David I Saperstein

The story of David Saperstein’s ascent in the business world is straight from the pages of a Horatio Alger tale. in 1978, there was a “Eureka!” moment, when Saperstein conceived the idea for a new kind of traffic-reporting service while he was stuck in a bumper-to-bumper jam on a Baltimore expressway. Saperstein set up a new business, adding a unique twist. He gave his product to local radio stations on the condition that they run 10-second commercials plugging his chain of car dealerships. Three stations accepted the proposal, and Saperstein hired two traffic reporters. When he sold Metro Networks to Westwood One for $1.2 billion in 1999, his company had a fleet of more than 400 aircraft and was providing news, sports, and weather reports to 3,000 radio stations and 400 TV stations in more than 100 markets. Until 1996 the Sapersteins lived most of the year in Houston, where Metro Networks is based,