Saturday, March 14, 2009

Peter B. Collins: What A Difference A Week Makes

Caught this in passing on Malloy last night: Peter B. Collins, one of the most underrated liberal talkers on the air, just one week after winning La Rhodes' slot in Seattle, has reached the end of his rope:

Since we started on KRXA in 2005, I’ve been covering the costs of
producing the show and delivering it to our affiliate stations by
satellite.  With phone bills and the other expenses, it adds up to more
than $5,000 a month. We get a little advertising revenue and some
generous listeners contribute, but most of it is absorbed by my small
business, Collins Media Services.  Until last summer, I was able to
cover the costs from my work as a radio producer and consultant.  Like
everyone else, the Bush recession has hit me hard.


...

Over the past 3.75 years, I’ve tried it all.  I pitched all of the Air
America programmers except the current one, who never returned my calls
or emails.  I was offered a deal by Nova M, but they reneged in a
bizarre story I’m saving for my talk-n-tell book. Air America just
announced that Montel Williams will be their new offering in the Thom
Hartmann time slot, which tells us that Jerry Springer’s flameout was
just their first attempt to retread a tabloid TV host as a
“progressive” radio host.


I wish he did'nt have to take himself off the air. Peter B had a unique, measured way of looking at the world and his voice is made for radio.

We here in PDX never heard him except tape-delayed and late, but he was worth staying up for. And he had just got the early-evening slot in Seattle that Randi Rhodes had before she disappeared.

It's an inexplicable shame that liberal radio can't have the same rich angels that conservative talk radio gets. Rush Limbaugh gets tens of millions of dollars a year, Hannity gets millions to arrogantly slant the truth, and they all get to complain about how the Democrats are trying to Fairness-doctrine them off the air (even though Democrats aren't). In the meantime, Mike Malloy has to self-syndicate and Peter B gets to go off the air, even when what we hear suggests that people like liberal radio. A lot. When Randi went up against Lars here in PDX, Lars lost that daypart.

Mom always said life wasn't fair.

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