Air America
KXEB sale and other news items
Air America
KXEB sale and other news items
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Here are various articles about the sale of KXEB that you might find of interest- contact me if you have anything to add here or if you'd like any information. Thanks, Nancy Cunningham cunningb@flash.net We are working to bring back Air America to North Texas Petition #1 now over 1100 signatures --- Petition #2 500 and counting !!! Go to our web site to join our group(s), sign our petition or for information on how you can continue to "listen" in North Texas .http://www.dallasairamerica.org/ Other Air America News ! Air America bankruptcy filing Oct 14 2006 ~ ABC Blackout memo |
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Ft. Worth Star Telegram9/22 / Ft.Worth Star Telegram9/29 / Air America no more ! 9/20 /
Rob Wrinkle research / Letter from Global Catholic Network 10/3 / Radio Online 9/22 / Radio and records 9/22 / CBS 8/23
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Air America Radio, the left-leaning news and talk network featuring political humorist Al Franken, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday, confirming weeks of speculation.
Air America has struggled financially since its inception. Court documents show losses of $9.1 million in 2004, $19.6 million in 2005 and $13.1 million so far in 2006.
The news didn't shock Dallas Air America Radio Groups, which is dedicated to promoting the network. Heck, it didn't even faze its attempts to get Air America back on the air in North Texas.
"None of this has anything to do with local affiliates," said Nancy Cunningham, leader of the group. "It doesn't change us one bit."
She and other members of the grassroots organization started circulating petitions to get Air America a new affiliate after the old station, KXEB-AM (910), switched to religious programming Oct. 1.
Only a month ago, the network denied rumors that it would file for bankruptcy protection.
Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn said Friday that the filing became necessary only recently after negotiations with a creditor from the company's early days broke down. The company will continue to operate with funding from its current investor group, Ms. Horn said.
Dallas Air America has collected more than 1,000 signatures at www.dallasairamerica.org, voicing support for a local affiliate.
Ms. Cunningham said the group hopes another Dallas station will flip over to Air America. She points to Phoenix, where another station picked up the network when an affiliate shut down.
One might expect Friday's bankruptcy announcement to effectively kill plans to bring Air America Radio back to Dallas-Fort Worth, but Tom Taylor of trade publication Inside Radio said as long as Air America is up and running, there's hope for local affiliates.
Air America made mistakes early on, Mr. Taylor said, but if the network finds more capital sources, it could recover.
Besides, some Americans won't give up on their quest to get liberal-oriented news and talk on the radio.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
E-mail lschreier@dallasnews.com
Posted on Fri, Sep. 22, 2006
Catholic
company buys 2 area stations
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
It appears that Air America, the liberal talk-radio network, won't be on the air much longer in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Guadalupe Radio Network, a Midland-based Catholic broadcasting company, has announced on its Web site that it will take over two Dallas-Fort Worth stations as of Oct. 1: KXEB/910 AM, which is Air America's Dallas-Fort Worth station, and KJON/850 AM. Guadalupe Radio will broadcast in English on KXEB and in Spanish on KJON.
"It's a done deal, contingent on FCC approval," said Dave Palmer, general manager of Guadalupe Radio Network. Under the deal, Guadalupe Radio Network will lease the stations from Border Media Partners, which owns KXEB and KJON. FCC approval could take up to 60 days, but Palmer says he doesn't foresee any problems.
"We hope one of the first programs that airs will be the Mass, which airs at 10 a.m. Sundays," he said. "We don't exactly know what time of day the switch will take place, but it will happen on Oct. 1."
For the time being, Guadalupe Radio Network will air programs from Eternal Word Television Network, a Catholic cable channel. Palmer is planning some local programs, including one that he will host, but he said they probably won't start until the beginning of the year.
"We'll be teaching Catholics and non-Catholics alike about what Catholicism is all about," he said. "Even some Catholics don't know everything they need to know about Catholicism."
