{"id":9322,"date":"2015-11-06T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=9322"},"modified":"2015-11-06T08:13:10","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T14:13:10","slug":"no-deal-mayor-rules-out-wycc-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/11\/06\/no-deal-mayor-rules-out-wycc-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"No deal: Mayor rules out WYCC sale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WYCC\"<\/a>

<\/a> WYCC<\/p><\/div>\n

The next time you hear Mayor Rahm Emanuel talk about the city\u2019s financial problems, remember the deal he just turned down.<\/p>\n

In response to a suggestion here<\/a> Thursday that could have netted City Colleges of Chicago<\/a> a cool $474 million by auctioning off the license of its little-watched public television station, the mayor flatly rejected the idea \u2014 for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

The potential windfall is being dangled by the Federal Communications Commission, which seeks to entice broadcasters to turn over spectrum space to mobile wireless providers through a voluntary \"reverse auction\" early next year. According to the FCC, opening bid price for City Colleges of Chicago\u2019s WYCC-Channel 20<\/a> would be $474,185,700.<\/p>\n

Even if the actual sale price were a fraction of that, the result would still be a massive infusion of cash for the city\u2019s financially-strapped public college system. There\u2019s no telling whether such an offer will ever come along again.<\/p>\n

\"Rahm<\/a>

Rahm Emanuel<\/p><\/div>\n

But that\u2019s not how the mayor sees it: \u201cWhy would you auction something off for financial gain when our students are making huge educational gains learning at the station?\u201d Emanuel said at a news conference at Malcolm X College Thursday, as reported by Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times<\/a>\u00a0and John Byrne of the Chicago Tribune.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wear green eye shades [as an accountant], you would look at it as a financial asset,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the business of education. We\u2019re in the business of building careers. . . . You can look at it as an accountant and financial gain or you can see it as a tremendous educational opportunity that enriches our students and prepares them for a future, a job and a career. And to be honest, that\u2019s our bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emanuel seems to think that City Colleges students who work in the Englewood studios and control rooms of WYCC wouldn\u2019t get that hands-on experience if the station didn\u2019t own a broadcast transmitter.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s simply not true.<\/p>\n

The same programming produced by the station\u2019s full-time staff of 37 (with an annual budget of $5.2 million) could be shifted to online streaming or moved to a public-access cable channel controlled by the city. What the mayor calls the \u201ctremendous educational opportunity\u201d would remain intact without using a broadcast signal that reaches a pitifully tiny audience anyway (2,200 viewers in an average quarter-hour, according to Nielsen).<\/p>\n

One more thing: Just for the record, I don\u2019t wear green eye shades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next time you hear Mayor Rahm Emanuel talk about the city\u2019s financial problems, remember the deal he just turned down. In response to a suggestion here Thursday that could have netted City Colleges of Chicago a cool $474 million by auctioning off the license of its little-watched public television station, the mayor flatly rejected... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9322"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9335,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322\/revisions\/9335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}