quote:
Originally posted by famtrecrew:
Anyone been here and heard the interview w/ Frank O. on Oct. 1st...
here ya go. Direct link to audio is at bottom.
Frank's Interview Corrected Word for Word -- The other one had a few errors.
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Good day this is Michael Wachs with CEOcast. I’m here today with Frank Olson. Frank is president and Chief Executive officer of Q Television Network, a company that trades over the counter under the pink sheet symbol QBID. One that was organized to create and develop a network devoted to providing television programming to the gay & lesbian community. Thanks for joining CEOcast today Frank.
FO: Thank you for having me.
MW: I thought perhaps you can begin with the overview of the company and then we’ll get into the programming and why this is so well suited for its audience.
FO: Well first thing the company has been tailor made for the gay community. We’ve been working on this for 11 years. This is not an overnight project, it’s an 11 year project. We have 70% of our money is private money that was invested in the company and the rest of the money is from stock sales. The company is a pink sheet which we plan on taking forward reporting. We’re in the process of doing that, we’ve made some mistakes and bought a shell which wasn’t as clean as we hoped it would be but now we got it straightened out over the last 5 years and now I think we’ll going to be reporting probably within 6 months to a year. 6 months. It’s going to take at least 6 months to finish that.
MW: As you look at the audience now, why is your content so well suited for it?
FO: Well because see, our content, I should give you a little bit of my experience. I’ve owned television stations for 30 years and I had 17 gay bars. So I know the gay community, I had the first black radio network and I’ve been specializing with minority broadcasting all my life. Native American broadcasting, all kinds of minority niched market broadcast. So by owning gay bars I’ve learned about the gay community. How diversified they were and what you had to do to make a television station for them. And that was not making a bunch of sitcoms and making the gay person the odd ball. Gay people do not buy gay toothpaste, you have to understand that. They buy fords, they buy crest, and they live and they’re only gay in their bedroom and the rest of the time they’re normal regular people that live a gay lifestyle and they have gay families. Most gay people just because they are out of the age of 30 have a partner, an invested partner and they have long relationships, probably because they’re not under the pressure of being married. (laughs)
MW: Frank what about the content itself, what kind of content do you provide?
FO: Ok, first thing we have a 3 hour block in the evening that’s repeated 3 times. It starts out with a gay interactive talk show that anybody from any place in the world can call us up and we can put you on television through your web cam and we’ve done some special technology that they used in Iraq and we boost up the signal so its not perfect for the person that is calling in but they are on television and you can see them very well and it’s a call in talk show and it will talk about gay issues and one day it will be fun, there’s 3 hosts of lesbian comedians, stand up comedians, And 2: 1 person has the longest running gay radio talk show which has been going on for 19 years, David Crest. Then we have Chris Fox which is another radio DJ but he’s been in several movies and some sitcoms and he will be the other host.
The 3 host that will address 3 plasma screen and will be a two hour talk show. One screen for the mid-America , one screen for the west coast, and one screen for the east coast. You’ll be able to call from any place on your webcam. Or you’ll be able to go to Kinkos which has a national teleconference system that the picture comes in very clear which will be able to bring in guests from all over the world and they go to Kinkos and they’ll be able to call and be able to get gay issues out on the table immediately. Gay people are very issue oriented.
The next show that comes on the 3 hour block is the gay events show that tells what happening out in the world of gay and it basically shows movies and film clips and its kind of a fun out and about show. Then we go to a gay sports show, I have the only gay transgender sports caster in the country. Used to be on ABC, I don’t know what name she used on ABC but now she has a man so now she is Jack E Jett and she does the sports behind the sports. And then we go to gay movies, gay plays, and then in the morning we do the lesbian show this is copy after the view called woman on woman it’s a strip show 5 days a week.
On weekends we do a tech show that shows where all the gay website are and then we buy some programming.
We just signed a contract with the gay Olympics in 2006, a multi million dollar contract. We have all the broadcast rights, all the network rights, and the line feed rights. So we’ll be able to send it all the over the world, if anybody wants it they have to get it from us. That we just signed yesterday.
We’ll be doing gay rodeos, we’re going to be following the gay community all over the country and that’s what’s different from every other station; we’re going to bring the gay community together. Person in Atlanta will finally get to see the Halloween parade in west Hollywood live on our station.
MW: Frank, what about advertiser and your advertising and your revenue base.
FO: Revenue base comes from 2 places. We charge $7.95 which we split with the cable companies and that is for 2 reasons. 1, we want to give the cable company some inducement to take us but also we want to be invited in the home. We want to be scrambled; we don’t want to force our agenda on anybody. This is very important because I’ve been married, I was married for 29 years and I have grandchildren and I do not want my grandchildren to ask me why two men are kissing on television; an 8 & 9 year olds. Come and ask me that. When they’re 12 I’ll sit there and tell them all about the facts of life. But I’m not going to have them; you know kids act out what they see on television. Now I’m a gay person, openly gay now, but they don’t need to know that right now; kids get to much force on them they don’t need to have that force on them, so we’re going to be scrambled.
The next revenue base comes from advertisers, we limit our advertiser down to, you ever picked up a gay magazine, we call them "Gay Rags", and if you’ll notice in gay rags there’s several fortune 500 companies that advertise in those but they really don’t like to advertise in those because they want to get to the gay community but they don’t like who advertising with because the next page is escort services and gay bars and strip joints and things like that. So we are not above these. Our ratings are TV14 and we don’t go any higher. So we give them a nice, safe place to advertise where the straight person doesn’t know they’re advertising and so they will not lose to, remember we have to deal with 13%. 13 - 10% Gay, 3% curious. Then we have the 33% religious community so advertisers have to be very careful they don’t want to lose more then they’re gaining.
The gay families have a 600 billion dollar a year disposal income. Advertisers want a big chunk of that especially people like American Express, Carnival tours, travel agencies, and beverage companies, and computer companies. They love to get into that money but they don’t want to offend anybody, so that’s why we’re scrambled and so we run a limited run of advertisers. We do not break movies, we do not break gay plays, we do not break some events, but we do break sports events, the talk show, we break talking head show and things like that. So we average about 8 minutes an hour instead of 18 minutes an hour.
MW: What should investors now look for in the coming quarters in terms of key developments from the company.
FO: Well we’re building 3 studios we’ll be all over the country and it will cut our expenses down. We’ve moved all our production facilities in Fort Worth, Texas because of the talent Fort Worth has and the pricing is so much cheaper, so we’ll be able to live within our budget and start growing to be a money making company. We should be showing profit within 12-13 months. And we should be off the penny stocks, I would say in a year we will be on an exchange, I don’t which one yet we’re having advisories and lawyers and everyone getting into that. But we’re a growing stable company; we have plenty of financing, plenty of money available to carry us 3 years if we don’t make a dime. But I think we’ll be making money within a year. Right now we’re building up programming, we’re building up studios, and we are spending money. That’s where we’re at.
MW: Well I’ve been speaking today with Frank Olson, Frank is President and Chief Executive officer of Triangle Multimedia Limited a company that trades over the counter under the symbol QBID and one that is owner of the Q Television Network. Frank thanks for joining CEOcast today.
FO: Thank You for having me.
MW: This has been Michael Wachs for CEOcast, where Wall Street listens.
http://www.ceocast.com/company_media.cfm?media=2&file=16448