Air America Denies Bankruptcy Rumours

Air America, the US, liberal, radio chatshow network set up to counter the country's rightwing-dominated talkshows, has denied reports it is fighting bankruptcy.

The face of the network, comedian and author Al Franken, told the New York Sun he had not been paid recently because of the Air America's financial problems.

"We have a cash flow problem. That's what I know," Mr. Franken told the Sun.

"No cash has been flowing to me. That's the first inkling I got of a cash flow problem."

But a spokeswoman for Air America said: "No decision has been taken to make any filing of any kind.

"If Air America had filed for bankruptcy every time someone rumoured it to be doing so, we would have ceased to exist long ago. It may be frustrating to some that this hasn't happened."

Earlier this month, the network - which boasts Jerry Springer among its hosts - switched its New York flagship station from WLIB on 1190 AM to a station with a much weaker signal, 1600 AM on WWRL-AM and there were several job losses involved in the move.

Air America launched on March 31 2004 in a bid to bring progressive speech shows to mainstream radio as an alternative to the traditionally rightwing slant of the talkshows on air across the US, which it said did not represent the views of many Americans.