I don't know what is going on with the old Channel 56 studios. I know Detroit Public Television left them because the would have to be torn up and replaced with the necessary equipment for HDTV. Moving into the Novi studios formerly occupied by an HDTV production company that went belly-up was a better use of funds.

You'd have to spend millions to re-do the place. And where would you put the signal when you were done?

There's no available over-the-air frequency available in the Detroit market. You'd have to lease time on one of the subchannels from one of your competitors. Do you think Channels 2, 4, or 7 would lease a subchannel to someone trying to take away viewers and advertisers from them? Good luck with that.

There are a few low-power OTA stations in Detroit -- they have weak signals and crappy equipment and are mainly renting time to people pimping for Jesus. They'd probably take your money if you wanted to buy time from them. Whether you could make enough cash to staff the place, pay everybody on time and have enough left over to pay yourself is the question.