"Political humorist Al Franken surged past conservative nemesis Bill O'Reilly in the first quarterly ratings matchup between the two in New York City. But before liberals can claim a victory in the battle for ears of listeners in America's biggest city, consider this: Veteran conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh beat them both. [Not for long!!] 'The Al Franken Show,' airing weekdays on WLIB-AM, more than doubled O'Reilly's 'The Radio Factor' on WOR-AM among listeners aged 25 to 54 -- the group advertisers prize most -- during the only hour when the two go head to head in New York, Arbitron Inc. reported on Tuesday. According to its April-to-June survey, the first since Air America's debut, Franken posted a 2.6 share from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., compared with a 1.1 share for O'Reilly in the 25-54 demographic. An Arbitron share is an average quarter-hour measure of listenership that combines audience size with the amount of time people are tuned in." You go, Al!

Baltimore Sun: "Despite ongoing financial woes, Air America Radio appears to have garnered a significant audience during its first month on the air, particularly among the younger listeners sought by advertisers. An analysis of recently released figures from Arbitron, the radio ratings service, showed that in New York Air America beat Rush Limbaugh's station among 25-to-54-year-olds during the period that Limbaugh and Al Franken, the host of the flagship show "The O'Franken Factor," go head-to-head. In Chicago, even though the network was available for only 28 days in April, Air America increased the average share of 25-to-54-year-old listeners on WNTD-950 AM from a 0.1 percent share in February to a 2 percent share in April."

First, here's a quick lesson in current corporate media poll tactics: take a poll within hours of an event, before any change in public opinion has a chance to emerge (it usually takes a week to 10 days for that to happen). Thus we have AP polling the public within hours of Clarke's 60 minutes appearance and finding no change toward Bush. A week later, several polls, of course, showed Bush numbers plummeting from Clarke's revelations. Now AOL (synonymous with Bush media central) whose polls are often dominated by "on-call" Freepers - canvassed "public" reaction to the new radio lineup within a day or so of the debut. These preemie results were used by rightwing fundie Richard Mullinax to trash the entire concept of liberal radio. Don't let em get to ya, Al F. and Co! Give it time! During its first whole season, M.A.S.H. didn't even make the top 50!

The nation's first truly free and independent radio network, Air America Radio, will make its debut on March 31 on stations covering four of the biggest US media markets, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. "By the end of the year the project's backers plan to be on the air in a dozen markets across the country," reports the Independent: "'We are going to stick it to Bush,' Mr Franken said as final plans for the network were announced this week. 'Bush is going down in November, and then we're putting it to the rest of the right-wing media.' Air America, which says it has $20m of financial backing, insists it is in for the long haul. It promises 'compelling and entertaining programming' - in other words that it will take on the conservatives at their own game, avoiding the liberal tendency to nuance and political correctness, qualities which may be worthy but tend not to make riveting radio."