Here's the short-form way to bring Thom's show to your town:
1. Call around to your local radio stations, asking for the program director or general manager, and ask if they'd have any interest in carrying a "liberal talk radio" show.
2. If anybody says they're even remotely interested, drop an email to Louise@ThomHartmann.com and let us know the name of the person, and call letters and city/state of the station. We'll take it from there.
For those interested in more detail about the arcana of the talk radio industry and added ways to virtually guarantee the program will be picked up, read on (although the above is pretty effective - several stations have picked up the show just because local folks have called local stations or presented petitions to local stations asking for Thom's show and we then followed up with a demo and presentation to them).
Stations already carrying Air America content can carry our program, which is now syndicated by Air America Syndication, as well as non-Air America stations.
The Thom Hartmann Program is delivered to radio stations for free on what's known in the radio industry as a barter basis. In an hour of programming there are 21 minutes of commercials and news, and the network keeps five of these and the station gets seventeen. The station sells their minutes to make their money on the station, and the network sells their five minutes to pay their production costs. No cash changes hands.
Any station anywhere in the USA can pick up the Thom Hartmann Program off the ABC Starguide III satellite, the standard delivery route for talk radio in America. We're both on the Air America and the Jones Radio satellites.
If you'd like a surefire way to bring The Thom Hartmann Program to a radio station near you, the process is quite straightforward. Check around your town or community for advertisers who would like to reach an upscale "liberal" audience. When you find a company that is willing to sponsor a progressive program on a local station, start calling your local stations and ask for the Program Director or Station Manager. Let that person know that you have somebody who will advertise on their station if they'll carry the Thom Hartmann Program. And let us know by dropping us an email so we can support your efforts.
(Note that non-commercial community or public radio stations can also carry our program by taking a broadcast-quality feed from us off the internet. Because we use time-specific commercial "hard" breaks, they can overlay our commercials with music. So feel free to call them, too, and if they're interested in the show, let us know. As long as there's not a competing commerical station in their area, we'll make the program available.)
If the station is interested in our program, then drop an email to Louise@ThomHartmann.com and we'll contact the station. Please be sure to include the name of the station's Program Director, as well as their phone contact info.
If you'd like a list of stations in your area, check out the http://www.radio-locator.com website.
We're adding new stations constantly, and many have come on board because of contacts made by local folks who listen regularly to the websteam. If you have any other questions about how to bring progressive/liberal talk radio to your area, just drop us a note.
"The
Thom Hartmann Show ... is liberal talk radio with a rational
perspective, solid facts, and grounded in the history of
America."
--Radio Ink magazine
"There's a
buzz growing around nationally syndicated talk show host Thom Hartmann, whose
daily program is drawing high marks by those who are
on the lookout for talk radio's "Great Liberal Hope."
