Settlement for Air America

Air America said Tuesday that it had reached a settlement in its battle with radio chain MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting, which owns the Los Angeles and Chicago affiliates of the fledgling liberal talk-radio network.

Under the agreement, Air America will remain on WNTD in Chicago until April 30. MultiCultural had yanked the service off that station and KBLA-AM (1580) in Santa Monica a week ago due to a financial dispute.

A judge in New York forced MultiCultural to restore Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo and the rest of the Air America lineup to WNTD on Thursday, but the relationship between the two sides appeared irreparably poisoned. Air America executives didn’t disclose the terms of Tuesday’s settlement but said they would announce new affiliates for Los Angeles and Chicago shortly.

Air America remains on nine other radio stations nationwide, including outlets in New York, Minneapolis and KCAA-AM (1050) in Riverside, as well as both satellite radio services, XM and Sirius. The network also streams its signal from its website, www.airamerica radio.com, and says it will begin airing by next month on stations in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz.

Steve Carney