http://www.rbr.com/ ©2007 Spoonlabs d.o.o. Vivvo CMS 4.1 2012-02-11T14:11:23-06:00 http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-19T14:51:00-06:00 2009-11-19T14:51:00-06:00 Jack Messmer Nine countries issued a joint statement from their Budapest embassies taking Hungary’s government to task for pulling the plug on two radio stations http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-19T15:06:50-06:00 2009-11-19T15:06:50-06:00 BattleStar Has everyone gone nuts?? Emmis and the other guys had a fixed-term 12-year license, it expired and was re-tendered in a purely financial bidding process. The licenses went to (by far) the highest bidders. How is this corruption, or worse - political silencing? From the get-go in 1997 Emmis knew that this license would expire in 2009; they just didn't happen to be the highest bidder when it did. Tough luck - **** happens and you can't accuse a whole country of corruption, or absence of democracy just because you are sour over your loss. http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-19T18:47:01-06:00 2009-11-19T18:47:01-06:00 Jack Messmer Please read the previous stories to learn about the corruption.http://www.rbr.com/radio/18673.htmlhttp://www.rbr.com/radio/18563.htmlIt was hardly a "purely financial bidding process."Jack MessmerExecutive EditorRBR-TVBR http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T00:55:48-06:00 2009-11-20T00:55:48-06:00 Observer To learn about corruption take a look at Mr. Messmer's affiliation and the alleged evidentiary material he offered. He is at RBR-TVBR and the stories that he uses as evidence were manufactured by the same RBR(-TVBR). Mr. Messmer, do you think that everyone is as blind (if not stupid) as you are? http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T01:54:44-06:00 2009-11-20T01:54:44-06:00 BattleStar Mr. Messmer, I read (and had read) the preceding stories. I also read the tender rules - and it is clearly a purely financial tender - with the highest bidder (in terms of % of revenues) would win. This, to me, looks like a transparent process.On the other issue of whether a 50% bid can ever be a feasible business case - that's a risk up to the bidder, unless the rules set a high limit (which they apparently didn't). I just looked up Emmis's performance in Hungary last year. It seems that their EBITDA margin was nearly 50% - and that included the cost for their license fee (whatever it is). Thus, i don't see why someone can't make money on the same set of frequencies with a license fee of 50% of revenues.I think the only thing that is corrupt in this story is the angle at which it's being reported. http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T04:48:21-06:00 2009-11-20T04:48:21-06:00 Scott Lockwood I'm on the side of Emmis. This is nothing more than "Euro Cronyism". Bad politics on the part of Hungary and ORTT. An easy solution would have been to just issue a couple of new frequencies for the politicians then everyone would have been happy. They wouldn't go for that because then they would have to build up the new stations on their own. Let's see now how they tear a few down. http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T07:47:24-06:00 2009-11-20T07:47:24-06:00 S I had a gnawing feeling something like this would happen when I read about this back in the late 90s. http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T09:14:32-06:00 2009-11-20T09:14:32-06:00 Jack Messmer To Battle Star:Right. I don't know what I'm talking about. Neither does Joe Biden, the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Economist, the former head of Hungary's ORTT, the ambassadors of nine nations on the scene in Budapest, various local publications in Hungary and the leaders of Hungarian political parties not involved in the rigged bidding. We're all misinformed and it was, as you insist, "a transparent process."Jack MessmerExecutive EditorRBR-TVBR http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T09:17:17-06:00 2009-11-20T09:17:17-06:00 Jake Adams Just out of curiosity I went to the Slager Radio website and put on the webstream. It's still on. I don't speak or understand Hungarian, but it seems like the radio station "lives on" online - to some limited extent. At 4:10pm CET today I heard "It's No Good" by Depeche Mode and what sound like a soundbyte announcing Slager Radio's disappearance from the airwaves.I doubt living on as an online station will be financially successful. So what's next for Emmis - and was this fair for Emmis? No. It wasn't.Is this akin to what was seen in Cuba when Castro came to power, or what's been seen of late in Venezuela? I'm not sure.But let's not forget that a foreign company can only maintain a minority interest in a U.S. broadcast company. I'm sure Grupo Radio Centro and Emmis would have loved to make a deal for KXOS-FM 93.9 in Los Angeles. Instead, GRC has a deal with Emmis to control the station.So is there a double-standard here?Not sure. But I don't think we should be feeling so horribly for Emmis or Danubius Radio's owners - they knew the risks when they first entered the market. They gambled and lost. http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T09:49:23-06:00 2009-11-20T09:49:23-06:00 Jack Messmer Jake: Yes, Emmis confirms that Slager is still producing new content for its web stream. Just what will happen going forward is yet to be determined.Jack MessmerExecutive EditorRBR-TVBR http://www.rbr.com/radio/18692.html 2009-11-20T09:55:17-06:00 2009-11-20T09:55:17-06:00 Jack Messmer Jake: As for the double standard question, there are quite a few US broadcasters who favor elimination of the 20% limit on foreign ownership, particularly on a reciprocal basis with other countries. There is no US restriction on foreign ownership of newspapers, broadcast/cable networks or even FCC-licensed telecommunications businesses, so broadcast radio and TV stations are uniquely restricted.Jack MessmerExecutive EditorRBR-TVBR