Ion's Burgess Warns Of Credit Crisis

Brandon Burgess, chairman of Ion Media Networks, said last week that the current credit crisis could affect “the entire broadcasting industry.”

“I am not aware of any broadcaster out there that does not rely on the credit markets, and most rely too much so,” he told a Media Institute luncheon crowd in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1.

He said that though Wachovia had “millions of dollars of Ion's money” on deposit, it would not lend the network $1 million to open an office space in New York using their deposit as collateral.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.