Reply #29: WLIB is owned by a very solid Democratic family, the Suttons

[HamdenRice]

WLIB is owned by Percy Sutton a very solid African American Democratic businessman, lawyer and politician in NYC.

Percy Sutton was a WWII hero with the Black Army Air Force -- the Tuskeegee airmen. He wasn't a pilot, but I believe an intelligence officer.

He went to school after the war and became a lawyer and politician. He was counsel to Malcolm-X, and was Borough President of Manhattan at one point.

He founded a radio business here in NYC and owns both WLIB and WBLS through the parent company, Inner City Broadcasting. I believe it is also part of a group that owns the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem.

They make plenty of money from WBLS, an urban music format station, which has intermittently been the number one station in the number one market in the country. WLIB was always an African-American and Caribbean news talk format that didn't make very much money, so it was a good deal financially and politically for the Suttons to lease it to a progressive national network.

I sincerely doubt that the Suttons have somehow taken back their lease of WLIB, but I don't know for a fact. It just doesn't sound very likely. The Suttons are certainly not likely to withdraw from Air America for political reasons.