My wife and I usually wake up to Air America Radio, broadcast in Sacramento by KSAC, Talk City 1240 AM. But on Monday, Oct 3, the clock-radio woke us up with music instead of Morning Sedition with Mark and Marc (Mark Riley and Marc Maron). I thought maybe the kids had been messing with radio, or maybe there were “technical difficulties” at the station. But today the same thing happened, so I started scouring the ‘net looking for answers.
First stop was Talk City 1240’s web site, which wasn’t encouraging. Their “On-Air Schedule” has all the previous Air America time slots listed as “To Be Announced.” They still have an Air America Radio logo on their banner, but none of the programming.
Next stop was Air America Radio’s web site. I searched for “Sacramento” on their station locator page, but the only station listed is KSAC 1240 AM.
I found a post by bonniesac which talks about Air America changing frequencies and moving to 1320 AM on 1 Nov 2005, but this doesn’t explain the absence of programming today. bonniesac is blogging on the Sacramento for Democracy site, which unfortunately doesn’t allow unregistered users to post comments. (Perhaps a pingback from this post will get through, but I’m not hopeful.)
There is another post, this time on the Morning Sedition blog, which also discusses the frequency change. It also has some theories on the lack of official information from both Talk City 1240 and Air America. (And again, this blog doesn’t allow unregistered users to comment. Closed blogs suck, but that’s a subject for another post.)
I haven’t found anything else yet, but this seems to explain what’s going on. I guess all us progressive/liberal types will have to get Air America programming via the Internet for the rest of October, before switching to the new station next month.
Andy let me know that the Sacramento Bee ran an article about this recently.
Thank you for clearing up what has been almost a week of searching, getting confusing signals and depression missing Marc and Mark. I try to listen to the 4-6 slot in Denver on the radio but I always stream the last hour in order to complete the cycle or maybe even pick up what I missed the first time through my blurry sleepy not quite awake ears. Do you know if the new station will stream at a reasonable hour for us Rocky Mountain listeners who can not stand Jay Marvin?
I appreciate you getting out this information so much.
Sorry, Pam. Everything I’ve found out so far is in the post above. I will certainly post more information as it becomes available. You can check my blog for updates. I’ll file them under Sacramento, Air America. Unfortunately I don’t think you can get an RSS or Atom feed of just these tags.
Air America is having ratings trouble everywhere except Portland and Denver, where it smashes up into the 2s!
Philadelphia just dropped Air America after a year.
IMHO, this is programming that should succeed on college radio stations, but probably nowhere else. This is 2005, not 1968.
Good luck, loony lefties.
A note about the blog software, Fred — you don’t need to hit the Enter key at the end of each line. Just let the text for a paragraph wrap by itself, as the Enter key causes a <br /> tag to be inserted. Use a blank line between paragraphs to generate the <p> tags.
Regarding AAR… We’ll see what happens. Fortunately for us “loony lefties,” your humble opinion is no more important than mine or all my progressive friends.
As for any problems in the Sacramento market, I can lay the blame entirely on the [mis-]management at Talk City 1240. They’ve dicked with the Air America programming so badly that I have to wonder if they were trying to make their station fail. A lot of folks now are getting AAR via the ‘net, and the rest of 1240’s former listeners are waiting for AAR to start broadcasting on the new freq starting on 1 Nov 2005.
Delay, Frist, Rove, Cheney, Bush, and Condie all in the very negative public eye lately, and the 2006 elections are 13 months away. Life is going to be sweet for the “loony left” when we boot the damned fascists out of government and take our country back. Enjoy it while you can, Fred…
Well for what it’s worth the new “format” and hosts on talk radio 1240 official blow. I don’t know what anyone was thinking but the new juvenile, attention deficit formats and hosting is a definite down turn in “liberal” radio. If I want this kind of entertainment I’ll watch daytime TV.
Hi Jim,
I know that this is long after the fact, BUT…
Air America has gone bankrupt a number of times now in a cycle of non-profitabilty… go on the air… go bankrupt… go on the air… etc.
It never picked up an appreciable viewing audience.
The last I heard, it was bailed out yet again, but the money is already running out again.
Al Franken left Air America over financial differences and possible fraud charges.
Shalom, Maksim-Smelchak.
1240 has a different but successful format…. broadcasting SAC state sports, UCD sports, Giants games, Raiders games [I think], and Sharks games will allow 1240 to obtain a larger audience and greater opportunities of future successes by acquiring new listeners.
People that leave a ‘tuned’ station on a car’s radio, often channel check - change channels while driving. Perhaps then, while listening to the radio and a sport game is not currently broadcasting, they will be exposed to one of the many great lib programs offered by 1240talkcity.
I listen to Big Ed M-F 9am-12am and listen all the time on the web. Mike M [since he was axes from Air] can now be heard M-F at 6pm on 1240 AM or the web www.1240talkcity.com.
Yeah I miss Randi, but remember, she has a website and you can listen to her on net.
Remember don’t kill the hen cuz the roster died. The roster was a bit lame to begin with, because of the war on lib broadcasting corps. Blame Reagan and then Clinton for the complete destruction of the once ‘free’ and great news press in America. Now it’s all about making a buck.
The hen is exposing lots of other people to something besides Drug Limp Rush!
From a Sac State Student …
There was a Drug Limp Dick Rush in above msg.. but it got the big ‘C’.
I also listened to KSAC 1240 in Sacramento every day. I also was very disheartened by the station format change.
The first hint of this was mentioned on the station by one of the local hosts about 2 weeks earlier. He said that KSAC was thinking about changing the format due to financial difficulties. he suggested that everyone who listened to the station stop by one of the advertisers and tell the advertiser that you heard their ad on that station. I did some of that.
Then, on Sunday March 30, I heard Mike Malloy mention that he was no longer going to be heard in Sacramento because KSAC had changed their format. He was saying that the station was lost to progressive radio.
On Monday, I turned to the station like I usually do and found some gobbly boring talk and gospel music. Their website is under construction. I guess that’s it for progressive radio in Sacramento. At least for now. I am upset by this.
Now, the only station I can stand to listen to on the air is KGO out of San Francisco. I just can’t listen to the right wing slant on the Sacramento stations. You know, Sacramento had 2 progressive stations at one time and I really enjoyed that. First, 1320 went to sports radio and now 1240 went to some form of music station. I heard the announcer give different call letters on it today, KGRY, or something.
I want to help support progressive radio in Sacramento and across the country. Is there a website devoted to progressive talk?
Thanks
Steve
Have you noticed since progressive radio in Sacto is R.I.P. that 650 am and 1530 am are RABBIT with even more riduclous lies and mistruths!