Radio Slager has until recently been a very profitable venture for Emmis, and once before it had to fight to keep the license. But now it’s facing an ultimatum from the National Radio and Television Board to quit broadcasting by November 18. It’s the nightmare of every American company doing business outside the U.S. borders – lack of certainty about the business conditions. In this case the authorities want the 16-station Radio Slager to go to a group of Hungarian investors. Emmis first won the license there in 1997 and got on the air in 1998. Its international division is overseen by Paul Fiddick.This makes me laugh. Not at Emmis' misfortune, but at the fact that Paul Fiddick is involved. Fiddick was the CEO of Heritage, the company that bought WIL AM&FM from LIN back in the early 1980's. He was supposed to be some kind of technical wizard and he stood beside me in the WIL studio as we moved from tape carts to CD players. Fiddick was VERY excited.
I was the first guy to use CD's on the station and I had to use a remote control device to play them. After billing the fact all morning that WIL would become the first truly digital FM country station in the market, I hit PLAY and the Merle Haggard CD went into some weird infinite loop repeating every third sample.
I went back to carts immediately and Paul Fiddick walked out of the room without a word. Hope he has better luck in Hungary. Fiddick is an idiot.
