Robert Francis Xavier Sillerman (April 12, 1948 – November 24, 2019) was an American businessman and media entrepreneur. Sillerman was the owner of a range of television and radio stations during the 1970s and 1980s, In 1993 he formed SFX Broadcasting, and then built SFX Entertainment—a concert and stage performance promoter that was sold to Clear Channel in 2000 for $4.4 billion. He refounded SFX Entertainment in 2012 as a promoter of electronic music festivals; that company is now known as LiveStyle. He is also the founder of Viggle and the namesake of The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis University. Once on the Forbes 400 list, he also briefly owned the WLAF's New York/New Jersey Knights.
Early life and education
Sillerman was born to a Jewish family in New York City, and was raised in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, the son of Estelle (Levande) and Michael McKinley Sillerman. His father founded the Keystone Radio Network. After graduating from the Collegiate School, he attended Brandeis University. By day he majored in political science, while by night in 1966 he launched Youth Market Consultants, offering fellow students discount magazine subscriptions while advising marketers on how to target the teen set. He sold the company in 1971, and then launched I P+E, a sales marketing and promotion company. He sold the company in 1972 to the Boston ad firm, Ingalls. Sillerman was married to copywriter Laura Baudo, whom he met at Ingalls.
Radio and SFX
In 1978 Sillerman and disc jockey Bruce Morrow bought two radio stations in upstate New York for $1.875 million. They acquired additional radio and TV stations, including WALL and WKGL (Middletown, New York); WJJB; (Hyde Park, New York); WHMP (Northampton, Massachusetts); WLOM (Orleans, Massachusetts); WRAN (Randolph, New Jersey); WPLR (New Haven, Connecticut) and the television station WATL (Atlanta). In 1985 Sillerman entered into a partnership with radio/television industry executive Carl E. Hirsch (known as Legacy Broadcasting) to acquire KJOI-FM, Los Angeles for a then record-setting $44 million, as well as other stations in Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Houston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York City. The company was merged at the end of 1989 with a unit of Westinghouse Broadcasting in a then record-setting transaction worth $727 million.
In 1989 Sillerman formed Capstar Communications. Capstar applied for and received permission to operate more than one class of radio station in the same market. This ultimately led to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowing for ownership of multiple stations in single markets Capstar merged with Command Communications, another radio group Sillerman founded, ultimately changing its name to SFX Broadcasting. SFX bought up enough stations to become the nation's seventh largest chain. SFX Broadcasting sold its 71 radio stations for $2.1 billion in 1998. In the sale, SFX kept two small concert promoters, and renamed the company SFX Entertainment (concert promotion, sports agencies), turning SFX Entertainment into the world's largest producer, promoter and presenter of live entertainment. He sold the company SFX Entertainment to Clear Channel for $4.4 billion in 2000. He also made money on Broadway as an executive producer for Mel Brooks' musical The Producers.
CKX
Leading CKX, Inc., Sillerman bought majority rights to Graceland, the Elvis Presley estate; as well as the assets of Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, whose assets include TV hit American Idol and managed clients including football player David Beckham. The company also held a stake in Morra, Brezner, Steinberg & Tenenbaum Entertainment, the management company for Woody Allen, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. The company also acquired 80% in Muhammad Ali Enterprises. In 2011, Apollo Management purchased CKX in 2011 for $512 million.
Flag Luxury Properties
In May 2009, Credit Suisse filed a request for summary judgment in New York State Supreme Court, alleging Sillerman had failed to pay the outstanding balance due under a credit agreement with Flag Luxury Properties LLC and that Sillerman defaulted on a series of payments due since April 2008, totaling $21.4 million. In a July 2009 interview with the New York Post Sillerman admitted failure, stating with reference to the Flag project: "I'm not very knowledgeable about real estate."