Guadalupe Radio owns eight stations in Central and West Texas and one in New Mexico. With the new Dallas stations and a planned San Antonio station, Palmer said, the potential listenership will jump from 600,000 to 8 million.
Officials with Border Media Partners did not return a request for comment. Phone and e-mail attempts to reach anyone at KXEB or at Air America's New York headquarters were unsuccessful.
Air America debuted with much fanfare in 2004 -- and was also greeted with much skepticism from radio observers who saw talk radio as an almost exclusively conservative domain.
It didn't debut in Dallas-Fort Worth until March 2005, and it never really registered in the local Arbitron ratings. Coincidentally, Al Franken: God Spoke, a documentary featuring Air America's best-known host, is scheduled to open Sept. 29 at Dallas' Angelika Film Center -- two days before Guadalupe Radio takes over KXEB.
Robert Philpot, 817-390-7872 rphilpot@star-telegram.com
Posted on Fri, Sep. 29, 2006
Talk about bad timing: Al Franken: God Spoke, a documentary that spends two years following the comedian-turned-pundit from book tours to a possible run for office, arrives in Dallas today -- two days before Air America Radio, the liberal talk network that boasts Franken as its flagship host, loses its Dallas affiliate.
Border Media Partners, which owns KXEB/910 AM, is leasing the station to Guadalupe Radio Network, a Catholic radio group based in Midland. The religiously oriented format is expected to take over Sunday, grounding Air America in North Texas.
Franken, however, is unconcerned, even as rumors persist that the barely 2-year-old radio venture is preparing to file for bankruptcy. (Air America officials have repeatedly dismissed this in news reports.)
"This happens all the time," Franken says. "It happened to Hannity. It happened to O'Reilly. It happened to Rush. A station is bought by another entity and they change the format. This happened to us in Arizona, in Phoenix, and a couple of months later or a month later, we were back on another station. It doesn't really mean anything."
For the record, the names of the men Franken refers to are, respectively, Sean and Bill and Limbaugh, and they all still have on-air forums in Dallas-Fort Worth, the country's fifth-largest radio market. (O'Reilly's radio show airs on KLIF/570 AM; Limbaugh and Hannity air on WBAP/820 AM.)
Franken insists he's not mixing liberal apples and conservative oranges.
"[Conservative talk-show hosts] have this sort of right-wing echo chamber where anytime something like this happens, they act as if it's never happened before," he said this week, during a brief phone interview. "They'll report it as, 'Air America is doing so badly that it lost its Dallas station.' "
When one of Air America's 90 affiliates has a poor showing in radio's Arbitron ratings, Franken says, it gets much more attention than when his show bumps up the ratings. (Air America never made a dent in the Dallas-Fort Worth Arbitrons, but a support group is already working to get it back on the air here.)
The beginnings of Air America figure into Al Franken: God Spoke, which comes from executive producer D. A. Pennebaker (The War Room, Don't Look Back) and co-directors Nick Doob (Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars) and Chris Hegedus (Startup.com), Pennebaker's wife. The filmmakers, who are known for getting intimate access to their subjects, followed Franken for two years, from the start of a 2002 book tour through the 2004 presidential election and beyond.
But although the Pennebaker team usually turns up revelations about its subjects, there's little in God Spoke that anyone who's even halfway interested in Franken (whether it be to admire him or loathe him) doesn't already know. He's well-known as a liberal voice who likes to bash President Bush and taunt the Fox News Channel. (He became the target of a lawsuit when he riffed on FNC's "fair and balanced" slogan for the title of his 2003 bestseller LIES: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them -- A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. And Bill O'Reilly is shown several times in God Spoke referring to Franken as a "vile human being".)
Politically slanted documentaries are nothing new, but during the past few years, more of them have actually made it into Dallas-Fort Worth theaters. No matter their point of view, they often have one thing in common: They almost always raise the question of whether anyone who doesn't already agree with a doc's ideology is going to go see it. Franken agrees that the people most likely to see God Spoke are already on his side, but he still believes that he can make converts to his cause.
