The Blaze is telegraphing a big announcement on Monday.
It might be that his campaign to talk one or more of the major Cable TV networks into carrying The Blaze may have borne fruit.
There was also a peculiar story that Beck has filed paperwork with the SEC. Given what Beck thinks about borrowing money, selling bonds seems unlikely. Might he give up partial equity of his company to someone like Time Warner to get onto a large cable TV owner’s systems?
Here is the SEC filing
It’s saying TheBlaze Inc will be selling up to $40 million in $1 million increments to qualified investors (not the general public) under what is known as rule 506. This is exactly the type of filing one would do if you’re issuing stock to another party so they have a financial stake in your future.
The folks putting the deal together
Hypatia is a Private Equity firm run almost entirely by women.
Or maybe Dial Global is selling its talk business to Glenn…
I saw it mentioned in All Access that Glenn Beck’s Blaze Radio Network is getting its own channel on Sirius. I don’t listen to him anymore, but I thought I’d check my radio to see where it was…it’s not there. Turns out it’s only available ONLINE if you pay $15 a month for a Sirius online subscription. Or you could just go to I Heart Radio where the same channel is totally free. The I Heart Radio online app works well, but the Sirius online streaming is notoriously bad. The only advantage of having the channel on Sirius is if you can listen on your existing Sirius unit or in your car. Why would you pay for a completely free thing, especially if it becomes less convenient to use?
I have iHeart, and Sirius and recommend this one over iHeart: http://www.radiosure.com/ it is free and has stations iHeart does not have.
Forgot to mention that it lets you record shows too, so that you don’t have to buy the podcast as a premium member of the talkers web site. 😉
There appear to be two pieces to the the announcement – TheBlaze audio will be available on Sirius Internet streaming. I don’t know if it has been improved, but that product was an extremely annoying experience. Sirius is obsessed with making sure people don’t share accounts, so every few hours it forces you to login again – and if you listen on more than one device, you got errors that your account was already in use.
I agree I don’t think anyone would subscribe to Sirius Internet because of this, but then again not everyone knows TheBlaze has a free Internet stream.
The other part is the more interesting – The Blaze is commiting to a 24 hr/day top of the hour news service. It will become the hourly news on the Patriot Channel. If they have a viable business plan and offer it to conservative talk radio, that could be an interesting challenger to Fox Radio News
My experience with the Sirius streaming is that it is by IP address rather than device. I have two Logitech internet radios in the house and they can both play different Sirius stations while I stream a third on a PC.
I haven’t tested it with my cell phone which would have a different IP address if turned its WIFI off.
I had, about 5 years ago as a test, IMed one of my active Sirius streams to a friend across the country and he was able to use its key to start a simultaneous stream to his PC. Once the stream stopped, there was about a minute or so in which it could be reactivated with the same key, then the key expired. It would also expire after an hour or two by Sirius’ design and require a new key.
Forgot to mention, I think the Logitech devices have their MAC addresses registered with Sirius. In 2009 they offered a great deal to renew long term so they could get cash and avoid bankruptcy – it included free internet access.
I had called and had many heated and escalated discussions with them about that because their official position was that the Logitech internet radios were not internet access and they wanted to double charge me. They said that internet access meant Internet Explorer on a Windows PC. The logitech internet radios EACH required a call for them to enable them.
I wouldn’t mind seeing The Blaze pick up the top-of-the-hour news away from FOX. Anyone who listens regularly and is not an american zombie knows that FOX News Radio is the same mainstream garbage you get from any other outlet.
Plus Fox throws in a smattering of entertainment “news”. Bill Vitka reminds me quite a lot of Doug Limerick
http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/bp7/vitka.html
He projects the same smarmy “I’m really really smart and telling you ignorant masses what I think of the news is the proof”.
The profile above mentioned that he worked as a campaign consultant for Eric Turkington, who was a Democratic member of the Massachusetts House.
Here is a tribute written by Vitka when Chris Stanley, his long time friend and coworker at Fox Radio News died.
http://larrymccoyonline.com/site/mobile?url=http%3A%2F%2Flarrymccoyonline.com%2FChris_Stanley.html#2649
It gives you a ton of details about both men. He points out that Stanley is probably the only reporter who has worked for both Pacifica and Fox News.
Chris Stanley retired from Fox News Radio in 2012 and promptly died of a heart attack.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/obit-radio-reporter-chris-stanley-is-dead-at-65
Thanks for that link. I had listened to Bill Vitka at WMMR. I lost track of him and don’t remember him moving to WPIX. Interesting that he did that familiar Philadelphia –> NYC move around the same time that former WMMR DJ “Alfrado” moved to WPIX.
BYW- Alfredo was “Al Santos” and went by other names outside Philly/NYC. He currently works as a technician at VOA Washington, but at WMMR, his show’s theme song was this one by a local band in Philadelphia, Johnny’s Dance Band. Its a really catchy tune, so don’t play it unless you are willing to have it stuck in your head for a couple days. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjmScLZq0mo
BTW- I seemed to remember Bill Vitka doing the “News Blimps” from the 1970s but I think it is my memory playing tricks on me. Here is the one from December 4, 1978 hosted by Steve Crowley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr9_gzEHrV8