The gay cable
channel Q Television has finally gone dark, after the
network turned off the repeats it had been running from a
hired master control in Texas on Thursday. The channel
laid off its staff and halted all live programming two
weeks ago.
QTN chairman Lloyd Fan blamed the shutdown on
the company's inability to secure new funding. An East
Asian entrepreneur, Fan took over the company in
March, after founder Frank Olsen was pushed out in a
management shakeup.
In the statement issued Thursday, Fan said that
at the time he took over, the company owed
$600,000 to former employees and some $7 million to
its vendors. But in Fan's words, "Given the GLBT demographic
and the success the network had experienced in
distribution, I thought securing funding would be
easy--I was wrong."
Fan apologized to those who "have suffered
because of their affiliation with Q Television
Network." He promised full forensic accounting and
bankruptcy proceedings but offered no details.
At its peak, QTN reached about 3 million U.S.
homes. (Sirius OutQ News)
