Stoler’s mini media empire

You may not see Michael Stoler if you watch prime time TV, but the real estate executive has something of a one-man mini media empire.

Stoler, who in the past wrote a regular column for The Real Deal, hosts two real estate-focused shows on public access CUNY-TV: “The Stoler Report: New York’s Business Report” and “Building New York: New York Stories.”

The shows are rebroadcast on dozens of local stations across the region, and will soon extend to Philadelphia.

He’s also served as the real estate reporter for 1010WINS since 2007, and airs a weekly piece on its sister station, CBS Newsradio 880, as well. And last month, Stoler hit a media milestone: 750 episodes of the two shows combined.

The success of “The Stoler Report” has even bred a namesake app, which enables 7,000 users in 54 countries around the world to stream that program on their devices.

Stoler, a managing director at Madison Realty Capital, first dipped his toe into media in 2001 when he began doing a weekly radio broadcast on the former WPAT 930 AM from Shallots Restaurant on Madison Avenue.

The slot was not exactly prime time: Wednesday from 11 p.m. to midnight. So Stoler, at the time working for First American Title Insurance Company, would have dinner with his guests each week, before broadcasting the show live.

“By that time, most of my guests were drunk,” Stoler recalled in an interview. That proved, however, to be a good way to get the conversation going once they were on air.

In the 14 years since, he’s had more than 1,500 real estate and business guests (mostly sober these days) talking about everything from market trends to current events to life stories.

The bare bones set is far from glamorous and the discussion is often on the wonkier side. But real estate players praise him and his show, which is generally friendly to the industry.

Stoler “has acted as the glue for putting everybody together in the industry, between the lending institutions and the developers and the [property] owners,” Red Apple Group and Gristedes Foods head John Catsimatidis told The Real Deal. “I’ve done business with people who I’ve met through the show or its cocktail parties.”

For his part, Stoler said he’d like to do the shows for as long as he’s able, but admitted that with his day job at Madison Realty, it takes up “more than 100 percent” of his time.

“I make as much time as I have to,” he said. “When you do 95 to 100 shows a year, there’s no time off.”