Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Friday, Aug. 13, 2004

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  The Chicago Tribune quoted Soros as saying he was considering the venture but had yet to make any commitments.

"I am looking at it, but I can't say where we are on it," he said. "People have begged me to buy media, but I have resisted it."

He says he likes the network's programming. And at the urging of former President Bill Clinton, he has been asked to help bail the network out of its financial troubles.

But he said he wouldn't write a check without expecting a measurable return for his money. So far the network has shed stations and personnel, mostly because it has hemorrhaged money and is gaining slight market share ever so slowly.

Clearly the network fits Soros' agenda of defeating President Bush. Its leftist line-up includes Bush-bashing comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.

Defeating Bush "is the central focus of my life," Soros once told the Washington Post. "America, under Bush, is a danger to the world. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

The financially troubled syndicated radio network can use his help.

The network launched in four markets March 31: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Founded by Democrat fund-raisers Sheldon and Anita Drobny, who later sold the venture to a group of investors led by former Democratic National Committee executive Mark Walsh, its line-up initially was broadcast from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time.

"Our business plan doesn't require us to get a whole lot of listeners right away. This is one brick at a time. We think our advertisers will be happy with the listeners we attract," Walsh told MediaWeek.com.

Today, the network has grown to 21 stations, is also being aired on XM and Sirius satellite radio channels, and has made inroads into "blue" areas of the map such as Chapel Hill, N.C., and Anchorage, Alaska.

Still, Air America has endured a number of financial problems.

Two months after its launch amidst a deluge of free media coverage via a sympathetic mainstream media, the network ran out of money to pay Franken, its marquee talent.

"We had some bad management," Franken told the New York Times in late May. He chose to provide his services for free, making him "an involuntary investor."

Walsh initially said the fledgling network was flush with cash: $20 million, which was more than enough to keep paying the on-air talent it hired for years to come.

But Walsh said he was "misled" about the amount supposedly raised by investors, telling the Times the network's business practices weren't "transparent."

By then Evan Cohen, David Goodfriend, who served as general counsel and later as acting chief operating officer, and Dave Logan, who served as executive vice president for programming, had all left the network.

The network's programming was dropped from its Los Angeles and Chicago affiliates over non-payment of fees.

Soros' Other Projects

As for Soros, he's been dabbling in other anti-Bush political funding as well. So far, the Hungarian-born investor has sunk $15 million into the effort and become the chief benefactor of two new Democrat groups: American Coming Together and MoveOn.org.

He's even gone so far as to say he would spend all 7 billion of his dollars if he was sure it would lead to Bush's defeat. Maybe he was kidding, but clearly the man is no fan of the president.

Soros represents "the new and surprising face of America politics," writes David Greising of the Tribune. Soros and others like him who have the means have increasingly dedicated huge sums of their fortunes to defeating or helping to re-elect U.S. leaders.

That's ironic, given the Democrat-led passage of sweeping campaign finance "reforms" a few years back. Those changes were supposed to keep the influence of money on politics at bay, but as Greising notes, just the opposite has happened.

Editor's note: