For those who have been following the the Iseman lobbying connection, here's a list and thread from yesterday about her clients...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2899629&mesg_id=2899629AMFM Inc
AstraZeneca
CanWest
Capstar Broadcasting Partners
Carnival Corp
Computer Sciences Corp
Future Leaders of America
Hillsborough County
Hispanic Broadcasting Inc
Paxson Communications
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Telemundo Network Group
Total Living Network
Josh Marshall linked to a post he did back in 2001 about the big money games going on with the buying and selling of broadcast frequencies...a lot of it ushered in by DeReg '96...at the time it was called "selling broadcasting like pork bellies". In 2000, this wasn't good enough and pressure was put to "speed things up"...and at the center of this was Bud Paxon...Josh has a great article from the time and some excelent background on the real fire here...also it may open some eyes as to what happened to our public airwaves...
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=spectrum_lordsThe man who'll likely be the first to cash in is Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, chairman of Paxson Communications Corporation, which owns 18 stations nationwide in the 60–69 range. The company also owns PAX TV, "the nation's seventh broadcast television network" and "America's only family friendly TV network." Paxson Communications and about 60 percent of the other license holders in the 60–69 range are willing to move exclusively over to digital--for a price.
The market value of spectrum space used for those channels is between $15 billion and $30 billion. Paxson proposes an auction in which most of the money goes to the broadcaster-occupants. He is currently working with Spectrum Exchange Group, a company that specializes in coordinating private spectrum auctions, on an auction that would allow bidders simultaneously to buy out the individual broadcasters and pay the federal government for the rights to use the space. If Paxson and his partners are able to pull this off, they will make billions of dollars. When Paxson was charged with extorting a ransom in exchange for giving back what he never owned in the first place, he responded with a startling candor that made a mockery of broadcasters' claim to operating in the public interest: "We are entrepreneurs hoping to reward our shareholders who invested in our business of amassing spectrum."
As this column goes to press, Paxson, his fellow broadcasters, and Spectrum Exchange are trying to bring their auction concept to fruition. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's recently released budget proposed a delay of the next spectrum auction from September 2001 until as late as 2004. But given the political clout of the broadcaster lobby and the intense pressure on all sides to get spectrum space into the hands of the wireless-service providers, Paxson and his cronies look like they are holding all of the cards.
Senator McCain was ground zero for making Paxon a lot of money...and many other of Ms. Iserman's clients had similar financial interests on the line.
Discuss...