Inside Politics

Err America

More bad news for Air America, the radio network which debuted to great fanfare last year with host Al Franken touted as the liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh.

“A lawsuit filed by an owner of radio stations claims that the transfer of ownership of the Air America radio network from Progress Media to Piquant LLC in May 2004 was a ‘sham’ intended to maintain the network’s assets while deceiving its creditors,” the New York Sun reported yesterday, citing court documents.

“In the suit, which was filed in state Supreme Court at Manhattan in May, Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, a radio station owner with affiliates across the country, is seeking more than $255,000 it claims it is owed by the current owners of Air America, Piquant LLC.”

The station owner, the Sun reports, “is trying to enforce a judgment in its favor last November, in which the court ordered Air America’s owners to pay” $255,000 to Multicultural, which had sold the network air time in Los Angeles and Chicago.

The Sun cited documents in the lawsuit, which were posted on the Web site of syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin (www.michellemalkin.com).

The lawsuit charges that in May 2004 Air America was “in a state of crisis” and “unable to meet its payroll obligations.” According to the lawsuit, network co-founder Sheldon Drobny developed a “scheme” to reorganize Air America. The lawsuit calls this “a transparent attempt to leave … creditors without any prospect of recovery.”

Mrs. Malkin teamed with blogger Brian Maloney to investigate Air America after it was reported that the liberal network had “borrowed” (and done nothing to repay) more than $800,000 from a Boys & Girls Club in New York.

All quiet

Despite brief ad campaigns by two interest groups concerned with President Bush’s nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court, political television advertisements have been virtually absent from broadcast and cable television, according to a new report from the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project that analyzed data provided by Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

The lack of advertising indicates a less intense fight over the nomination than many expected, the report said.

The report analyzes political television advertising in all 210 markets across the nation.

“This is another sign that this nomination is not going to be much of a fight,” said Ken Goldstein, director of the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.

“Are we going to see interest groups get involved and activists use lofty rhetoric that will make headlines? Sure. But with senators home during the August recess with virtually no ads targeting even the most vulnerable incumbents, all indications are that this Supreme Court nomination process is not going to be the paid media battle that activists on both sides have been preparing for and promising for years.”

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