ONCE THIS POSSIBILITY OCCURRED TO ME, IT BECAME A MINOR OBSESSION.” ALTHOUGH I HAD WORKED in many areas of radio I had never owned my own station. Once this possibility occurred to me, it became a minor obsession. This was in 1990, when the radio spectrum was being freed up, and frequencies were being put out to tender. It was a second-price tendering system, which means the person who tenders the highest only has to pay what the next highest bidder offered. So if I tendered $100,000 and the closest other bid was $50,000, I only had to pay $50,000. That is not the brilliant gift it seems because, when you know that if you get it you’re only going to have to pay $50,000, why not tender $200,000? Everyone else knew that and everyone did the same, so across the board, the bids were pushed much higher. This was not good for a person in my position — which was that I had no money. Everyone had to pay a deposit, which the government got to keep for as long as it took for the sales to be finalised.
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