Full story
We have an interesting history here at Progressive Voices. As many of you may be newer to us, you may not realize that our network started around 2011. We actually came together rather reluctantly, as we didn’t want to contribute to the already-divisive state of American politics, and in our worst nightmares we never dreamed that it could get markedly worse, helped along by Russian trolls interested in destroying the Western Alliance and democracy itself, and by—wittingly or unwittingly—an unpopularly-elected president who only cared about his reality television show presidency.
Still, we knew someone had to stand up to Talk Radio with its lies and conspiracy theories. We gathered our old friends like Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, and Thom Hartmann from our Air America days, and brought in some like-minded newcomers including Stephanie Miller, Brad Friedman, and Richard Fowler to name just a few.
We linked our far-flung hosts with some off-the-shelf technology to create a 100% digital stream, and when necessary, we invented the technology where none existed before. All the while, we tried to keep the stream as free from the crappy ads that populate Talk Radio as possible. We learned at Air America that most mainstream companies are afraid of controversy, and we can’t live under the conditions they demand.
We won’t soft-sell anything. It is not our fault that the truth has a liberal slant.
Someone must fight the lies, and it always seems to be the underfunded David’s that have to take on the Goliaths. Such is our path—and since you’ve received this message, apparently it is yours too.
The lack of advertising revenue combined with the costs of operations created a financial burden that we were willing and able to shoulder. Then a hoped-for, but the unexpected thing happened: we became very popular. The bandwidth costs for a little stream that has a few thousand listeners is nothing compared to the costs of one that has a robust on-demand platform with a million users.
We remain dedicated to keeping our shows as commercial-free as possible, but the costs have swamped us and we need your help NOW.
