Mr. Boyce, et.al
Glad you were at the concerts to provide a firsthand account. Whether or not the concerts were sold out is of no interest to me. How much of the money raised goes to charity is of interest and I find it perplexing that my limited look into the "freedom foundation" and how it spends its money leaves me with more questions than answers.
It receives a truly abysmal rating from "Charity Navigator" which rates how a charity colllects and then spends money. That is a concern. That is just the beginning.
As much if not more of a concern is that it was started by Oliver North. I'm not doing a history lesson here since this is a board about radio but any involvement by him would have me personally running for safer ground.
As for my comment regarding the audience made up of angry people I should have been clearer. Mr. Hannity continues to come off both on TV and on radio as nothing but an angry guy. I recognize that he is a friend of yours. that said, I'm surprised he hasn't popped a blood vessel. I suspect much of his audience shares his anger.
As for the size of the audiences I am not overly impressed. 12 thousand people for a concert is just not a lot of people especially in a major market with days, excuse me , weeks of promoting it day after day after day. If "Freedom Alliance" had to pay for the time Sean spent promoting the concerts they would be money losers.
Incidentally, 17,000 people regularly pack the Mellon Arena for a Penguins game. My recollection is that Pittsburgh is the 27th radio market and those folks pay big time to get those seats.
And I will not take umbrage to your notion that some of us just don't like the idea of Sean dong a good thing. Zippy the wonder squirrel could be doing this and I would still think it is a bad idea. You have a right-of-center (way right of center) talent promoting a concert series which raises money for a not-terribly efficient charity which was started by a convicted felon. Read it out loud ten times and tell me it is still a good idea.
Furthermore, it should be government (and therefore all of our) responsibility to take care of the kids of slain american soldiers. That is how we got things like the G.I. bill...the realization that we all have a shared responsibility. I believe we do not bring honor and respect to those who died for our country if we have to organize charities and stand out with tin cups to raise money for their kids.
We should all be responsible.
My apologies to the moderators of this Board for crossing the line and injecting a political comment to a board designed to talk about broadcasting. In this case the two are (I believe) hopelessly intertwined.
Glad you were at the concerts to provide a firsthand account. Whether or not the concerts were sold out is of no interest to me. How much of the money raised goes to charity is of interest and I find it perplexing that my limited look into the "freedom foundation" and how it spends its money leaves me with more questions than answers.
It receives a truly abysmal rating from "Charity Navigator" which rates how a charity colllects and then spends money. That is a concern. That is just the beginning.
As much if not more of a concern is that it was started by Oliver North. I'm not doing a history lesson here since this is a board about radio but any involvement by him would have me personally running for safer ground.
As for my comment regarding the audience made up of angry people I should have been clearer. Mr. Hannity continues to come off both on TV and on radio as nothing but an angry guy. I recognize that he is a friend of yours. that said, I'm surprised he hasn't popped a blood vessel. I suspect much of his audience shares his anger.
As for the size of the audiences I am not overly impressed. 12 thousand people for a concert is just not a lot of people especially in a major market with days, excuse me , weeks of promoting it day after day after day. If "Freedom Alliance" had to pay for the time Sean spent promoting the concerts they would be money losers.
Incidentally, 17,000 people regularly pack the Mellon Arena for a Penguins game. My recollection is that Pittsburgh is the 27th radio market and those folks pay big time to get those seats.
And I will not take umbrage to your notion that some of us just don't like the idea of Sean dong a good thing. Zippy the wonder squirrel could be doing this and I would still think it is a bad idea. You have a right-of-center (way right of center) talent promoting a concert series which raises money for a not-terribly efficient charity which was started by a convicted felon. Read it out loud ten times and tell me it is still a good idea.
Furthermore, it should be government (and therefore all of our) responsibility to take care of the kids of slain american soldiers. That is how we got things like the G.I. bill...the realization that we all have a shared responsibility. I believe we do not bring honor and respect to those who died for our country if we have to organize charities and stand out with tin cups to raise money for their kids.
We should all be responsible.
My apologies to the moderators of this Board for crossing the line and injecting a political comment to a board designed to talk about broadcasting. In this case the two are (I believe) hopelessly intertwined.