RIP Air America

January 21, 2010 2:26 PM

Air America files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
posted by Chocolate Pickle (82 comments total)

.
posted by NiteMayr at 2:26 PM on January 21, 2010

I guess Chuck D never really caught on with the Truck Drivin' Man.
posted by four panels at 2:32 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

The way things are going, America itself may follow suit.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 2:32 PM on January 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I don't know about you, but I'd say this week has really sucked.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:33 PM on January 21, 2010 [26 favorites]

I thought they closed up shop a while ago. Seriously.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:33 PM on January 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

Will Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, et al. be crowing about this? Of course, being the cocks that they are.
posted by Daddy-O at 2:34 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Turns out the left doesn't enjoy hours upon hours of heated vitriol.
posted by graventy at 2:34 PM on January 21, 2010 [51 favorites]

National "Make Liberals Commit Suicide" Week continues.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:36 PM on January 21, 2010 [29 favorites]

Gasp.
posted by DU at 2:36 PM on January 21, 2010

Yeah, the problem with a liberal answer to right-wing radio is that liberals are generally more critical thinkers and less likely to engage in or accept black-and-white oversimplifications of nuanced issues.
posted by mrnutty at 2:42 PM on January 21, 2010 [10 favorites]

I listened to it in the 2004-2005 timeframe. I liked the Morning Sedition, Unfiltered (with Chuck D and Maddow!) and the Majority Report but after they went in a different direction back then I started listening to music and NPR again. My local market had Air America on a weak AM frequency that didn't seem to be available anywhere so I listened to it on XM... and although XM called the station Air America, it would program several non-Air America shows to fill the broadcast day.

I was just looking at the current lineup and it was pretty weak sauce. A rebroadcast of Maddow's MSNBC show, Lionel which was annoying, Montel effing Williams.

What I'm most upset about is the gloating O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al will give to this.
posted by birdherder at 2:44 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

So I have to go to the right wing channels to hear the commercials on how I should buy gold?
posted by Smedleyman at 2:46 PM on January 21, 2010 [6 favorites]

graventy: "Turns out the left doesn't enjoy hours upon hours of heated vitriol."

Oh this a thousand times. I couldn't stand it.

NPR 4 LYFE
posted by mullingitover at 2:47 PM on January 21, 2010 [3 favorites]

Wait, so this isn't an airline you're talking about?
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 2:49 PM on January 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

I turned it on a few times. Now that Bush is out of office they don't have anything to rant about any more.
posted by Sukiari at 2:50 PM on January 21, 2010

I liked Ron Kuby, but pretty much any radio is garbage compared to CBC radio so... meh.
posted by klanawa at 2:51 PM on January 21, 2010

It doesn't surprise me for a second. Liberals, progressives, tend to be, well, progressive. That means they're less likely to listen to radio, and more likely to get their information from the Internet or other "alternative" sources. Additionally, liberals tend to live in cities and use public transportation, rather than driving a car for hours.

I'll also not be surprised if conservative newspapers like the Wall Street Journal stay in print longer than more liberal papers like the NY Times.
posted by explosion at 2:52 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm an advertiser on a progressive talk station in Seattle, though it's not an Air America station. When people ask where I advertise, though, I tell them Air America, because they get the gist. Many progressive talk show hosts, like Ed Schultz, are not immediately affected by this, since they are independent and license their shows out. Ron Reagan, however, appears to be under an Air America contract, so I don't know what will happen with him.

In any instance, it's not good news for people who value critical thinking.
posted by l2p at 2:53 PM on January 21, 2010

Yeah, the problem with a liberal answer to right-wing radio is that liberals are generally more critical thinkers and less likely to engage in or accept black-and-white oversimplifications of nuanced issues.

Also, liberals are super-humble and have good breath.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:55 PM on January 21, 2010 [26 favorites]

It's sad, but it had been going downhill for a while.

