White House may be open to a Minority Broadcast Bailout

story by Inside Radio

Several minority owners met with Obama administration and Treasury Department officials yesterday to make their case for emergency federal assistance for broadcasters. Insiders say the meeting was “productive,” but there was no firm commitment.

Inner City Broadcasting chairman Percy Sutton believes no congressional action would be needed since the Treasury Department could simply make already allocated Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds available to minority broadcasters for bridge financing or government-backed loans until the financial system recovers. “Minority radio stations aren’t failing businesses begging for handouts,” Sutton wrote in an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Daily News. “They’re healthy enterprises, beset by a perfect storm of bad circumstances that are in need of a lifeline.”

More than a dozen minority broadcasters last month formally asked Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for help to keep them from becoming an “extinct species.”

National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters director Jim Winston renewed his call this week for Congress to investigate radio’s leading lenders for “refusing to enter into workout arrangements that will provide minority broadcasters an opportunity to keep their companies intact and restructure their loans.” Winston told a Senate hearing Tuesday the Treasury or Federal Reserve could also help broadcasters with one of their loan guarantee programs.