, Bill Press!) And how's about stronger affiliations with other liberal press? Say, a (more) robust partnership with The Nation?
So far so good, though. And the Web site looks unbelievable.
The last time I was in D.C. (which is the area where I grew up) was in September 2005 for the anti-war march. Mrs. Bukko and I were dedicated Air America listeners in San Francisco (when it was still worth listening to) and we tried hard to tune in to the AAR affiliate as we drove around. Did they have a piss-weak signal or what?
I tried to persuade my dad, a career military guy who got leftish toward the end of his life, to listen to it. But he couldn't, because AAR had just about no strength even for people who were actively seeking it. Another instance of their business plan fail.
I hope they've got better transmission now. Not that it matters down here. And I'm still steamed at how AAR tries to charge our credit card for membership every year. It didn't work as a revenue model for AOL, you bastards, so why do you think it should work for you?
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