Corporate Shift for the Sundance Channel
The Sundance Channel’s current owners are NBC Universal, the CBS Corporation and Robert Redford. Considering what an unusual partnership that is and that they did a pretty good job, I’m hesitant to freak out with the news that Cablevision just bought the channel.
The folks at Cablevision own Rainbow Media Holdings who in turn own AMC, IFC and WE tv. Robert Redford will still be involved in the network and current plans are not to merge the Sundance Channel with IFC.
We might have to wait to see what happens before we complain about seeing one of our favorites being bought. There’s no mention of the sale on the Sundance Channel web site as of today.
You can read the New York Time story here.
Broadcast Museum May Have to Pull the Plug?
Stop by the web site for the Museum of Broadcast Communications (http://www.museum.tv) and you would have no idea how bad things may really be for the beleaguered Chicago museum.
The site covers current broadcast news along with membership info and renderings of what the café will look like in the museum’s new facility. The only thing is that this week both the Chicago Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business reported that the museum has been named in a foreclosure lawsuit.
The current vitals for the Museum of Broadcast don’t look good; 4.5 million dollars in unpaid bills and no new construction has been done since May 2006. The only thing worse might be trying to get money from a non-profit group in a “special use” building.
The Museum’s founder, Bruce DuMont, is even thinking about trying to sell the naming rights to the facility to get back on track. Another hope would be to get any of the $8 million in funding that Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich committed to in 2005… but there were a number of promises made by the Governor that people are asking about.
The museum was first opened in 1987 and gained wide popularity later when it was housed in the Chicago Cultural center from 1992 until 2003. In addition to broadcast equipment and memorabilia, the museum has close to a 100, 000 hours of radio & television broadcasts in its archives. The broadcasts include everything from early presidential debates and talk shows to Chicago classics like “The Bozo Show.”
Read more about the Broadcast Museum:
Chicago Tribune here
Crain’s here