"'Preaching to the choir' is also what I get about Air America," Franken says. "But I get a lot of Republicans when I do...book signings [and things] like that. Even on the floor of the Republican Convention in 2004, when we had been on the radio less than a year, I had a lot of delegates come up to me and say, 'I think your show is fair.'" (One of the movie's slier commentaries is on how celebrity can trump ideology; Franken says he's sometimes asked for autographs by people who don't agree with his politics.)
The movie concludes with Franken considering a run for one of Minnesota's seats in the Senate. Jumping from liberal talk radio to straight-up politics would seem to be like jumping from the frying pan into the oven's broiler pan.
"That's part of the consideration of why I'm going to do it or not," Franken says. "Even by saying, 'I'm thinking of doing it,' I've become a target. But part of my nature is, 'Oh yeah? If you're gonna come after me, that makes me want to do it more.'"
The station's Sales Manager, Tony Migura, just
confirmed it to me on the phone.
"Yes, it is true. The station has been sold," he said. "Call me
tomorrow and we'll do a whole press release." He refused to
answer any further questions.
The buyer is the
Catholic Global Radio Network. No word on when the
changeover will take place, but my sources say it could happen
as soon as Oct. 1, 2006.
This news came to me through
several of Air America Dallas' advertisers, including
multiple Congressional campaigns. Though referred to as "rumor"
by Nancy Cunningham, who manages
Dallas AAR's website, the situation looks grim for
progressive talk radio in North Texas.
"No, there would be nothing we can do to change the mind of
Border Media," said Cunningham. "But we could work to get a
Clear Channel station to flip."
The sentiment seems unlikely, given the
general right-wing bent of the Clear Channel corporation.
Despite recent reports from KXEB of a steadily-expanding market
share, it seems as though my primary source in this story, who
asked to remain anonymous, is right:
"All radio stations are always for sale, all the time. That's
just the way it is. As heartbreaking, and certainly timely, as
this may be, it will not stop the advancement of Progressive
politics in North Texas."
For the foreseeable future, it looks like North Texas
Progressives will have to stick with XM Satelite Radio or live
web streams for their Air America Radio fix.
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News & Headlines
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Border Media Partners Sells Texas Trio for $7.5 Million
Border Media Partners has agreed to sell three Texas outlets to Chatham Hill Foundation and Promesa Foundation for $7.5 million. Included in the deal are Liberal Talk KXEB-AM (910) and Tejano KJON-AM (850)/Dallas, and Spanish Religious KFNI-AM (1380)/San Antonio.
The two Dallas outlets go to Chatham Hill and KFNI is being purchased by La Promesa. However, all three will be operated by Catholic broadcaster Guadalupe Radio Network. The Dallas duo will begin carrying GRN's programming under a Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) on October 1. (09-22-06)
Radio and records
Subject: Border Sells Three In Texas
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Border Sells Three In Texas
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The sale price for the three stations was $7.5 million.
The sale of KXEB isn't good news for Air America Radio, since the station is
the Dallas affiliate for the network.
I was shocked. My understanding from my research was that Border
> Media Partners was in an expansion mode. Buying more stations as
> recently as early September. The timing of the purchase made me think
> there may have been a political motive
> The first news I heard was that it was a purchase by the Catholic
> Church. Later I learned that it was the Guadalupe Radio Network. I
> looked them up and saw that it was a network based in Midland, Texas.
> I saw that all of their stations here to fore were in very small towns
> in west Texas. Suddenly, they have a Dallas station.
> This seemed strange to me. I later Googled... KXEB sold or Border
> Media Partners sells or something like that... and came to the short
> article about the sale on the Radio And Records Website.
> They said that the station KXEB was bought by the Chatham Hill
> Foundation and Licensed to the Guadalupe Radio Network through a
> licensing agreement called an LMA. Licensed Marketing Agreement.
> So, I looked up,(googled) Chatham Hill Foundation in various ways and
> found that they had funded a movie called Hollywood vs. Religion.
