Re: PaxNet

[Douglas Broda <dougbroda@mindspring.com>]

 I don't think Rudy had issues of programming values and Middle American TV on his mind when he sold WNYC-TV, because he didn't sell it to Paxson. He sold it to Dow Jones and ITT, which renamed it WBIS, to show business news and sports. *They* then sold it to
Paxson, on May 12, 1997, for $257.5 million, in the face of a hostile takeover attempt of ITT. (ITT also had to sell its stake in the Garden and MSG Network to try to fend off the takeover bid.) (Source, besides recall:
http://www.colegroup.com/newsinc/morgue/970526/WBIS.HTML)

Also, there is a market for Christian and conservative-valued programming in NYC. NYC is the most liberal city in America, but it's also big -- and thus, an audience that is large in raw numbers can get buried in the size. Whether that market is large enough to
support a commercial UHF station, we'll see.

My politics are probably far closer to yours than those of the average host at J-Light... but heterosexual conservative Christians are "real people" (and many of them are very good and caring people, even if I vigorously disagree with them on a ton of social and
faith-based issues), just as gay urban women are, just as moderate straight white males are, etc. etc. I can't watch Jerry Falwell without gagging -- but I think it's *good* that he has a right to air his opinions. Same for Rush Limbaugh. There are millions of
conservative Christians in the U.S., and it's only right that, having an ally with the funds to try, that they get a shot to see if a broad-based over-the-air network based on their values can fly. You used a Trek-based signature line. As a lifelong Trekker, I
think IDIC's a rather great virtue -- and that infinite diversity includes our conservative Christian brothers and sisters. (And no, it's not dependent on them not trying to block more liberal programming by political pressure. IDIC's not a quid pro quo, it's
unconditional.) Besides... that First Amendment's rather neat, and, again, they get all its benefits even if some of them would take a far more restrictive view of it than I would.


Sven Weil wrote:

>  What   I  would like to know is this: Will PaxNet (UHF Channel 31 in New York
> City -- the former city owned WNYC-TV = sold by our dear old mayor to close
> a budget gap) feature programs that only cater to "White Middle America
> Republican, heterosexual" folks, or will it also carry programs that are of
> interests to real people? Somehow, I fear that this is going to be a TV
> version of the kind of material that J-Lite (WJLT-AM) and WEZE put out.
>
> Anyway...I'll be tuning in come August 31 (gee...what a coincidence...August
> 31 on Channel 31)
>
> Forever left-leaning (and proud of it)

- --
Douglas J. Broda
Broda and Burnett
Attorneys at Law
80 Ferry Street
Troy, New York 12180
(518) 272-0580
dougbroda@mindspring.com

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