Re: Ridiculous and absurd.
> "Here's a secret: NOT ALL FORMATS ARE DESIGNED TO MAKE
> MONEY, especially if the company needs a write-off."
>
> ?????????
>
> First off, tax write off is calculated not by "making less
> money" but being able to reduce that amount of money that is
> SUBJECT to tax. There are several subsets to this (methods
> to accomplish it) ranging from exemptions to the way you
> amortize fixed assets. It's explained briefly here.
>
>
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tax write-off
>
> A tax write off is NOT having one of your businesses/brands
> lose money so that you have a lower tax bill because you
> consequently make less money. That's just nuts. Imagine if I
> have 4 restaurants each making a million dollars a year. I
> will NOT open a fifth restaurant with the goal of LOSING 4
> million dollars at that location so as to not have to pay
> profit taxes. That's just nuts. Every commercial for-profit
> station/format is designed to make money.
With some creative accounting it can make sense if a station has begun to corkscrew itself into the ground inside of a single fiscal year. For any situation outside of that ('ZZN is NOT spiraling downward), it does not make sense for any business to purposely lose money to save only a fraction of it at tax time.
ABC has a long history of making some odd decisions with 94.7, though.