For those who want to keep Peter B Collins radio show going....a message from Peter B:

[Garbo 2004]

I posted this info in the Media forum but perhaps it will get more exposure here for those who may be interested. (Peter's show has recently been gotten play during the day on progressive stations in Seattle and San Francisco. But AFAIK these were temp gigs. Although SF's Green960 appears to have added him to their midnight to 3 am slot.)

Podcasts of Peter's show are available free via his site. Every Friday, and I think this Friday too, in the last hour he has DU'er Brad Friedman of BradBlog as a guest.

Excerpt from Peter B's blog, full article is at the link below:

I made a tough decision….

On Friday, I delivered the news of my decision to end the daily broadcasts of the PBC Show.

Our last live broadcast will be Friday, March 20, which will replay on some stations through March 22.

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.

To make money in syndication, we need to be on 20+ stations and at least one of the big 3, NY, LA, Chicago. As an independent, self-syndicated show, we’ve had to compete with Air America, Dial-Global and Nova M programs, and for various reasons, the PBC Show didn’t break through. Air America is the brand that most people connect with progressive talk radio, and their bankruptcy and sequence of blunders has, unfortunately, defined our collective efforts in a negative way that has provided an easy target for the non-liberal media. As a result, the total number of stations offering progressive talk in the US peaked at about 105 in 2006, and is now around 70. Miami, DC, and even Ann Arbor have lost their progressive stations in the last month.

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...

...Many people who heard the $5,000 monthly cost figure have emailed to pledge $10 a month and said, “how do we find the other 499?” We have tried that to some extent, but I don’t want to turn the show into a pledge-a-thon, ’cause I listen to the radio, too, and don’t like them. Plus, I’m well aware that many of my listeners can’t even spare $10 a month right now. Overall, I don’t think we can shift to a voluntary subscription plan to produce a reliable funding stream.

If you disagree, email me: [e-mail] Tell me if you’re willing to subscribe for at least 6 months, and how much you can pay. If enough people respond by Monday night 3/16, I will make a final review of this decision. Dave Berman in Eureka, Tom McAfee in SF, and Aldous Tyler in Madison have offered to coordinate this kind of effort, but I need to give them your names and emails.

Keep listening this week, call in when you can–we’ll try to get allof our favorite guests to check in, too.

warmly,

pbc
http://www.peterbcollins.com/i-made-a-tough-decision /


(I added the bolding.)

[Garbo 2004]

1. Excerpt from Brad Friedman's blog on Peter B:

After a quick segment, during our appearance on today's show, discussing a number of this week's developments in elections issues, we turned to the matter of his leaving the air, and our belief that the playing field is indisputably rigged against non-rightwing talk radio. It's not a matter of "Progressive Talk" having failed in America, it's a matter of progressives, to this day, not having been given a level playing field on which to compete. Period...

...As our friend and progressive talker Thom Hartmann pointed out on his show this morning, Stephanie Miller, another friend and progressive radio host, noted that she's syndicated on some 60 affiliates from 9 to Noon ET each weekday, while rightwing whack-job Laura Ingraham is on some 300 stations during that same time slot. Yet, Hartmann noted, Miller beats Ingraham in almost every single market where they air at the same time. Does that sound like fair competition, or that "Progressive Talk" has failed? We haven't failed, corporate America, however, has failed you...

...On a personal note... It is with great sadness that I received the news today, and share it with you here. Peter's willingness to discuss, week in and week out, what I consider to be one of the most crucial issues facing our nation --- election integrity --- has put him almost entirely alone among his progressive talker colleagues, much less among radio broadcasting as a whole.

His keen understanding of the issues at stake, his willingness to understand them, and to take action, even when there was not an impending election over the years, his skill in breaking news by bringing on newsmakers to join us during many weekly appearances --- from election officials, to advocates for and against all matters of election integrity-related issues --- puts him alone in his field. Barring that miracle, his voice will be missed. His public advocacy, on this issue, and on so many others like it --- about which, often times, only he has been willing to cover --- will be a great loss to our Republic. More than most of us likely realize. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6986 [/div}

[LaPera]

2. It would be a hugh loss to lose the excellent, Peter B Collins -

Check out any of his show here...

http://www.whiterosesociety.org/Collins.html

[Garbo 2004]

3. Mark Crispin Miller's commentary on progressive talk radio

Peter B Collins going off the air (commentary by MCM)
Posted by mcm
March 15, 2009

We may have to get progressive talk shows put on the Endangered Species List,
now that the president has reinstated it. Otherwise there won’t be any voices on the
air except the voices of the right, whether “centrist” (corporate) or explicitly far-right
(corporate). As Brad Friedman notes in his report on Peter B. Collins’s forced
departure (see below), the economic crash is threatening to finish off those last few
figures who have managed somehow to resist the oligopolistic tide that has by now
all but submerged the US media.