> The movie was promoted by Dr. James Dobson of Focus On The Family
> fame. I don't know about the movie, but maybe it was put out as their
> rebuke of the DaVinci Code.
> At this point I thought that the Foundation could be a funnel through
> vehicle for the RNC or soft money radicals like Bob Perry of "Swift
> Boat Fame".> I found a directory of Foundations.
> In that directory Chatham Hill Foundation was listed as a Dallas based
> entity.>
> I still didn't get much except that the foundation had an address in
> Dallas just south of Bachman Lake.
> It was still a mystery.
> Further into the directory listing, there were icons which opened PDF
> files of the Foundations IRS filings.
> It gave me a shock when I saw the names of the officers of the Chatham
> Hill Foundation.
> It is Joe C Thompson Jr.> Dorothy K Thompson (his wife)> and Joe C Thompson III (his son)
> This is the family who started and made their fortune by owning and
> operating Southland Corporation..... Your friendly local 7-11
> Store. Oh thank Heaven for Catholic Radio? Yes, the stores who
> made their money off of the middle and lower class now stops freedom
> of speech one month before the all important mid-term election. I
> think this should be a real news story, and I may pursue some local
> media to get them to check it out, but I thought I would share it with
> you first. By the way, I think they paid way over market value for
> the station. AM radio stations are not hot properties, unless you can
> buy them to squelch dissent.
> I don't know if the Thompsons are Catholic or not, but clearly the
> motivation was political. I see where Dorothy has given generously to
> the RNC. I think this was likely a coordinated effort coming down the
> line from Karl Rove and the RNC. Hell it may still not be the
> Thompsons money. They may have just used their foundation to funnel
> the money through.
> It is censorship by dinero. It is the Golden Rule. Those with the
> gold make the rules. It stinks, and it is probably legal, but I bet
> the Thompson family does not expect to have their purchase publicized.
> I think it is important that the people know what has happened.
> To try to put it off as some benign coincidence or anything other that
> what it really is shows you how the cowards work.
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NEW YORK (PRNewswire) -
NEW YORK, Aug. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/
-- CBS Corporation In May, the Company announced its intention to explore the divestiture of radio stations in ten of its smaller markets. On August 21, 2006, Entercom Communications Corp. announced its purchase of 15 CBS radio stations in four markets: Austin, TX, Cincinnati, OH, Memphis, TN, and Rochester, NY. With the sale of KTSA-AM and KJXK-FM to Border Media Partners, LLC, the Company has sold a total of seventeen radio stations in five markets. Border Media Partners (BMP) is the largest privately held Hispanic radio company in the United States by number of stations. It is one of the few Hispanic-owned radio companies in the country and operates in six Texas markets. With the acquisition of the CBS properties, BMP will strengthen its San Antonio station cluster and will own 37 radio stations across the state.
CBS Corporation |
Letter from global catholic network
Hello XXX....thanks for writing....
Please be advised, EWTN does not own or operate any radio stations. The folks who now own 910 AM there in North Texas is Guadalupe Radio Network (http://www.grnonline.com) located in Midland, TX. They recently purchased this radio station from the previous owner who chose to broadcast Air America. Once the station was sold to Guadalupe Radio Network, Air America was quickly removed and the folks at Guadalupe Radio now choose to broadcast EWTN Radio. Many, many people in the North Texas area have expressed their excitement and gratitude for finally having an awesome and faithful Catholic radio station in DFW. We pray you too will be blessed listening!
If you care to make direct contact with the new owners, please reach out to Dave Palmer, KXEB 910 AM General Manager, via email at: davepalmer@grnonline.com
God bless you !
John 8:12
John Pepe
NAT'L MARKETING MGR. / RADIO
EWTN Global Catholic Network
5817 Old Leeds Road
Irondale, AL 35210
Tel (205) 795-5756 / Fax (205)
271-2925
Email: jpepe@ewtn.com
www.ewtn.com