Big changes at Emmis?:
Big changes at Emmis? Analysts say sale of TV stations positions Jeff Smulyan to take media company private in leveraged buyout. PAGE4
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Articles
Lee, Willis prosper outside limelight: Former WRTV co-anchors run growing public relations firm
News defined the careers of Clyde Lee and Diane Willis for a combined five decades. And it was the nation’s biggest news event of the last decade-9/11-that served as an ominous backdrop for the duo’s first entrepreneurial venture. “We incorporated in August 2001, and less than a month later, 9/11 hit, and we thought, ‘Oh my,'” Lee recalled. But more than four years later, Lee/Willis Communications is still standing-and prospering. The fiscal swoon that followed 9/11 caused many companies to…
Trying to strike oil in public markets: Indianapolis-based Calumet Specialty Products files for IPO, hopes to raise $140 million
An Indianapolis-based oil company with ties to a wealthy local family plans to go public in what analysts describe as a hot-butvolatile market. Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP wants to raise $140 million by selling 6.4 million units at an expected price of $22 each, according to papers filed this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Calumet has been part of the private business empire of the Fehsenfeld family, which 35 years ago founded Heritage Environmental Services, a…
BEHIND THE NEWS: Another Smulyan surprise? Exec could take Emmis private
Emmis Communications Corp. CEO Jeff Smulyan has struggled to keep Wall Street happy the last few years. He might not have to worry about that much longer. At least three Wall Street analysts have said in recent reports that Smulyan, Emmis’ controlling shareholder, might take the radio-station company private. Asked about that scenario during an interview with IBJ, Smulyan said nothing to quiet the chatter. “Everything is under consideration,” he said. “There is nothing that’s not under consideration.” Key reasons…
BEHIND THE NEWS: Exec tries to rewrite baseball legacy, but boo-birds abound
Emmis Communications Corp. CEO Jeff Smulyan ended up black and blue the last time he owned a baseball team. This time around, he’s taking blows even before he finds out whether he gets the team. Smulyan wants both Emmis shareholders and residents of the Washington, D.C., region to be excited about his group’s bid to buy the Washington Nationals from Major League Baseball for at least $450 million. But already leading an anti-Smulyan charge is Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell,…
Digital TV crystal-clear, but ‘multicasting’ model blurry: Making a buck from spare digital TV channels is a challenge, though one firm is eyeing city for wireless cable
While Multicast Networks Group plans to offer TV stations a network of programs they can run on their digital channels, pioneers in so-called “multicasting” of digital signals have had other visions. And like many pioneers, they’ve taken arrows. Jeff Smulyan, president of Indianapolisbased radio and TV empire Emmis Communications Corp., last year proposed leasing unused digital bandwidth from TV stations. Once he gained enough of these unused channels in a given market, he planned to deliver a sort of over-the-air…
Network takes aim at digital surplus: Firm to sell programs for unused TV channels
Multicast Networks Group LLC plans to launch the network in 2006, said industry veteran Michael Ruggiero, who heads the 22-year-old ALL TV Services communications consulting firm. “We know the industry needs more content. Broadcast groups we’ve talked with are very excited about the concept,” said Ruggiero, chairman of Multicast. Ruggiero also is vice president of distribution for The Tube Music Network, developed by MTV co-founder Les Garland. Ruggiero recently helped broker a deal to run The Tube on digital channels…
Ambassadair likes suitor: Chicago-based Waveland Investments might have jobs for ATA execs if it lands travel club
Ambassadair Travel Club Inc. may chart a new destination with the help of a Chicago private equity firm whose holdings range from gas station chain Clark Brands to coffee-pot-maker West Bend. Waveland Investments LLC is the face behind Waveland Holdings LLC, an entity named in court records as signing a letter of intent to acquire Ambassadair from bankrupt parent ATA Holdings Corp. While Ambassadair said it remains profitable, despite ATA’s troubles, it has lost more than 20 percent of the…
Katrina could complicate sale of Emmis TV station: Undaunted, New Orleans WVUE begins to rebuild
WVUE-TV Channel 8 in New Orleans has no transmitter, no offices, little functional equipment and a skeleton staff. The station owned by Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corp. also has no paying advertisers and a depleted audience, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. The devastation wrought by one of the nation’s worst natural disasters puts plans to sell the station on hold as WVUE officials survey the millions of dollars in damage to their facilities and equipment and fight to get back on the…
GuyFest: Motorcycles, brewers, home theaters … New event targets CEOs to steelworkers
It’s not a new medical procedure, but a three-day event Compton calls “a magical place-home to both the steelworker and the CEO.” Testostorama Men’s Expo, planned for Nov. 11-13 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, is being hyped to men of all ages and backgrounds “as payback for all those years she dragged you to the Flower and Patio show.” “We cooked up this event and put a little edge to it,” Compton said. Testostorama organizers expect more than 200 exhibitors-from…
Payola inquiry includes Emmis: New York AG, FCC study financial ties with record labels