However, Air America alums (Maddow, Senator Al Franken, Sam Seder) have gone on to do some good stuff since, so maybe it wasn't a total waste. Morning Sedition and Chuck D were good; Randi Rhodes was...interesting.
posted by emjaybee at 2:55 PM on January 21, 2010

After they killed Morning Sedition, they were already dead to me.
posted by Auden at 2:56 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's a victim of the over-saturation from all of the other liberal media.
posted by Zambrano at 2:58 PM on January 21, 2010 [3 favorites]

Rob: Do you think he's dead?
Gene: Well, if he's not dead, he's very calm.

RIP
posted by blue_beetle at 3:01 PM on January 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

LOLS PRIUS.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:02 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I turned it on precisely once and it was absolutely insane, it went like this

C,F: I think I'll try out AA, tunes in radio
AA: Today in the democratic party there is a big internal debate going on...
C,F: This should be interesting...
AA: whether it's ok too...
C,F: Keep going...
AA: rape Anne Coulter.
C,F: WTF!?!?, snaps radio off.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 3:04 PM on January 21, 2010

.
posted by blucevalo at 3:04 PM on January 21, 2010

I turned it on a few times. Now that Bush is out of office they don't have anything to rant about any more.

Most real liberals I know are still really fucking pissed off. The latte sipping, Prius driving suburbanite liberals are happy they got involved in something and now have gone back to their apathetic lives.
posted by nestor_makhno at 3:08 PM on January 21, 2010 [9 favorites]

Well, who wants to sit around listening to the radio all day? The liberal blogsphere is a pretty good way for liberals to communicate with each other.
posted by delmoi at 3:14 PM on January 21, 2010

liberals tend to live in cities and use public transportation

Citation please? I mean, something more detailed than the most recent election red/blue result map.
posted by hippybear at 3:17 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

.
posted by redbeard at 3:28 PM on January 21, 2010

Most Liberals that I know seem to be masters of utterly misdirected rage, if by "most liberals that I know" you mean most of Metafilter.
posted by Artw at 3:34 PM on January 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

With the exception of the occasional CBC and our local listener supported station CIUT, I generally can't stand radio, especially when just about every device I own that can receive radio frequencies can also do much more. Even if there was a specific broadcast I wanted to listen to, I prefer to get it on my own schedule in a format where I can quickly evaluate its full content and decide if I want to invest the time to actually listen to the whole thing.

Wait, so this isn't an airline you're talking about?

Yeah, I assumed it was related to this and immediately expected a slew of comments predicting the end of the commercial airline industry.

posted by shoebox at 3:42 PM on January 21, 2010

I'm sort of amazed that anyone listens to AM radio these days and guess that most people who do are about thirty to forty years too old to be interested in Air America.
posted by octothorpe at 3:42 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Turns out the left doesn't enjoy hours upon hours of heated vitriol.

Oh, I dunno. Opening any political thread on metafilter has pretty much confirmed for me that many liberals revel in it.
posted by thisperon at 3:44 PM on January 21, 2010 [9 favorites]

I loved Al Franken's show, but never really listened after he left. He didn't just rant; he had real conversations with knowledgeable people from both sides of the aisle and experts with no political affiliation. It was a left-leaning version of what the news should be, with some humor thrown in.

Tried to give Sam Seder a chance, but he was as willing as Limbaugh to make insanely incorrect statements and never correct them.
posted by coolguymichael at 3:46 PM on January 21, 2010

This is sad, but there is one other network that is very progressive, and has been around for sixty years, Pacifica Radio, which is ten times better then NPR or Air America
posted by wheelieman at 3:49 PM on January 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

NPR had a peice on Vampire Weekend on the other day. That produced some frothing rage in me. Grrr, hipsters!
posted by Artw at 3:50 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

1. Judging by the call-ins most of its listener base is conservatives who want to rage. If the target audience is hostile listeners why advertise there?

2. People who call in to talk radio are mostly dolts. If the progressive agenda is supposed to be smarter, the listener base really undercuts its presumed higher ground.

