If This New San Diego Radio Station Takes Off, Francine Busby Will Be Elected To Congress Next Year

The Air America affiliate in Los Angeles, KTLK, is probably the worst-run radio station I've ever heard. It couldn't be worse if the program director was trying to make it suck-- and I often think he is doing just that. The rise of Air America was one of the key factors in the Democratic landslide in 2006. Here in L.A., Clear Channel immediately destroyed the station. It's barely listenable now and often not listenable at all. They have right-wing hosts; they have hours and hours of paid programming from hucksters and crooks selling bogus cures, intestinal cleanses and hemorrhoid medicines; sports takes precedence on most nights. Other than Thom Hartmann's show there is nothing that can be counted on to be worth switching away from KCRW, the NPR station. I hear it's like this across the country, even if few stations are as terrible as the one in L.A.

A year-- almost to the day-- after the 2006 elections, Clear Channel pulled the plug on their San Diego station, replacing it with a redundant 4th sports channel (which has been a predictably gigantic failure). Nationally they have a great blog and they have Rachel Maddow in the morning. After that it gets kind of sketchy, starting with lame, right-wing talker Montel Williams. But even that isn't available in San Diego. Our friend Jill Richardson reports on an exciting, game-changing new development down there.

When San Diego lost its station, Jon Elliott (who was on Air America for the last 3 years) began working to found a new station. His plan was to make a station with a strong signal that could be heard all over San Diego and to make sure that liberals controlled it so that a conservative company like Clear Channel couldn't pull the plug on it if it was helping liberals win elections. It took Jon Elliott about 18 months to put all of the plans in place, but he's done it. And it's not just a station for San Diego. The first station will be here in San Diego on 1700 AM but the goal is to have 30 stations by 2014. We're setting the station up in a way that will be easy to franchise in other cities, particularly ones that had successful AAR stations and lost them (a growing list, sadly). Our radio line-up will be all of the favorites who are no longer on Air America (or in some cases never were)-- Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Jon Elliott, etc. We'll also have local shows in each city.

The catch is that with the craptastic economy, we can't get ourselves off the ground on advertising alone. We're going with a hybrid model, in which we're asking people to become members. The real benefit you get is that the radio station exists - but additionally you get podcasts and invites to member-only events.

The station started broadcasting in San Diego today at 3pm. Membership is $10/month and you can join here at www.jontalk.com. The plan is to expand as they increase their financial capacity.