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Radio Ambidexterity

NEW YORK -- Struggling to find its voice, advertisers and revenue, Air America Radio is exploring a number of options to help carve out a viable spot for itself on the U.S. airwaves. First up: beginning in June, all programming will be close captioned for the hearing impaired.

"The deaf market has been completely ignored by corporate radio, which is not only fundamentally unfair and a gross violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but also represents a huge market for us that has been virtually untapped by cold hearted, uncaring conservatives," said Lizzie Winstead, on-air personality and acting Director of Programming. "We intend to be a cutting edge force, a media leader, changing America for the better, and our extremely talented and creative staff is continually coming up with simply excellent new ideas to make us number one -- so look out Limbaugh and Hannity."

The network aims to give liberals a media organization to counter those on the political right who dominate talk radio and has raised more than $20 million with grand plans for buying stations, or at least all of the broadcast time on stations, in more than a dozen cities by year's end. By contrast Rush Limbaugh, whom Air America has identified as a chief competitor, is heard on more than 600 stations. Sean Hannity, another conservative talk-show host, has a similar reach.

"We are working very closely with John F. Kerry's Presidential campaign so that when he repeals the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he will replace them in part with special middle class radio listening tax credits," said Winstead. "And we are also exploring legislative initiatives to create a Federal Satellite Stamp program, so that the under privileged in this country can gain access to XM and Sirius programming."

The American Federation of Teachers has thrown their support behind the fledgling enterprise with a proposal to replace one hour of classroom time with talk radio listening, which, due to the publicly avowed Judeo-Christian values of most conservatives, will then by necessity be filled by Air America, due to the restrictions in the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"I want to put Republicans on notice that we have ACLU lawyers ready to scramble with briefs," warned Winstead, "the very moment we can figure out a way to use Arbitron ratings to impose court mandated AM/FM bussing or a program of Affirmative Transmission."



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