3. Just as conservative talk radio is a mouthpeice for the RNC, Air America is a mouthpiece for the DNC. But unlike the first pairing, the relationship is not mutually beneficial. There's no ideology dollars. The DNC kicks back nothing.

Upshot: bad business model.
posted by clarknova at 3:53 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is sad, but there is one other network that is very progressive, and has been around for sixty years, Pacifica Radio, which is ten times better then NPR or Air America

This.
posted by clarknova at 3:53 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wait, so this isn't an airline you're talking about?

Funny, I thought it was this airline, which I now know ceased to exist in 1976.

Yeah, I assumed it was related to this

Which, given my above thinking, I instantly thought was going to be this. Man, I feel like Philip K Dick all of a sudden, stuck in the far less interesting of at least two divergent realities.
posted by philip-random at 4:04 PM on January 21, 2010 [3 favorites]

Philip-K-Random
posted by hippybear at 4:08 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Say what you will about Right Wing radio, it's generally not boring. Air America was boring.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:11 PM on January 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

My ex-girlfriend was a producer on the Sam Seder show. She was there when Air America emerged from bankruptcy in 2006 and was purchased by new owners. She always told me that the new owner (or whomever the new owner installed as decision-maker) was terrible. She had little hope then that Air America would turn it around under his leadership. Correct!
posted by taliaferro at 4:14 PM on January 21, 2010

No small irony that AA filed for bankruptcy on the same day our activist Supreme Court unleashed the coffers of our corporate overlords so they can now fund buy any candidate they need.
posted by webhund at 4:44 PM on January 21, 2010

NPR 4 LYFE

If you think NPR is the station liberals (should) listen to, you've got another think coming.
posted by DU at 4:53 PM on January 21, 2010

But where else will we hear Car Talk?
posted by Artw at 4:54 PM on January 21, 2010

As a veteran of talk radio in the 1970s (caller-turned-phone-screener-turned-sidekick), even then we knew that the people who called the shows were totally NON-representative of the listening audience (the ultimate proof of that was when Phil Hendrie started using hoax guests and only had callers who didn't know they were fake).

Also, a lot of local revenue for talk radio is from local businesses who consider it more of a political contribution than a sales tool, and smart radio salesmen know that. Maybe the timing of AA closing shop when the Supreme Court opened up Corporate Campaign Contributions is that they realized it would redirect more revenue away from them.

Al Franken's way of doing talk radio was definitely not the norm, not even for Liberal Talk, and most 'pros' considered it wrong, wrong, wrong! But then, he's the only talk show host to ever be elected to any major office (AFTER doing talk radio), and successful talkers from Rush to Ed Schultz are smart enough to not even try. But it really is a totally different skill set.

Meanwhile, the Rush & Buddies station in SLO has a local afternoon show whose host is annoyingly moderate, and there's a Progressive Talk/Air America station here that was surviving the last time I listened (maybe I should check with them to see if they need some professional time filler), but we are an odd radio market.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:54 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

In the early days of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch paid cable companies $11 per subscriber to carry FNC (and Rudy Giuliani pressured Time Warner to carry the outlet in New York City.) Point being: conservative media outlets have succeeded not only because of market forces, as conservatives would have you believe, but because right-wing billionaires like Murdoch and Rev. Moon have been willing to subsidize them.
posted by netbros at 4:55 PM on January 21, 2010 [9 favorites]

I'll also not be surprised if conservative newspapers like the Wall Street Journal stay in print longer than more liberal papers like the NY Times.

Kind of an unfair comparison, since the Journal has another financially interesting justification beyond just delivering The News.

Say the NYPost though, and yes, you're probably right.

That said, the NYTimes has been an embarrassment for years. At least, to my mind.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:01 PM on January 21, 2010

I totally blame this on the progressives.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:01 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you think NPR is the station liberals (should) listen to, you've got another think coming.

Yeah, and they were the upper-middle-class-intelligentsia version of FOX when the Iraq war was being cheerled. They were just the thoughtful, nuanced, soft-spoken cheerleaders.

