"Air America" and "The Guy James Show" [View All]

[BeachBuckeye]

Up till now, those of us at "The Guy James Show" have refrained from commenting on the situation at Air America. But after opening the mail this morning I feel it necessary to do a bit of venting.

As many of you are aware, many of us with experience in broadcasting were quite disappointed that Air America chose to go with mostly comedians instead of veteran radio people. Thank God for the exception in Randi Rhodes. Having spoken to several others in the business I know the frustration they have felt because of being totally ignored as well.

Let me say right up front that whether or not Air America or most of DU for that matter, feels our show or some others are worthy is not my point here. Its common courtesy and respect for others that I want to address in this post.

Thanks to many of you and some folks from other sites there were many pleas to Air America on behalf of our show and some others. I have been sent copies too numerous to mention of e-mail promoting our show to Air America and asking them to give us a listen and, perhaps, a chance at some of their programming time. Its not as if America was deluged with names of hundreds of Liberal broadcasters because as we all know we are an endangered species.

Anyway, to get to my point, we made a new demo CD recently at great expense. Again, whether or not someone likes our style is not the issue. The CD was professionally produced and is worthy of a listen. Instead of listening to the CD the people at Air America wrote on the package: "Unsolicited, Return to Sender". It was clearly marked with our very professional show label so there was no mistaking it for junk mail. Even throwing it in the wastebasket would have been preferable to insulting us by sending it back in such a manner. And we all know its not as if some underling did this without the knowledge of management because, at this point, how many layers of people can there be at Air America? We know they are aware of our program.

I've been doing radio for just about 30 years and never before has a radio station or network insulted me in such a manner. In fact, having the knowledge of how these things work, I can tell you that nobody I have ever known in the business has had a policy of sending a demo CD back with "Unsolicited, Return to Sender" written in large red lettering on it.

This is not a sour grapes letter. Those of us in the business have to have thick skin because we are fully aware of the fact that we cannot be liked by everyone. So, being rejected is just part of the business. My complaint is because of the intentional insult. To me this is, perhaps, one of the symptoms of the mismanagement which is causing Air America to appear to be floundering so badly.

Those of us in the Liberal broadcast business need to help each other and extend common courtesy and respect to one another so that we can build the media army necessary to overcome the overwhelming presence of the Right Wing media machine. Air America acting in such a rude and disrespectful manner does not help toward that end.

Respectfully,
Guy James www.theguyjamesshow.com