It's the licensee of WBLS and "Hot 97" in New York, and a partnership that sees Rahsan-Rahsan Lindsay serve as CEO and Jeff Smulyan hold a massive, minority interest in the station formerly owned by his Emmis Communications. Both stations were cited by the FCC for political file issues. Now, they've each signed consent decrees to resolve the matter.
With a FCC filing forthcoming that will reveal the price Emmis set for the sale to Urban One of its WYXB, WLHK, WIBC and two FM translators plus Network Indiana in Indianapolis, RBR+TVBR ventured into its InFOCUS Podcast archives to revisit Jeff Smulyan's April 29, 2020 conversation with Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson. It's a conversation worth listening to again. LISTEN HERE
and i listen to wbls. every other commercial, got to get those food stamps and eat healthy. to ben s point it s so abused. wait a minute, you re listening to bls, rock or jazz. i mix it up a little bit. yeah, when they start going off and promoting the president too much, i have to change it because just it s like the worse disinformation campaign ever, but the bottom line is that this is being promoted to people and here is the thing i dislike, when i was growing up, there was a little bit of shame to having food stamps, if i was in the store with food stamps, and the next-door neighbor was, we didn t let anybody see and propelled people to get off of it. and now the government says it s not a big deal, and wall street stole the future anyway. and that lment has gone up 70% in the food stamp program, yes, you can blame the economy, but eligibility is broadened as well. the point is if are going to
and now you ve got a cable network. yes. tell me about it. you know, i ve been so blessed. when comcast decided to give four channels to minorities, to african-american channels and two latino networks, i went after one of them. i read that you said i want the first. you didn t just go after it. you said i want the first one. i wanted the first one. it was important. i think that because i wanted to expand in the media space. i had bought soul train and vibe magazine and uptown. i have over 25 radio stations, wbls in new york. so i wanted to also get into the tv game. a lot of your business ventures were inspired by something you saw as something lacking, for example, the mean theaters and starbucks in underserved communities. what did you see lacking in.praing to african-americans