[Imc-newsroom] cityview closed down?

[Mike Lehman]

AFAIK, you are the first mention on e-mail of doing a story on this for
UC IMC. I would guess that there will probably be some mention of this
as a headline on the newswhour, but since their meeting was Thursday,
before the closing was announced, this will probably only be brief.
There's certainly reason to followup, given the buzz it set off.

I don't think there are really any serious offers for the Cityview on
the table (although I could be wrong.) Given the shutdown was right at
the end of the year, the shutdown makes it quite convenient it keep
whatever tax writeoff neatly within one year, since Saga only bought it
in October.

My guess is that the Saga bigwigs saw it as a way to eliminate
competition for advertising dollars on their radio stations. Now they
hope that the Cityview's former advertisers will buy time on Saga radio
stations and, if they don't, they're still ahead of the game by
eliminating another outlet on the community which they probably saw in
competition with their core business. I seriously doubt if they ever
intended a long-term future for the Cityview, considering the shaky
financial ground it's always been on.

It's the way media consolidation works everyday across this country
(with the blessings of the gov't.) Why should it be any different here?
And thank goodness for the IMC (and WEFT) or it would really be a media
wasteland.
Mike

wolfgang at imsa.edu wrote:
> 
> Maybe ya'll are already on top of this (but I see nothing in the
> archives) -- I only just learned that the CU Cityview just published
> it's last issue. The workers weren't told until after the issue was
> out, sort of a surprise shutdown.
> 
> My sources are  Channel 15 news and my roomate (who heard stuff from a
> former cityview employee).
> 
> Is anyone working on a story about this? Does anyone know more details
> on the story? (is the paper for sale? are there potential buyers?)