Is Seder Out at AAR?

As we sign off for the night, we have reluctantly decided to report the rumor that Sam Seder will be the first AAR talk show host to be canned by the Green team.

The report of Sam’s demise first appeared earlier today in Mike Hood’s usually reliable Blatherwatch blog. Later in the day it showed up in the equally reliable Liberal Talk Radio blog, and then, the story was covered by usually unreliable Radioequalizer.

At this point, we checked Majority Report blog, where dozens of comments appeared on today’s blog entry relating to the above referenced reports. Since most of these comments were posted by Sam Seder fans, the tone was one of disappointment mixed with resignation.

So what is all the fuss about?

It seems that someone attending a stand-up comedy performance by Marc Maron at the Punchline in Atlanta this past weekend reported that Maron said that Seder was being fired and that he (Maron) had turned down an offer to replace him. Blatherwatch and Liberal Talk Radio claimed that they had received an email from this person, but neither blogger was able to confirm the "rumor" with either Seder or Maron.

Needless to say, as of the close of business today, AAR has not made any announcement.

Seder’s Show has not done very well in syndication. In the West Coast, he is up against the popular Stephanie Miller Show and on the East Coast, Seder has lost coverage to Bill Press and several local market talkers.

However, it would seem that a decision on the future of Seder’s Show is a bit premature. In a story in yesterday’s edition of New York Daily News radio reporter David Hinckley asked AAR’s new v.p. of programming, David Bernstein about his plans to review the liberal radio networks program line-up.

"...As a product, it's too early to say if we're going in the right direction," said Bernstein. "It may be that in the end, we're already giving people exactly what they want. That's what I'll be looking at."

On the job for less than a week, this is what one would expect Bernstein to say.

As for the rumor in Atlanta. Who knows? Maybe Maron just made a bad joke.