NEW YORK: Courtesy of multimillionaire property investor Stephen Green and his politically active Democrat brother Mark, left-leaning network Air America Radio was this week hauled out of bankruptcy and relaunched with a cornucopia of famous names and voices.
Among the celebs are such political and cultural luminaries as the three main Democratic contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - plus US feminist icon and journalist Gloria Steinem, plus Hollywood lefty legends Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Bobby Kennedy Junior and Arianna Huffington of 'HuffingtonPost' fame will also feature prominently on AAR's broadcast schedules.
Whether this galaxy of glitz will suffice to attract audiences in commercially realistic numbers remains to be seen. But political peroration as much as moolah is the name of the game.
The Green brothers promise the relaunch typifies "the kind of news and views we'll be offering for years to come and that no other radio or TV network now provides".
Certainly the views propagated by Air America will be in stark contrast to the rightist rants of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly - the latter aired on NewsCorp's Fox News Channel - while the former claims to be "the most listened to radio talk show in America".
To listen live to AAR click here.
Data sourced from MediaGuardian.co.uk; additional content by WARC staff
