Posted on 11/04/2003 7:31:56 AM PST by AlwaysLurking
Typical liberal arrogance and elitism. This is why they can't find an audience. If you don't agree with them you are oboviuosly their intellectual inferiors.
HA! They have to pay radio stations to carry their programs! Now there is a business plan destined to succeed in radio.
I remember lefties blasting and making fun of O'Reilly for paying stations to carry his program. I am sure they will do the same with AnShell.
Now if they can only find an audience......
Maybe they can use Mao's old method of ordering people to listen.
Actually, I amend that. It'll be dialogue between liberal talking heads.
OK, I'll give him that, but successful business people also know how to divorce their emotions from their business decisions, something Drobny is definitely not doing with this business venture. Add nepotism to the mix (his wife is his biz partner) and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Sheldon Drobny
BRIT HUME, HOST: For years, American liberals have dreamed of having their own talk radio network with wall-to-wall shows hosted by liberals. The idea is to break what they consider the monopoly of conservative voices on talk radio. One man more than any other is doing something to make this dream come true. His name is Sheldon Drobny (search), there he is.
And Byron York, White House correspondent of National Review has been doing some reporting on who he is.
Byron, welcome back.
BYRON YORK, NATIONAL REVIEW CORRESPONDENT: Good to be here.
HUME: So, who is Sheldon Drobny?
YORK: He is a Chicago businessman, a millionaire, a venture capitalist, a philanthropist.
HUME: I assume from the investment he has made, some $10 million, he is a multimillionaire.
YORK: He is indeed. And he has put up $10 million, formed company called AnShell Media. And its goal is to start a liberal talk show radio network with 14 to 16 hours of programming a day. He says it will be in business by January.
HUME: Now, will this be a network that is itself on the air with its own programming, or will this be network that simply feeds product to radio stations around the country for their selected use?
YORK: I believe it will be on the air as a whole, because the whole idea is they believe that past efforts at liberal talk radio have failed because they were sandwiched in between conservative programs. So they want a whole liberal network to give -- you know, to get their message across.
HUME: Now, what sort of fellow is Sheldon Drobny?
YORK: The interesting thing about him is he likes to write on the side. And just doing a little...
HUME: For whom does he write?
YORK: Well, he writes for a small Website called makethemaccountable.com. And looking into what he was doing...
HUME: What is makethemaccountable.com?
YORK: It's a small liberal Website that you can read various criticisms of the Bush administration.
And looking into what he said, what he's written, I found that he had written a number of things that were basically comparing President Bush to a Nazi, which is one of the standard things you see really on the far edges of criticism of President Bush.
HUME: What kinds of things?
YORK: One of the things he wrote was that "The corporate masters and their current spokesman, George Bush, is exactly the same excuses…used to sell the public his maniacal desire to conquer Europe."
HUME: And he wrote that on makethemaccountable.com, when?
YORK: He did indeed, in January of this year.
HUME: Uh-huh. What else has he said?
YORK: He also wrote that...
HUME: Hold on a second. I believe we have graphics on this. Do we have graphics on this? Go ahead.
YORK: All right. He also wrote and I'm quoting here, "Very few Americans know that Prescott Bush, our president's grandfather, supplied Nazi Germany with support for its re-armament. The information is documented, but is not known by most Americans because, as in any successful, fascist regime, the press is prevented from publishing it."
HUME: All right. Now, he says this information is documented.
YORK: Yes.
HUME: What about that?
YORK: Well, I sent him an e-mail and said, you know, did you write this? How do you believe this? And he sent back a chapter of a book that I never heard of called "George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography," it's about the first President Bush. And it alleges that the Bush family made their fortune from the Nazi (search) regime.
HUME: Right.
YORK: And I looked into the book. The book was actually published by two followers of Lyndon Larouche (search)...
HUME: For the benefit of viewers, who may not know who Lyndon Larouche is, please...
YORK: He is a nutty, fringe, political figure who has gone to jail and has printed...
HUME: For the record, I had a recent encounter with some of his supporters when I was monitoring a debate sponsored by...
YORK: You did? And they were...
HUME: ... the Black Caucus and FOX News in Baltimore. And it was interrupted several times ...
YORK: They were very vocal.
HUME: ... by vocal protest from the Larouche campaign who said that he, too -- he's always cast himself as Democrat Larouche, should be on the stage with the other candidates.
YORK: He runs a publishing house called Executive Intelligence Review and they are the ones that published this book about George W. Bush. This is something that is floating around on the Internet right now, the idea that the Bush family has Nazi ties and its wealth comes from Nazis. Apparently, what I can tell...
HUME: When you talk to Drobny -- I mean these are views that will strike, I think, many if not most Americans as exotic, to put it gently. What -- did he seem an immoderate fellow or did he...
YORK: Well, not at all. Actually, he stressed he did not want to compare Bush to Hitler in a genocidal sense. If you can compare someone to Hitler in a non-genocidal sense, I suppose that is what he is doing. But he seemed to firmly believe that the Bush family fortune had indeed come from Nazi investments made by George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush.
And you know, this is something that you normally see on the farthest fringes of the political debate, on both sides. The interesting thing about Drobny's writings is that this is someone who's really quite in the mainstream of what is perhaps the premier liberal outreach effort, which is the talk radio effort. And he's put in a lot of money and has been quite praised by a number of liberal commentators for his work.
HUME: Well, we'll look forward to further reporting from you on Mr. Drobny. Thanks very much, Bryon. Always good to have you.
YORK: Thank you.
A fool and his money are soon parted. Actually, they're fortunate to have ever made the acquaintance in the first place...
If Mr. Adventure Capitalist HAD a list of big-time radio stations signed up, then the story would have contained that list. Since it's not in the story, I doubt that he really has them lined up. And I would really like to see the syndie contract he's drawn up. Like how much he is PAAYING stations to carry it.
Now, I have no trouble believing that he'll be able to line up stations in just about all major markets. What I DOUBT is that any of those major-market stations will be, themselves, major stations IN those markets. Here in Nashville, for zample, we have AM 1510 WLAC and FM WWTN. Both have full, conservative or sports lineups. Neither would have a spot available for this show, and both have big stables full of advertisers who've gotten fat reaching their conservative target audience. So who would carry this network in Nashville?
There are a bunch of bottom-tier automated FM's with miniscule ratings - most owned by one guy, a con man who will remain nameless. He'd probably take the shows because they MIGHT generate more money than his all-polka format. But the shows aren't going to generate any real ratings and, thus, aren't going to attract any big advertisers.
Watching the self-righteous waste their money is a really amusing comedy to me. This should be fun.
Michael
Neal Boortz offered them the chance to fill in for him while he was on vacation. This could have taken them from obscurity to an audience of millions over night, and possibly launched them onto bigger and better things in the world of talk radio. Why did they turn down his offer?
They first accepted the offer under the condition that they got to bring in their own call screener. Boortz said no, and explained that no guest hosts of any show at WSB are allowed to bring in their own people. Well, the wimps at DTR whinned and said no to the offer. All because they couldn't be in control of the call screening process.
Talk about blowing an opportunity, and exposing that without their personal call screener they are unable to perform a show.
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