It's expensive to run an airline, which is perhaps why American Airlines in-flight radio offered to interview Freakonomics co-author Steven D. Levitt for the price of $3,995. [Freakonomics]
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Doesn't it work the other way around? You get paid for your time, you don't pay to give it away.
People who listen to that channel are probably flying business and are decision makers (otherwise they're watching cartoons?), and since so many business writers try to pitch their books it's a good exposure. I can see the sense in it.
This is nothing new. My father (a lawyer) was offered this "opportunity" as well. They are essentially selling advertising in the form of a radio "advertorial". I'm sure they have media kits and the whole works for standard radio ad sales that they then apply in their pitches for this.
The way they frame it is a bit misleading though...you certainly don't hear regular radio stations saying "We'd love to have you prerecord a :60 chat for our listeners...that'll be $500". They just use the fact that its a long-form ad to work their angle.
"The interview plays on 29,000 planes for a month. Maybe there are 150 passengers per flight. Let's say each plane has passengers on it 12 hours per day. They loop through the interviews maybe once an hour. If my calculations are right, that means there are 1.6 billion separate chances for a passenger to hear the interview."
AA has 29,000 flights per month total, not 29,000 planes. AA has 650 to 670 planes. His math goes downhill from there.