The Airing of Air America's Dirty Laundry

How many of you can relate to the following never-say-die utterances from the early days (or present days) of your business:

"We are living cycle to cycle, but it's payday and we made it."

"We're in a position to attract real, real capital...to make this a long-term deal for all of us."

"We're in great shape except we're about to go out of business."

"We've completely run out of money and we're desperately trying to get more."

If any or all of these sentiments apply, do yourself a favor and tune into Left of the Dial, the documentary appearing tonight on HBO (which always does a smashing job of repeating things ad nauseum). Now I know some folks will ignore the program because of its focus on the "liberal media," but political biases can bite you in the arse and this would be one of those times.

Left of the Dial is a vastly entertaining look at a start-up that was in way over its head. At various points the company: has barely functioning monitor levels, computers and sound effects two days before showtime; gets taken off the air in Chicago and Los Angeles; gets dropped from its health plan; botches the live feed on Condoleezza Rice's appearance at the 9/11 commission hearings; changes CEOs; has to explain why all of the ads seem to be public service announcements to an investigative reporter from the New York Times (wait, aren't they "liberal media" bell cow?); and gets outed by the Drudge Report for not paying employees. It's a rollicking good time watching the fervor of entrepreneurial true-believers (in both company and product) who wouldn't know a business plan from the Marshall Plan, and just assume that millionaire with all the money really is a millionaire with all the money.

The behind-the-scenes look probably started out to see if left-wing talk radio can work, but the filmmakers happened upon a much more exciting business story. It would seem that the angel, Evan Cohen, never lined the investments he promised. It's hard to discern whether he got duped, or was an outright liar, but the fact that he turns $650,000 worth of ads into $1,000,000 when speaking by phone to the Times editorial board points toward the latter. "It's a documentable fact," Cohen says, missing the naked irony that he was being filmed.

Along the way, we meet interesting characters. There's Morning Sedition's Marc Maron, who is so ridiculously neurotic he makes Woody Allen seem like W. His pain at being a total neophyte ("I'm blasting into the ether for nothing") is in sharp contrast to the jovial Al Franken, who scores a big first day coup by getting Michael Moore to apologize to Al Gore on air. There are also amusing spars of familial love and political hate between Janeane Garofalo and her father Carmine, shown charmingly drinking a Stella while wearing a large fanny pack, and the gritty, take-no-prisoners Randi Rhodes who goes from lost sheep to attack dog the minute she's on air. There's also a wrenching subplot with Cohen's best friend from college/Air America general counsel who completely bought into what his pal was selling.

If you loathe Air America, Left of the Dial is a winner because they nearly go bankrupt and then, of course, there's all the faces on election night last November. If you love Air America, it's a winner because they made it to their one-year anniversary, March 31, 2005; are up to 48 affiliates; and are apparently trumping Rush and Hannity (at least, it seems to be, in New York City).

And if you just like a great start-up story, tune in and watch Air America air its dirty laundry.