Hubbard has made massive reductions in staff today in multiple markets including here in Seattle. KQMV's PD, promotion director, midday host and afternoon host out. KRWM's PD, afternoon host and evening host out. KNUC's promotion director out and about a dozen others behind the scenes. Sad to see this happen at one of the last quality groups.
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Massive reduction at Hubbard
- Thread starter iamarussianpirate
- Start date
I think a lot of people don't realize just how bad this crisis is right now. And this is just the beginning.
Speaking of Hubbard, just saw this at Country Aircheck:
"Hubbard WIL/St. Louis morning team Bud & Broadway (Bud Ford and Jerry Broadway) have exited after more than four years."
It wouldn't shock me to see KNUC's Fitz pop up for mornings on WIL. Or perhaps someone else from within the company.
"Hubbard WIL/St. Louis morning team Bud & Broadway (Bud Ford and Jerry Broadway) have exited after more than four years."
It wouldn't shock me to see KNUC's Fitz pop up for mornings on WIL. Or perhaps someone else from within the company.
Re:
What a NASTY business broadcast radio has turned into...
The owner's underqualified (that's putting it mildly) son assumes Market Manager stripes in Seattle, and then just days into the job, blows out multiple key pieces of one of the most successful CHR stations in the entire country.
What a great business model!!! These personnel moves are nothing short of vulgar. Hey, maybe they can air pre-recorded segments of the fired DJs for the next six, seven or eight months, just like they did with Jubal, and pretend that absolutely nothing is amiss. Yet again, another example of ZERO respect for the audience, and especially ZERO respect for successful broadcast professionals.
If iHeartRadio is smart, after non-competes expire and the economy recovers, it would behoove them to hire some of these talented people. Hubbard is handing them a golden opportunity.
What a NASTY business broadcast radio has turned into...
The owner's underqualified (that's putting it mildly) son assumes Market Manager stripes in Seattle, and then just days into the job, blows out multiple key pieces of one of the most successful CHR stations in the entire country.
What a great business model!!! These personnel moves are nothing short of vulgar. Hey, maybe they can air pre-recorded segments of the fired DJs for the next six, seven or eight months, just like they did with Jubal, and pretend that absolutely nothing is amiss. Yet again, another example of ZERO respect for the audience, and especially ZERO respect for successful broadcast professionals.
If iHeartRadio is smart, after non-competes expire and the economy recovers, it would behoove them to hire some of these talented people. Hubbard is handing them a golden opportunity.
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It's a nasty economy out there, in case you hadn't noticed.
I doubt that every market manager at Hubbard suddenly decided today to blow out their successful morning shows and PDs. These moves came from the top.
You must be living in a bubble. First of all the Hubbard cuts were not just Seattle, but company wide. People were cut at company headquarters in Minneapolis, in Chicago, St. Louis, and other places.
Second of all, it's not just radio. I just read where hospitals have lost billions and have laid off or fired employees. In the middle of a pandemic! That's a bigger problem than radio. People are being laid off everywhere. Over 30 million have filed for unemployment. This is a big problem, and all you can do is attack radio.
Nasty, yes. But not radio; it's the whole economy in the entire world
There is not enough money to keep businesses running when they have no income.
Reserve funds run out. Often additional funds are tied in currently nonredeemable securities or accounts.
I know the owner of a good station that was rated in the top 10 in a market of nearly 2 million. There is no advertising at all. None. The market has a 2 PM to 6 AM curfew, no deliveries of anything but food and medicine.
The entire staff was let go, and the station is running on full automation. But if anything goes wrong, there are no parts and technicians can't ride the cable car to the top of the mountain where all the market's FMs are located.
The electric company gave 60 days payment grace, but 6 weeks are up and the owner does not keep enough reserve funds to pay the bill unless ad agencies pay due bills. But the agencies are all closed, too. And families keep leaving their dead in the street in the hopes that someone will come and take them away.
That is nasty.
We do what we can to survive.
Hubbard and Bonneville are (according to people I know) a lot worse to work for than the Big Two...
