Sheldon Drobny looking for suckers in Milwaukee

Wouldn't Air America be truer to form if, for instance, the listeners owned the means of production? Wealthy and wacky venture capitalist Sheldon Drobny - an original investor in the ever-fledgling network - is looking for comrades/sotrudniki/investors in a new Milwaukee outlet using that very same idea.

He's looking for smaller investors, as small as $10 or $100. Don't laugh! It's the same model that's been successfully used by REI, your local hippie co-op, S&H Green Stamps, and the Soviet Union (to a limited extent). Further, cheeseheads apparently refer to it as the "Green Bay Packer community model".

So far their search for a station has come to naught. We're informed that they were:

...rebuffed by Packers Hall of Famer Willie Davis, the owner of black talk radio station WMCS-AM (1290)... Air America representatives contacted WMCS and "we have absolutely no interest whatsoever," said general manager Bill Hurwitz.

Further, Clear Channel's WXXM-FM (92.1) already carries Al Franken and Stephanie Miller. So, what little market there is might already be saturated.

The article also contains the interesting info that their new Little Rock station was not an outright purchase, but a lease with an option to buy. Just in case...

Posted in Sheldon Drobny at May 23, 2006 10:05 PM

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