Sure I want Bill O'Reilly to be tried and hung as an enemy of the people. But I want Robert Siegel tried and hung first.
posted by clarknova at 5:11 PM on January 21, 2010

Most real liberals I know are still really fucking pissed off. The latte sipping, Prius driving suburbanite liberals are happy they got involved in something and now have gone back to their apathetic lives.

Oh, yay! Now we not only get to divide ourselves into conservatives or liberals, but we get to decide who the real liberals are!

Is this also the part where we get to decide who the Real Americans are based on where they live? After all, I'm not truly happy unless I have someone else to judge.
posted by Salieri at 5:14 PM on January 21, 2010 [16 favorites]

Heh. I did the same double-take as phillip-k-random. That said, maybe I need to start working up a FPP about the 'real' Air America.

And if all we get out of Radio Air America is Al Franken in the Senate, then it was worth it.
posted by gofargogo at 5:15 PM on January 21, 2010

But I want Robert Siegel tried and hung first.

Actually, I'd probably give Siegel a reprieve. He actually question(ed|s) people, unlike that morning homunculus, Garrels and the religion reporter they keep giving science stories such as evolution to.
posted by DU at 5:17 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

In the early days of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch paid cable companies $11 per subscriber to carry FNC.

That was a smart investment for Rupert, since the cable companies have been paying him on a 'per subscriber' basis for the channel for years now (exact numbers are hard to come by; relevant Google searches are full of stories about Fox charging the cable companies up to $1 per subscriber for their broadcast stations). More recently, Fox has paid cable systems to make room for the now-defunct Fox Reality Channel and the still-struggling Fox Business Channel. I have no idea what the arrangement is for the 50%-News-Corp-owned National Geographic Channel (what? you didn't know?).
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:30 PM on January 21, 2010

For the brief* time Air America was on the air out my way, my main impression was that the hosts were just...bad.
Say what you will about the politics of the big right-wing hosts, they are good at radio.
The Air America crowd seemed like amateur hour by comparison.

* Surprisingly brief, considering the demographic round here.
posted by madajb at 5:39 PM on January 21, 2010

Actually, I'd probably give Siegel a reprieve. He actually question(ed|s) people, unlike that morning homunculus, Garrels and the religion reporter they keep giving science stories such as evolution to.

At least those brutes have a pretty thin pretense. Señor Seigel is worse because his phony hardball questions never push the interviewees beyond the comfort of their own rhetorical frames. They never meet a question they're unprepared for. And it doesn't matter how many babies they've killed, they always leave his segments with a verbal handshake and shit-free faces.
posted by clarknova at 5:39 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I guess I hoped that some gifted radio host would come along and breathe life into AA by doing an actual good radio show. Like a Howard Stern or an Art Bell.

Also there was a 100% chance that any show you may have liked would be removed or rescheduled by AA or the local station. Maybe that's normal for talk radio.
posted by melvix at 5:48 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

No tears on this face. I think I despised Randi Rhodes more than even Rush Limbaugh.

I tried to listen to them sometimes, but very rarely did I hear anything worth my time. One of the major traits of liberalism is the acceptance of uncertainty and the process of thinking our way through problems, even if that thinking takes us to places we don't particularly like.

I didn't hear any of that on AA. All I heard was endless cheerleading and talking points. If I want that, I can get it straight from the Democrats.

Conservatives seem to thrive on hate and repetition; trying to duplicate that for a liberal audience is like trying to serve them steamed shit for dinner. You might get away with it once, maybe even twice, but then they stop accepting your invitations.
posted by Malor at 6:01 PM on January 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

C,F: I think I'll try out AA, tunes in radio
AA: Today in the democratic party there is a big internal debate going on...
C,F: This should be interesting...
AA: whether it's ok too...
C,F: Keep going...
AA: rape Anne Coulter.
C,F: WTF!?!?, snaps radio off.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 3:04 PM on January 2

hmm yes that certainly happened thanks for the informative post
posted by Optimus Chyme at 6:09 PM on January 21, 2010 [7 favorites]

Yeah, and they were the upper-middle-class-intelligentsia version of FOX when the Iraq war was being cheerled. They were just the thoughtful, nuanced, soft-spoken cheerleaders.

