As company president, Wynn was actively involved in overseeing developments, and planned to be on-hand for the network's launch. However, the delay in the starting date eventually required him to leave in July for Hollywood, for the filming of a movie "The Fire Chief". This left Gygi in charge, who, unlike Wynn, proved to be unpopular, in addition to being unqualified for the task of running a radio network. At a press conference launching ABS, Gygi "managed to alienate almost the entire New York City press corps", "by announcing... that he was only interested in what "The New York Times" thought of the project and had no use for any of the other papers." This irked the influential "New York Daily News" radio critic Ben Gross, whose lead in attacking the apparent ABS attitude was picked up by his peers — and by advertisers whom Gygi reportedly alienated by positioning the network toward treating advertising as "a necessary but distasteful evil", which in turn caused ABS difficulty attracting sponsors needed to pay for the promised top quality programming.