It’s Martin Luther King Monday. The clock is pushing 5 p.m. And a bitter breeze bites my face as I pump petrol at a Speedway station on Binford Boulevard. I look around at the drab Indiana sky and the drab leafless trees and the drab flat landscape. And I wonder whether the world is really this drab or if it’s just me. Behind me, somewhere on Interstate 69, my sons Austin and Zach are heading northeast in their little Saturn…
A museum in the
works for downtown would feature one of the world’s largest collections of super hero memorabilia, including a Batmobile and
costumes worn by every actor who has played Superman on TV or in the movies.
I’ve sat through my share of seminars, sermons and speeches. I’ve heard all the shoulds, coulds, oughtas, haftas and gottas offered up by well-meaning teachers, preachers and other pontificators. And while I’ve tried to heed more of their wisdom than I’ve blown off, much of the blah-blah has gone in one hearing aid and out the other. You can chalk that up to dry delivery, other matters on my mind, lack of relevance or information overload. Whatever the case, the…
It’s election night. The hour is late. Political junkie that I am, however, I’m propped up in bed, the television blaring before me, the laptop perched on my legs. Remote in hand, I flip TV channels between CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, C- SPAN and Comedy Central. With the flick of an index finger on my computer, I bounce between Web sites of The Indianapolis Star, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Marion County Election Board,…
Fox Sports Midwest-which is in the process of rebranding to Fox Sports Indiana in this market-is serving notice it intends to be the television network of choice when it comes to local sports. Shortly after wrestling part of the Indiana Pacers broadcast rights from WTTV-TV Channel 4, officials for St. Louis-based Fox Sports Midwest unveiled a plan that entails significant upgrades to its local sports programming, including adding professional, collegiate and high school sports of all sorts as well as…
PROFILE TIM HALL Music gigs far from ‘taxing’ for local accountant As head of Crowe Chizek’s tax-consulting group in Indianapolis, Tim Hall advises business and individual clients on complicated tax matters. Fourteen times a year, however, he puts down the spreadsheets and picks up his drumsticks to tour as a drummer with 1950s rock-and-roll star Jimmy Dell. An RCA Victor recording artist, Dell, whose single “Teeny Weeny” topped the charts in 1958, toured with childhood friend Dwayne Eddy and other…
The Indianapolis Colts have signed a two-year deal with Tribune Co., moving the team’s two television shows from Lin TV Corp.’s WISH-TV Channel 8 and WNDY-TV Channel 23 to Tribune’s WXIN-TV Channel 59. “The Bill Polian Show” will air 10:30 p.m. Saturdays starting this fall, and “Colts Up Close” will air Fridays at 11:30 p.m. To beef up its Colts affiliation, local Tribune officials also are working independently on a Colts post-game show, which will air on WXIN sister station…
There is so much I do not understand about Indiana. After living here for 35 years, after visiting every county and traveling almost every mile of state highway, after making friends with thousands of Hoosiers, I am in the dark on so many issues. Here are three examples: Example 1: What do Mitch Daniels, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana have in common? They are all governors who have massive approval deficits. According to Survey USA (and…
Former New York Met and current Mets announcer Keith Hernandez emerged from a cave April 22, observed that a member of the San Diego Padres’ training staff wa s – g a s p ! – a female, and opined on air that women have no place in a Major League dugout. Hernandez was promptly reprimanded by his employers and issued a tepid apology on the next Mets broadcast. This might come as a bulletin to the Neanderthalic Hernandez, but…
Central Indiana’s newest limousine company plans to make only 10 percent of its revenue from passenger fees. Indy Racing Limos’ three principals expect to generate 85 percent from sponsors and the other 5 percent from use of their unique racer-like cars in corporate displays and business promotions. The company is the first limo firm in Indiana attempting to generate the bulk of its revenue from corporate sponsors plastering their names and logos on vehicles. Even so, founders Roy K. Ward,…
Trusty-Cook Inc. looks like an old-school manufacturer, even though its inventions are cutting-edge. The company’s 15,000-squarefoot factory on 59th Street east of Fort Harrison State Park looks more like an inventor’s workshop than a state-of-the-art operation intent on pounding out millions of widgets. Trusty-Cook owners eschew hot trends like Japanese-imported lean manufacturing, and aren’t apt to use catch phrases like “just-in-time delivery.” Despite the company’s throwback demeanor, when it comes to working with urethane, Trusty-Cook is revolutionary. And its latest…
“It’s just a matter of time.” At this point, the statement may reflect more hope than reality. The city’s main corridor is a concrete jungle through much of midtown, filled with parking lots, for-sale signs and buildings exhibiting nearly nonexistent design standards. However, a small-butgrowing number of developers is showing interest in revitalizing the main corridor through midtown. One of the newest plans would create a mixed-use development at 21st and Meridian streets called Meridian at 21. Local businessman Jeffrey…
The giggle will soon be gone. Hoosier Lottery officials are eliminating the tag line giggle in their ads. And, more significantly, they’re replacing the local firm that created those ads with a Louisville-based advertising agency. That decision has wiped the smile off many faces in the local advertising community. One local industry executive said agencies here are stunned given the state’s pledge to “buy Indiana.” The Louisville firm, Bandy Carroll Hellige, beat out Bloomington-based Hirons & Company Communications Inc. and…
Public broadcasters usually aren’t shy about asking for money. Indeed, their telethon-style fund-raising drives likely are as recognizable to audiences as Big Bird and Garrison Keillor. But when it comes to big money, they haven’t had much practice. Until now. For more than a year, Indianapolis broadcaster WFYI quietly has been lining up support for its largest-ever capital campaign-a $15.3 million effort to upgrade equipment, expand its Meridian Street building, and more than double the not-for-profit’s endowment. Station leaders were…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