Yeah, it’s true. Back in 2004, Air America offered liberals comedy comfort in a world gone mad. The top-flight stand-up talent made sense in a time when if you tuned into National Public Radio, you were likely only to hear the Morning Edition hosts politely listening to a Heritage Foundation type assuring us we were on the brink of finding WMD and setting off a democratic earthquake in the Middle East.

But the AA network went on a long sad decline after that. It changed from hand to hand, relied on ad spots from mortgage consolidators, and tried out new directions: just-folks pandering, a Truther host, Montel Williams. None of the experiments could recapture the cool of that first, crazy time when everything seemed to hang on Senator Kerry, Air America and Eminem’s army of moshers.
posted by thelastenglishmajor at 6:13 PM on January 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

(the ultimate proof of that was when Phil Hendrie started using hoax guests and only had callers who didn't know they were fake).

Funny you mention Phil Hendrie... I sometimes go back and listen to those old shows from several years ago with him impersonating bizarre guests and engaging (quite intelligently, too) with unsuspecting callers. It's always occurred to me that there's so much potential with a format like that to address important social and political issues by hitting them with oblique, unusual viewpoints, while at the same time unravelling poor critical thinking skills. Pretty much all the left/liberal programming I've ever heard tends to be too highbrow, and really the spectrum here needs to be widened. If I was a progressive radio producer, I'd be aiming for fine-tuning a 2005-era Phil Hendrie Show + John Stewart type concept.
posted by crapmatic at 6:37 PM on January 21, 2010

Also, Conan's going off the air.

But on the plus side... uh... yeah.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:37 PM on January 21, 2010

Demented raving horseshit needs a lot more reinforcing than reality does. Air America failed because it tried to adapt a formula that's only useful or needed when you're trying to tell a story that's completely contradicted by all the facts in evidence. Paranoid drivel that's at odds with reality requires a strong daily dose. I didn't need Air America to reinforce my worldview: the world does that. It's only if you desperately want to believe utter garbage that you need it on a continuous IV drip.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:47 PM on January 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

Marc Marin used to be on air America, now he has a podcast. I recoomend it.

is it a class/money thing, the disparity in audience for right wing radio vs left wing alternative? I listen to this American life and Marc Marin but on my iPod, not the radio. all those commercials, ugh there's nothing worse than being trapped in yr car w just the radio.
posted by jcruelty at 7:11 PM on January 21, 2010

dog typing on phone I meant maron u dig
posted by jcruelty at 7:12 PM on January 21, 2010

Is this going to hurt Thom Hartmann in any way? Because if so, then at least that's some consolation.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 7:28 PM on January 21, 2010

Say what you will about Right Wing radio, it's generally not boring. Air America was boring.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:11 PM on January 21

Oh man, you just never listened to Mike Malloy.
posted by symbioid at 7:31 PM on January 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it’s true. Back in 2004, Air America offered liberals comedy comfort in a world gone mad. The top-flight stand-up talent made sense in a time when if you tuned into National Public Radio, you were likely only to hear the Morning Edition hosts politely listening to a Heritage Foundation type assuring us we were on the brink of finding WMD and setting off a democratic earthquake in the Middle East.

Also, this. Six years ago Air America had very different content, in a very different context.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 7:32 PM on January 21, 2010

Phil Hendrie turned all rah rah bomb Iraq after 9/11. I still don't get that one...
posted by queensissy at 7:38 PM on January 21, 2010

.

We have a progressive talk station in Chicago. At first it was all Air America shows (if I remember correctly stations had to take all the shows or none of the shows at first) but the schedule changed in the past few years. Now most of the shows on the station (Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann during the week, plus a bunch of local shows on weekends) are not Air America shows, so the schedule will stay pretty intact.