Here's a bigger picture look at the Hubbard cuts, beyond Seattle:
https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/...rd-radio-makes-significant-downsizings-due-to
https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/...rd-radio-makes-significant-downsizings-due-to
Let’s face it radio is going to become even more meaningless than it had already become in a healthy economy. This may be the ultimate dagger. Sorry for the negativity but I think I may be correct here. I hope I am not.
Keep in mind that the radio stations that are the most dependent on live talent, namely news, talk, and sports stations, have been largely left alone. So we're primarily talking about music stations, and in those cases, the talent that are not covered under long term contracts. So Brooke & Young Jeffery are employed. Fitz is still employed.
But the fact is that we're just in the early stages of the economic fallout. If advertising doesn't return by the third quarter, the ratings won't matter at all anymore. Because nobody will be able to stay in business without a source of revenue. Today's announcement is proof of that.
Some medical experts are ringing the apocalyptic alarm bell of a two-year COVID-19 siege, wave upon wave until 70 percent of the world's population has had the disease and "herd immunity" kicks in. That is almost the stuff of dystopian science fiction, a world of ragged tribes wandering a withered planet just trying to survive, the global economy destroyed. One would hope science finds the magic bullet before then.
I've heard the complete opposite about bonneville. ive heard from multiple people that bonneville is one of the best places to work
Hubbard's most successful personality in Phoenix (John Holmberg) is still there. But, there would have been a riot if he or his co-hosts were let go.
K
kenglish
Guest
DavidEduardo;6317409 That is nasty. We do what we can to survive.[/QUOTE said:
Yeah, I know that. That was my point. Ginny appointed her son to run Seattle so he could blow out staff and gut the cost structure, and I'm sure the hands of the remaining market managers are completely tied at this point, too.
Interestingly enough, All Access and the other trades seem to have very little info regarding the extent of the cuts in Seattle.
Here's an idea - maybe companies in a declining industry, an industry that is very sensitive to macroeconomic fluctuation, shouldn't be loading their balance sheets with a ton of debt. Maybe Hubbard should've sold its corpse of an AM station in Minneapolis, 1500 KSTP, several years ago instead of throwing good money after bad trying to prop it up.
My gut feeling still tells me they overpaid for West Palm Beach, regardless of real estate value. (If that real estate is truly valuable, Hubbard should've put it on the market months ago, when the economy was chugging along nicely.)
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Let's give radio a pass this time. None of us was around in 1918. Who did our great-grandparents blame? They couldn't blame radio, television, social media, talkies, or Hubbard, Clear Channel, Cumulus, consolidation, large corporate interests, the politicians, waiting too long to act, etc. It was a world-wide pandemic, millions died. This IS the big one, and at a time like this, virtually no industry is safe. Not radio, television, social media, retail, industry, nothing. We focus on radio only because we're in it, or aspire to be. And don't blame this one on the debt load. Sure, the big ones have lots of debt. But a 50-65% instant drop in revenues in any industry has serious repercussions, and unless you're Jeff Bezos, it requires serious attention. Even with zero debt, I can tell you from personal experience that it affects us all. Yet those of us who are somehow able to stay on the air to provide up-to-date information to the public are seemingly ignored. This cataclysmic event will be remembered for a long time.
Here's an idea: Get a clue. Open your eyes. Look around. 30 million people out of work and we're in the early phase. As I said: This isn't a radio problem.
We seem to agree the president of the company was going to make cuts despite the market manager's objections. Understanding that, it hardly matters if the market manager is a 22 year old fresh out of college or Mel Karmazin.
In this environment, leverage is nearly irrelevant. Getting new financing is difficult, even if there are unencumbered assets, because lenders won't value collateral fairly for an industry that's in free-fall, revenue-wise. Selling assets is similarly fraught.
I cannot blame a company who didn't plan their business decisions around contingencies for "at least 50% of revenue disappears in less than 60 days". This is not an ordinary recession where revenues might fall 5% or 10%.
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