About a week ago, I got an e-mail from Columbus' Progressive Talk Radio station asking me for a contribution to help keep them on the air. Instead of kill-filing the e-mail and forgetting about it, I felt inspired to write a letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch. Here's a portion of the e-mail I received:

WVKO-AM 1580 is Central Ohio's "Air America" station, broadcasting Progressive Talk programs since December 2007.

There is good news and bad news about the station.

First the bad news:

Due to slow advertising sales, WVKO is currently having trouble paying its bills. Good, progressive Salespeople are hard to find in Central Ohio, especially for a startup mom-and-pop station like WVKO.
The station now finds itself with unpaid bills, and may have to shut down if $50,000 is not raised within the next few weeks.

Here's my letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch. I received a call from the paper on Friday telling me they are going to publish it. :) I'm hoping it'll be in Sunday's paper. I'll post a link once it goes in.

Update.... it's in today's (Monday, June 2nd) paper. Link.

I was somewhat amazed to receive an e-mail last week from Columbus’ Progressive Talk Radio Station WVKO asking me for a contribution to help keep them on the air. After some consideration, it’s actually not that surprising. WVKO’s money problems are most likely due to the fact that the shows they carry have alienated over half of their audience. When hosts like Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz and Stephanie Miller turn their shows into a 2 or 3 hour Clinton bash-fest, we Hillary supporters change the radio station. Let’s not forget Rhandi Rhodes’ inflammatory comments about Hillary that ended in her suspension.

The fact is, I am a progressive Democrat and haven’t listened to WVKO in months. And I’m sure I’m not alone, as Hillary won Ohio by 10% over Obama. If you drive half your audience away, then I’m sure advertising revenue becomes a problem. I guess it’s not surprising that the station’s in trouble considering all that.

We lost our progressive radio station over a year ago and I was bummed along with the other Dems in the area when they went off the air. They went back on the air in the fall, and then I listened to them for about two months before I had to turn it off permanently. It's sad, because I used to love the shows. Not anymore.