I of course do not know this and have no way of knowing. And dont that much care.
I worked selling high end teleproduction equipment in Hollywood in the 80s and obliquely participated in the construction of numerous TV studios, edit suites and control rooms and outside bdcst trucks. Back then, a studio camera was a $60K affair with a $20K lens sitting on top of a $20K pedestal with a $150K/year camera dude running the thing....3 or 4 of them...running into a control room with tons of equipment, a director, a technical director, an audio guy..etc; etc; etc; With $250K of lights and gaffers and a lighting director.
Today, the cameras needed to produce LevinTV and the robotic heads they sit on and the 1/100th of the lighting needed to let modern cameras make picture are easily obtainable well under $100K. One guy running the switcher, an audio guy, maybe a director. That studio probably cost well under $500K to put together. Id suspect he was able to put his set together 100% ready for show #1 for under $1 MM, all in, including construction salaries and facilities rent and server capacity for a year. (of course he does not have to pay a years salary for anyone all up front) He can write a check for that much and he might have leased all the gear. And he just signed a new 9 year contract, right? The startup costs could be in the neighborhood of $1 - $1.5 MM.
So if he gets 8,000 people, a mere 1% of his 8 MM listeners to subscribe to LevinTV @ $6 a month thats $50K a month * 12 = $600K/year so he could pay himself a $200K salary and still be making 9% a year on his infrastructure investment which is not bad.
Thanks for all the info, and it gives me a good sense of what was involved financially. My line of thought has been maybe some unknown funding for his ventures could explain Mark's behavior re Cruz, Trump and lots of other things.
thanks again!
Naah. I honestly do not think there’s any grand conspiracy nor hidden hand in the case of Mark Levin. I think he is totally sincere and passionate about wanting to elect a candidate whom he regards as a staunch conservative and he agonizes very deeply over the systematic destruction of Cruz by all the forces arrayed against Cruz (and Cruz himself) and what he believes is the squandered opportunity to elect Cruz. Equally, he is repelled by Trump and personally insulted by the dirtbomb Roger Stone threw at him. Which was stinky, but what isn’t this election cycle?
All that’s fine. But he has caught Beck disease and suddenly thinks of himself as a media titan with his TeeVee show or quasi-religious figure with his ideological purity and for some reason he thinks it’s interesting to repeat these views endlessly and with this particularly irritating device he now employs to the exclusion of any other having this constant argument with himself and a peanut gallery he makes up.
To me it is straight ahead irritation and the information and knowledge he possesses are all shoved by the wayside to the point where has nothing to impart other than his “act” which he thinks is cute. To me, it’s not, it’s a constant irritation. I still respect him deeply for his principled stand and vast knowledge and he is not IMO factually wrong about Trump. I just simply cannot stand his voice and the way he conducts his show. I would feel exactly the same way if someone was operating a loud power tool or a jackhammer in the next room. I’d massively prefer not to hear it.