Q Television goes
dark after failing to secure new funding

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)