When the first reports that Air America was going to declare bankruptcy came out I wrote:
I’m not terribly surprised that Air America is having financial problems. Liberals don’t have the people with deep pockets willing to subsidize them as conservatives do. Liberals are also much less likely to listen to one-sided talk radio, while conservatives appear to thrive on having their thoughts fed to them.
This led to a number of attacks from right wing bloggers, such as here, who are ignorant of the amount of subsidization the right wing noise machine received to reach the point where it is today.
Thom Hartmann made the same argument about the subsidization of the right wing media which allowed them to get to where they are today, citing a few examples such as this 1999 interview with Brit Hume on NewsHour:
TERENCE SMITH: Does this operation make money?
BRIT HUME: No. This operation loses money. It doesn’t lose nearly as much as it did at first, and it’s — well, it’s hit all its projections in terms of, you know, turning a profit, but it’s – it will lose money now, and we expect for a couple more years.
TERENCE SMITH: What does it lose in a year?
BRIT HUME: I think it’s losing about $80 million to $90 million a year. Even for Rupert Murdoch, that’s not pocket change.
Reaction in the liberal blogoshere to the actual news of the bankruptcy also showed that my view was typical in preferring NPR over Air America. While conservatives need to be repeatedly spoon-fed what to think, liberals tend to prefer nonbiased sources which present a wide variety of views. Of course many conservatives consider NPR to be liberal since it does provide objective information and views from the entire political spectrum rather than reinforcing their fantasies about the world.