Condolences: Robert F.X. Sillerman
• Media magnate Robert F.X. Sillerman, the entertainment entrepreneur who formed Capstar and SFX Broadcasting and the man who helped redefine the concert industry as the modern behemoth it has become, died at the age of 71 due to a respiratory illness. The news was first reported by Billboard.
According to Variety, Sillerman first made his name in the music business by buying up several regional concert promoters, including Ron Delsener’s New York operation, San Francisco-based Bill Graham Presents and Florida’s Cellar Door Concerts, consolidating them under his SFX Entertainment banner, and later selling the company to Clear Channel for a reported $4.4 billion. That created what became known as Live Nation, which in 2010 merged with Ticketmaster, and today is valued at nearly $15 billion.
Sillerman was also a pioneer in building the modern model of a large radio group — in the early ’80s, in partnership with legendary Top 40 jock Bruce “Cousin Brucie” Morrow, he bought a pair of upstate New York radio stations, then began acquiring a series of radio and TV stations on the East Coast and Atlanta. In 1985, he partnered with Carl Hirsch‘s Legacy Broadcasting to acquire radio stations in Los Angeles, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington, Houston, Philadelphia and New York. In 1989 the company merged with a unit of Westinghouse Broadcasting in a transaction worth a then-record $727 million.
As the Variety story notes, “In forming Capstar Communications, Sillerman was able to apply to operate more than one class of radio stations in the same market. This, in part, led to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which cleared the way for SFX Broadcasting to consolidate ownership of radio stations, just as he would do for concert promotion, selling his 71 radio stations for $2.1 billion in 1998.”In 2012 Sillerman relaunched SFX as an EDM-focused company, which in 2016 filed for bankruptcy, and, after Sillerman stepped down, was embroiled in a number of lawsuits. Later that year the company re-emerged as LiveStyle.
Sillerman is survived by his wife, Laura Baudo.
