Stephen King "losing his shirt" on his Bangor radio stations

[newsbot]

"I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already."

Caution: lots of FCC-unfriendly language in the rest of his rant, which is about tax policy and not radio per se:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/stephen-king-tax-me-for-f-s-sake.html

[ray ting]

Stephen King is a generous man with some pretty good sounding radio stations.  It's too bad he said what he said in the article, because that's not what you'd call a high compliment to his staff. 

[True Grit]

Stephen King is a generous man with some pretty good sounding radio stations.  It's too bad he said what he said in the article, because that's not what you'd call a high compliment to his staff. 

Poor choice of words/phrases indeed. And I'm no prude, but in a public forum, why use foul language to try to get one's point across?

[NHRadio]

60 people? 2 radio stations? That's a LOT of people.

[forevernight]

There are 3 radio stations.

[JIBGUY]

Ya gotta give the guy credit for NOT running radio on the cheap. He could easily run them with less than 5 people. Having nearly 50 full- and part-time employees for 2 or 3 stations is the way radio used to be. Stephen King therefore contributes to the community with employment opportunities on his stable stations; and those employed aren't watching their back every day of the year, wondering when the axe will fall. Most of the other stations: axes fall and stations are usually up for sale or in bankruptcy relatively often.

[newsbot]

There are 3 radio stations.

Fair enough, but two of the three are a simulcast.

[Will]

JIB, maybe the lesson here is that radio stations should viewed like racehorses - a toy owned by the wealthy not as a device from which they demand maximum ROI (cough, cough, Bain Capital), but rather as a fun side project that might make some nice money if it's the very best.

Maybe that's King's approach to the radio business...he doesn't have to own a radio station to make money.  Hell, he doesn't have to work ever again.  But he's clearly passionate about letting his wealth trickle down to people that are creative like him, and those people have built him a fun side business in addition to his novels.

[Seltzer]

Make no mistake. Stephen King is operating two of his stations to get his agenda out there. Even in rural central Maine, conservative talk rules. 

[JIBGUY]

I would guess that Mr. King's views are liberal. His stories are full of mocking the extreme right., right from the near-beginning with "Carrie". And certainly liberalism is confirmed by his recent piece on The Daily Beast.  So why has he had conservative yakkers on his station(s)?