Fisher’s Exec Forced Out

William Krippaehne is out as chief executive and off the board of Fisher Communications. The organization said in a statement that the resignation was requested by the board.
Benjamin Tucker was named acting president and CEO. Fisher has 27 radio stations and 10 TV outlets in the northwest.
The Seattle Times, covering the announcement, credited Krippaehne as the man “who transformed Fisher Communications into a modern broadcasting enterprise and presided over subsequent financial losses.” He’d been with the company for 23 years.
Summarizing the company’s history, the Times reported that since the early 1900s, Fisher had been a flour milling and real estate business that built broadcast outlets to promote flour products. It bought more stations in the 1990s “and delved into the Internet, building a $130 million communications hub and corporate headquarters near Seattle Center,” the Times reported. “It was an engineering marvel that Fisher hoped would attract banks, communication companies and other firms needing secure data facilities.”
But the company was then hurt by a decline in broadcast revenue and the end of the dot-com boom, and it posted losses of more than $16 million in the first three quarters of 2004, the Times said, adding that Krippaehne has said he expects Fisher to show a profit for the year.