Two Chicago business executives who made it big by selling their online brokerage firm just before Wall Street’s tech crash, have big plans for a new cable channel that would emanate from Chicago’s Near West Side.
Brothers Joseph and Avi Fox on Thursday are expected to officially announce plans to launch Stand Up Comedy Television, a 24-hour comedy station aimed at Baby Boomers.
The Fox Brothers, who sold their Web Street Inc. to E-Trade Financial Corp. for $45 million, expect to launch the cable channel in January with 3 million customers. They hope to meet a goal of 30 million customers in four years.
That’s a tall order, however. Few cable channels ever see the light of day past the planning stage, usually because they’re underfunded.
Expecting that it will take an estimated $25 million to launch the channel in January, the Fox brothers feel that they are more than adequately financed for the long haul.
The Fox brothers raised $25 million in investment capital when they started their online brokerage firm and then raised another $50 million in the markets before merging with E-Trade.
The Fox Brothers have leased roughly 24,000 square feet of studio space at 1115 W. Washington Blvd.
A key component of the channel will be the set-up of three “studio stages” in Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles where the channel expects to produce a lot of its live and taped stand-up segments. The studio stage in Chicago will operate like a live comedy shop, complete with a regular schedule of acts playing before a live audience.
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Compiled from RedEye news services.
