William: My personal feelings and all kidding aside, if you still hold PAX this probably is not the time to sell unless you need the tax write-off and don't plan on jumping back for 31 days. Bud's original idea was not entirely dumb: buy a bunch of major market UHF stations, lay off the primadonna staff members, and broadcast inexpensive crap a monkey could produce while biding your time until HDTV comes along to recreate all televsiion stations (UHF and VHF) as equals in the new bandwidth spectrum. The usual 30-40 discount for a UHF station then evaporates and joila! big increase in company worth. For some the trouble is, this is a moderately long term play of four years or more.
As for the TV network hype -- Hey! That reminds me! Did anyone attend the absurd gala party? Jimmy Baker, maybe, or Christ himself? -- as for the network, it seems to me most likely that Bud didn't get what he wanted in negotiations with a prospective partner. Maybe he's bluffing them even now; maybe they just called his bluff and he's stuck with biblical bilge. In either event, the PR spinning is just jive. The only question is who is he trying fool-- us or himself, or maybe his idiot second wife -- the one over there in the corner with the Classic Comics Bible in one hand and Bud's privates in the other?
Maybe a network partner will surface later, maybe not. Truly, however, there isn't a heck of a lot of difference between incredibly stupid infomercials mixed with boring rereuns and incredibly stupid Born-again Christian programming mixed with boring Christian reruns. It's all cheap junk to fill the void between now and when someone will pay Bud a whole lot more for these stations than he paid for them.
I sold out at a small profit, thank goodness, and I'm not getting in again. For me, there are too many better, more immediate opportunties. But don't panic if you're still long. Bud Paxson may be crazy but he's not stupid. |
