Slow on the uptake as always, I start tuning in to Air America Radio just as the station hits a cash crisis (Air America's side of the story is here.)

Blame my decorator -- I've only just been able to reconnect the speakers to my PC because he's been painting the study.

My early impressions weren't favourable, although they weren't helped by the time difference which meant I was tuning in to some of their graveyard shift weekend output. Their environmental issues programme and a show called The Satellite Sisters were uniformly turgid.

Al Franken and Randi Rhodes lifted my opinion of the network somewhat with some lively exchanges and were a refreshing change to both the froth-spewing right-wing talkers and the All-Bran radio of NPR -- good for you, but impossible to digest. Yesterday's reaction to the Bush news conference was pacey and well-aimed.

My untutored Limey ears, though, can only listen to talk-radio from the right or the left in short bursts. After about ten minutes of full-on opinion I feel like I've been battered about the head with a plank of wood and need to put on a Carpenters CD and have a lie down.

With $60m in the coffers Air America can probably weather this particular financial hiccup -- but from the sound of its commercial breaks it's in need of some big money advertisers.