That purge, now near-complete, has actually been in the works for years. It was the
purpose of the vast “de-regulation” of the media begun by Reagan back in ‘87
(soon after the corporate press obligingly refused to look too deeply into Iran/contra)
and continued by Bill Clinton nine years later (and a fat lot of good it did him.)...

...So now Rush Limbaugh’s voice–along with those of Hannity, O’Reilly, Ingraham
and the aptly self-named “Michael Savage,” among others–bellows inescapably
from coast to coast, while those who are at least as talented, but honest, rational and
well-informed, have got to work like hell to find, and build, their audience (which is,
increasingly, on-line).

This can be done: Thom Hartmann, having now left the implosive Air America, is
doing it, and Mike Malloy is doing it. (Now Randi Rhodes is also off the air.), as
are some others. That such talents have to work that way, while all those lethal
gas-bags come in loud and clear, is a clear sign that the US media is in dire need
of change, of just the sort that Team Obama promised us last year.

For the dominance of all those rightist blowhards is not based on the market, although
their fans keep saying that it is, in countless fuming posts and letters to the editor. Contrary
to that talking point, the crackpot views of Rush et al. have only fringe appeal–as
we, and all the world, saw clearly on Election Day, and as we see especially clearly
now that the economy’s collapsed. Most people out there were quite thrilled to see
Jon Stewart clean Jim Cramer’s clock. So where is that big audience for Glenn Beck,
and Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, and all the other hirelings out there channelling
Herbert Hoover?

Let’s face it: There’s been no such big audience for quite a while. When sharp
progressive talkers have been able to compete, they’ve done quite well–just
ask Phil Donohue, who lost his show five years ago despite the fact that it was
MSNBC’s top-rated offering. (Internal memos shortly made it clear that he was
dumped because he was against Bush/Cheney’s war.) And now that network has
Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow in prime time, with Joe Scarborough
shunted to the mornings. Meanwhile, Thom Hartmann has been besting Rush
in markets where he’s had the chance–but, by and large, he hasn’t had the
chance; and neither has Peter B. Collins, or any other able dissident.

So what this country needs, ASAP, is media reform; because the media culture
now in place is not a genuine expression of our real opinions or desires, but a
gigantic corporate imposition on us all. For far too long we have assumed that
what we see and hear (and read) comes mostly from the right because Americans
are mostly on the right: not just throughout the “heartland,” but, ludicrously even
in New York, L.A,, Chicago, San Francisco. Thus we must reform the US media
–break the oligopoly, restore the broadcast code, and build a genuinely non-
commercial public system) so that we’ll know not just what’s really going on, but
also, even more important, who we really are.

MCM

Full blog article at:
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2009/03/peter-b-collins-going-off-the-air-commentary-by-mcm.html

[BuyingThyme]

4. Thanks for all the info, Garbo 2004.

[GuvWurld]

5. More at We Do Not Consent blog ($1,160+ pledged and donated)

http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2009/03/please-help-save-peter-b-collins-show.html

I asked Skinner for permission to re-post in full for fundraising purposes so I'll refrain from adding more here now.

[GreenTea]

8. Ben Burch-White Rose Society: "We are very sad to announce that Peter B. Collins announced

that he is ending his self-syndicated show as of Friday, March 20th, 2009. His experience echoes that of most of us in Liberal Talk Radio; those people with the money just will not step up to the plate to help make Liberal Media happen. They prefer to wring their hands and worry that the Right Wing controls the media. They will spend a fortune on a private music festival, or on help for people in other countries, or for Inaugural Balls, but will they buy a few radio stations and employ Liberal talkers? Nope. Will they invest $60,000 to keep Peter B. Collins on the air for the next year? Nope. Will they give a grant to Head On Radio Network so that they can actually pay a minimal salary to the people who devote hours every day to bring that network to you?"

Peter B's shows listen now...
http://www.whiterosesociety.org/Collins.html

Collins web page...
http://www.peterbcollins.com/

Save The Peter B. Collins Show
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2009/03/please-help-save-peter-b-collins-show.html

[BuyingThyme]

6. kcik

[Garbo 2004]

7. Thanks for the kick, BT. nt

[pilsner]

9. Let's buy the media not rent it

I'm a huge fan of PBC and encourage people to support him to stay on the air.

But, progressive media desperately needs some long-term strategic planning. The right-wing wisely bought the media. For the most part, progressive radio rents the airwaves from corporate Republican owners.

Clear Channel and other broadcast groups are expected to be selling off stations and liberal venture capitalists will soon be able to scoop up stations at a bargain rate.

I hesitate to give campaign contributions to lefty politicians because my money will end up being used to advertise on Republican-owned media such as Clear Channel, Fox owned stations, Sinclair, ABC Disney, NBC/G.E., and Republican owned newspapers.

How do we organize to encourage Soros or Ted Turner or Oprah to buy 150 radio stations and program Thom Hartmann, PBC, Stephanie Miller, etc?

[BuyingThyme]

10. kcik

[Maat]

11. I emailed him with a small pledge.

I hate to see his show disappear.