MMeM, Vol.11 Issue 11 – How much?

Lately I’ve been hearing quite a bit about the demise of local television broadcasting. When you get right down to it, competition is tough today with Netflix, AppleTV, Amazon, HBO Now, and the list goes on and on really. In fact, it’s getting to where local sports and weather are just about the only programming that require a local TV station anymore.

Ok, I’m getting a little bit ahead of the times but not really. It’s coming and it’s sad when olds like me think about the times we grew up in way back when, in the day, etc. Anyway, times are tough for TV stations locally. In fact, just about every local TV personality that I’ve known that’s left the business has left to go to work for….the state government. Translation = time to get paid and make some bank. Either that or they were one of the very, very select lucky ones that were plucked from obscurity to be elevated to a national level network.

All of this is to say that, I actually enjoy watching the local station here. It’s kind of like an interactive version of one of those Highlights magazine pages where you’re supposed to pick out or find the misplaced item amongst all of the things on a page. For instance, there have been a few evening news segments when all of a sudden there will be a person walking directly behind the anchor speaking while he or she is sitting at the desk talking and just reading you the news. Those are some of the best snafus.

The other morning there was a story about the former Sears Tower in Chicago, now called The Willis Tower (WATCHU TALKIN’ ‘BOUT – yeah we’ve been doing that to death here), being sold to a group called Blackstone. The news anchor said that The Willis Tower was sold to The Blackstone Group for $1.3 Billion. However, directly below her on the screen it said that the tower sold for a mere $1.3 Million. SOLD! I say. Look, I can’t swing $1.4 Million, but give me a day and I’ll pull something together and then I’ll bet I can QUADRILLION my investment in rentals in 6 months. DONE!