I will miss Ron Reagan's show, though.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:06 PM on January 21, 2010

There's still Doug Henwood's show, though must admit only catch up with it occasionally, not being American.
posted by Abiezer at 9:21 PM on January 21, 2010

I listened to Mike Malloy for years, and dumped Air America when they dumped him (violating his union contract in the process. How progressive can you be, and violate a union contract?). That Randi Rhodes went back to them after they dumped her (in a really ugly way) was rather shocking, and ultimately, I'm kind of happy to see Air America go down with her on board. She often had interesting things to say, but damn, her ego was too big for radio.

Malloy has gotten rather boring lately. He's gotten far too evangelical about his atheism, and I don't like evangelicals. He loves ranting against the evils of religion, but makes a complete ass of himself when he goes all dogmatic about his own related views. Recently, he was extremely rude to a caller/fan that happened to be a preacher who believed in evolution. Malloy insisted the man couldn't be a "Christian" if he believed in evolution. I don't need that crap, and neither does the progressive movement.

Thom Hartmann I find quite interesting, with many good segments. But I've grown disgusted with how he handles callers. Maybe that's just how it needs to work, but I find it gets tiresome when hosts insist on talking over callers, re-framing their remarks to fit the host's agenda. Too many times, I'm interested in what the callers are geting at. And Thom is showing signs of inflated ego too, and that gets tiresome.
posted by Goofyy at 9:25 PM on January 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

In San Diego they stuck Air America on KLSD. I'm not kidding, kay-L.S.D.
posted by Lukenlogs at 12:11 AM on January 22, 2010

Am I weird because I initially thought this was about the CIA black ops air cargo carrier?
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 3:40 AM on January 22, 2010

Political radio talk shows are just entertainment. With polls showing that more people identify as conservatives than liberals, is it any surprise that Air America's audience was limited to a point of bankruptcy?
posted by bigwoopdeedoo at 5:26 AM on January 22, 2010

What ever station provides the best interviews, music, and reporting is always going to be the "progressive station".

Progressives form their opinions based on facts and trends and new ideas. It's the conservatives that embrace mediocrity and comfort journalism*. Just as The Right can't ever have a Daily Show, the left can't have a Limbaugh. Right is right, left is left and never the twain shall meet.

*I mean this in a "Big C" Conservatism sense. There have been plenty of intelligent, honest conservatives, but very few in this political climate.
posted by Telf at 5:55 AM on January 22, 2010

In the early days of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch paid cable companies $11 per subscriber to carry FNC.

FNC has only been on the air since late '96. Limbaugh's show has been around since '88.
posted by smackfu at 6:10 AM on January 22, 2010

I loved Al Franken's show, but never really listened after he left. He didn't just rant; he had real conversations with knowledgeable people from both sides of the aisle and experts with no political affiliation. It was a left-leaning version of what the news should be, with some humor thrown in.

This.

I used to listen to AA all day -- it's where I developed my girl-crush on Rachel Maddow -- loved Franken's show! Of all the shows I listened to, losing Franken's was the one that made me stop tuning in daily.

If only they'd give Stephanie Miller her own show on MSNBC, too, I think I'd be happy having that on all day instead.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:33 AM on January 22, 2010

Eh. Stale format, no interesting personalities. Radio is a wasteland.
posted by pabanks46 at 2:59 PM on January 22, 2010

I will miss Ron Reagan's show, though.

You might not have to. He has announced that his show will go on, self-syndicated, and is working on deals to keep his timeslot on the former AA affiliates (they'll probably be delighted to have one less hole in their schedule). He was doing his show not from AA studios but from his 'home station' in Seattle, so it'll be much easier for him to continue as he has. But he may be the only one.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:37 PM on January 22, 2010

.*


*Nice ideology, bad planning.
posted by moonbird at 9:14 PM on January 22, 2010