Kushner reached out to media pal about potential Trump TV network: report

Trump denies Tinseltown aspirations after election

From left: Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and Aryeh Bourkoff
From left: Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and Aryeh Bourkoff

Jared Kushner has reached out to one of his pals in the media business about the possibility of launching a Trump television network after November’s presidential election.

Kushner informally contacted Aryeh Bourkoff, founder of the boutique investment bank LionTree, three people with knowledge of the matter told the Financial Times.

Bourkoff has advised on more than $3 billion worth of deals, including Liberty Global’s $23.3 billion acquisition of Virgin Media and Verizon’s $4.4 billion takeover of AOL.

He helped the so-called “Cable Cowboy” John Malone close the $78 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable this year by Charter Communications, helping to consolidate the pay-TV industry.

He also advised Kushner [TRDataCustom] when the young owner of the New York Observer tried to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers four years ago.

Trump, though, has said he has no interest in starting his own channel.

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“I have no interest in a media company,” he told the Washington Post last month after Vanity Fair reported he and his camp were kicking the idea around. “False rumor.”

Trump certainly has plenty of friends in the media business if he wanted to keep in the spotlight. The “Apprentice” star’s presidential campaign is being run by Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon.

Roger Ailes has close ties to the mogul, but would be prohibited from working on a Trump TV network by the terms of his exit agreement with the Fox News Channel.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity, though, would be free to continue to be a cheerleader on a potential Trump network.

Kushner has played a pivotal role in Trump’s controversial campaign, a decision that’s put him at odds with many of his colleagues in the real estate industry, as The Real Deal reported last month.

Trump has a minimum of $1.4 billion in reported assets spread across 188 entities, according to financial disclosures he made to the US Office of Government Ethics. [FT]Rich Bockmann