Emmis Communications Corp. early this year received a subpoena in an investigation of pay-forplay practices throughout the radio industry, and the Indianapolis company confirms two of its employees in the New York market are under scrutiny. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer earlier this year began investigating whether record companies were using improper promotional practices to win airplay for their artists’ songs. In July, he reached a $10 million settlement with Sony BMG, owner of several record labels. This month,…
New names shake up radio market ratings: Hank and Jack see gains; WFMS and WFBQ lose ground
Two radio newcomers known as Hank and Jack are two-stepping and fist-pumping their way up the local radio ratings ladder. Meanwhile, stalwarts WFMS-FM 95.5 and WFBQ-FM 94.7 have found their grips on the top rungs loosening. The first major reshuffling in local radio station ratings in nearly a decade is having wide-ranging effects on advertising demand and rates. The release of New York-based Arbitron Inc.’s spring rating book July 29 touched off a flurry of debate about who won and…
EYE ON THE PIE: Brothers set example for today’s execs
Most of us know the fabled heroes of Bean Town. They include the Adams cousins (John and Sam). Paul Revere. The Kennedy brothers (John, Robert and Edward). Ted Williams, Carl Yazstremski, Bobby Orr, Bob Cousey, Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Tom Brady. Yet Boston’s most significant business heroes are not well-known today, at a time when their example could be most useful. Two brothers, Edward and Lincoln Filene, inherited their father’s department store in 1890. They spent the rest of…
ATA captain bids bon voyage to Orion: Mikelsons unloads $4.95 million luxury vessel as company’s struggles take toll on his assets
ATA Holdings Corp. Chairman J. George Mikelsons has sold his $4.95 million yacht and has been handed a regal bill for its crew’s pay and benefits-the latest blow to the fortunes of the bankrupt airline’s founder. “When pilots get together, one of the things that always comes up is, ‘Why does George still have his boats?’ People still complain,” said Rusty Ayers of the Air Line Pilots Association, in Chicago. “We used to joke that if they ever got furloughed,…
Emmis program creating a ‘Buzz’: Show gains in other markets, but hasn’t caught on locally
A syndicated morning news show co-owned by locally based Emmis Communications Corp. is making in-roads nationally but has failed to cause a buzz among viewers locally. “The Daily Buzz,” co-owned by Emmis and California-based ACME Communications Inc., and produced in Orlando, Fla., now airs in 137 markets and has shown increased ratings in several critical markets, including Orlando and Tampa, Fla.; Dallas; and Norfolk, Va. “We’re definitely looking to expand our syndication, and we think we’ll be successful because we…
Digital TV for the masses: Thomson venture to roll out alternative to HDTV sets at prices ‘Middle America’ should love
People with cars-up-on-blocks in their front yards could afford to buy this digital television. TCL-Thomson Electronics Corp., the Thomson joint venture known as TTE, plans to launch ultra-inexpensive “SDTV” digital sets this fall to aggressively court what some say is an ignored segment of the consumer electronics market. If Bharath Rajagopalan and his colleagues are correct, TTE could get an edge on competitors who’ve been too drunk on profit margins from big, $5,000 plasma screen sets to worry about digital…
‘Blue-eyed soul brother’: Radio One’s new GM out to prove race doesn’t matter
“I think it had been so long since one of the doors had been opened, no one knew how to open it,” Williams said with a laugh from his office on the north side of downtown. Since that initial learning curve was conquered, the doors haven’t closed. “When Chuck opened those double doors, I was taken aback,” said Amos Brown, director of strategic research and one of the most well-known personalities at Radio One. “I thought, ‘Wow, something here is…
BEHIND THE NEWS: Emmis stock is out of favor, but is future really so bleak? Outsourcing firm plans IPO
The radio industry receives abysmal press these days. Bears note that advertising revenue has grown sluggishly in recent years, despite the economic rebound. And they quiver over new competition from satellite radio and the iPod. So is this the time for investors to flee the sector? Or to pick up a few bargains? Contrarians may want to take a closer look at hometown broadcaster Emmis Communications Corp., which will announce fiscal fourth-quarter financial results April 14. Certainly, these are not…
SPORTS: And I repeat…the new stadium isn’t just for football
A lot of folks have pointed to the arrival of the Indianapolis Colts in 1984 as the beginning of the Indianapolis renaissance through sports. I would submit that the train already had left the station. The Indianapolis 500 notwithstanding, Indy’s first major national splash came four years before, in 1980, when the NCAA brought the Men’s Final Four to Market Square Arena. At that time, the event was just starting to bust out. The year before, Michigan State and Indiana…
Million dollar baby: Hospital reaps benefits of caring for high-profile boy A public relations jackpot
The Afghan boy may have arrived last month at Riley Hospital for Children with heart trouble and a need for complicated surgery. But behind those soft, brown eyes and that adorable smile lies a 12-cylinder marketing engine. A sample of the 15-month-old’s power: Qudrat’s often-reported story created at least $1 million in free media for Riley, according to hospital officials. That’s 10 times the amount Riley spends on print or broadcast advertising in a year. He could be responsible for…