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Covid Casualties

They’ve cut everyone except for one. They even axed the garbage Rover’s Morning Glory from their station. Were syndication fees that much? I think a format change is in the cards for 94.1......
 
The revenue stream at The Zone appears to be similar to WLKK: Live events. No live events, no money.

Rover is syndicated by iHeart. I imagine Rover's Holiday Hangover will not take place in 2021.
 
Very sorry to read this, but I suspect there are more cuts to come. We'll know it's really bad when servers, hard drives and owners get fired. (Joking) The Zone seemed to be running on a shoe string with not a lot of significance in the Rochester market. There might not be much difference if Stevens ran it entirely off the hard drive like Mike, Bob or Jack stations. Alt Rock in some markets is so ambiguous that it's hard to justify as a viable format. In some cases broad-based CHR or Churban would seem to be a better format option for younger demos and revenue source, even with one or two other CHRs in the market.
 
Changes Ongoing At 94.1 The Zone Rochester As Most Of Staff Exits

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/...-1-the-zone-rochester-as-most-of-staff-exits/


Changes are ongoing at Stephens Media Group Alternative “94.1 The Zone” WZNE Brighton/Rochester NY.

Violet Woods has exited as Program Director/midday host after over five years with the station. Woods joined WZNE in June 2015 after a previous stint at the station as Music Director from 2000 to 2003. She has also served as MD at KWOD Sacramento and PD of KVGS Las Vegas, while working on-air at multiple other stations in Rochester during her career.
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Buddy Shula said:
The bloodletting is going to go much further than on air. As nuts as it seems, it is coming to sales next
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Any of the small businesses that qualified for government aid 6 months ago are now out of money. That means no money for advertising, and they're cutting staff. The feds were able to pump up the economy for a few months, but there's nothing left. I saw where several single station owners have let their entire staff go. They're just running back to back music off the computer. No staff, no ads, no money. This can't go on much longer.
 
Hearkens back to Farid Suleman's concept that "we don't need salespeople... we just need order-takers... radio sells itself." Sales staffs have been cut for years. The people surviving have established great, long-term relationships with advertisers and are bringing in good money, although commissions have been cut across the board and perks are about non-existent. New sales people are fed into the meatgrinder trying to bring new accounts onboard by cold-calling or pavement-pounding. Very few make it past the first year, and any new business they develop ultimately becomes a house account or gets assigned to the next newbie that replaces the last one.

There's some money to be made from agency business, syndication, and brokered programs but it's hard to believe it will pay the electric bill and other non-negotiable expenses. Of course, you're making pennies on the digital income from the website, but you're likely losing money there if you're streaming. Maybe you can hang on if somebody's interested in an LMA and you're just trying to make it through negotiations.
 
SirRoxalot, what a great post. As a DJ and programmer put in to sales, I can attest the first year is 'sink or swim' as you get to know clients and they get to know you. It takes a year to earn that trust by demonstrating you really are working for their continued success. Most never make it to year two. Those that walk in with an account list typically have the accounts the other salespeople prefer not have on their list for whatever reason. There's always a bit on pavement pounding trying to find new accounts. In my experience you lose about 20% of your billing eah year through no fault of your own (businesses sell, open and close, people die, people move, etc.).

In my experience, getting agency business is very tough. It seems less about what you do but rather the luck of the draw. Brokered programming can make you some good money but you have to weed out all the wannabe types that steal your time. In the end, the same time can be better spent cultivating new accounts for spot schedules.

About the only way order takers seems to work is when you are the top dog in the market. I think McClendon said he paid attention to programming, not sales because if programming was right, sales would happen. I can't argue that in an agency driven market.
 
b-turner said:
About the only way order takers seems to work is when you are the top dog in the market. I think McClendon said he paid attention to programming, not sales because if programming was right, sales would happen. I can't argue that in an agency driven market.
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I learned that very quickly with my first station. I was a terrible salesperson, and I was competing with over 30 established radio stations. I was new to the market, a foreigner and a teenager on top of that.

But the moment audience data came out that showed that the "gringo kit's toy" was #1, we were sold out within about 30 days. McLendon was right. So I spent my time on programming first in every successive station and market I was with.

But that does not work in direct sales markets. At all.
 
SirRoxalot said:
The people surviving have established great, long-term relationships with advertisers and are bringing in good money,
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Except, as I said, local advertisers are out of money. The public isn't spending. They're staying home, eating in, buying online. Thanksgiving and Christmas are canceled this year. No big 4th quarter buys. This is not a joke. This isn't corporate radio. We're talking about small owners.
 
Agency business commodity buying. It has everything to do with ratings, and if a station rep has a relationship with the media buyer, that can help. Agency is very transactional. Moreover, agencies do not make a lot of money for themselves buying radio. They make more when they buy TV because of the production costs, and like idiots, radio never figured out how to make money from production. They just do it for free.

Farid was an absolute idiot. One of the many major company CEOs that have destroyed the industry. Also with other geniuses like Bob Pittman. David Field was also a gentleman to me. When I was at ETM for so many years, he was a person I tried to emulate. To this day, we have a good relationship. I think the CBS merger changed the dynamic, and I am not sure it was for the better, but David and most of the ETM management was always wonderful to me.

Direct selling is where it’s at. There is only one thing you need to be a successful seller. An idea. Simple as that. If you have a great idea, it’s game over. I spend each and everyday thinking about ideas, and then presenting them to clients they apply to. I still love cold calling. I have always loved it. 100 percent commission. I just with I had more time to do it.

Every scenario is different. But radio still makes a ton of money. If you have a good product, and a good signal , the right people, and constantly look for ideas for clients, you will do great. Direct selling also gives you the opportunity to get to know your clients, on a personal and business level. It is very important to know what a client is going through. To put yourself in their shoes. Empathy is a key trait in sales.

Sales and programming need to understand each other and work hand in hand. You can’t have one, without the other.

I give radio sales executives every credit in the world. It’s not easy, but it can be very rewarding.
 
So this is not exactly what I expected when I saw the OP about The Zone. Now they announce a whole new staff:

https://news.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/headline_id=n39774

WZNE-FM (94.1 The Zone)/Rochester names Kobe Fargo it's new Program Director for the Alternative outlet, which is undergoing a makeover that includes the debut of a new morning show on December 1.
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TheBigA said:
So this is not exactly what I expected when I saw the OP about The Zone. Now they announce a whole new staff:

https://news.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/headline_id=n39774
Click to expand...

I was expecting a flip from alt to something more female-friendly and rhythmic. I assume that's what you were expecting, too. Instead, management reaches the conclusion that the reason alt isn't working is because the branding and presentation have been wrong. Okaaayyyyy...

They may be on the right track if they rename "The Zone," though. All of the "Zones" I've ever heard or read of are sports stations.
 
Buddy Shula said:
Every scenario is different. But radio still makes a ton of money. If you have a good product, and a good signal , the right people, and constantly look for ideas for clients, you will do great. Direct selling also gives you the opportunity to get to know your clients, on a personal and business level. It is very important to know what a client is going through. To put yourself in their shoes. Empathy is a key trait in sales.
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You just reminded me of a direct sales story from my distant past.

I tried calling on a major clothing line (in another country, of course). The executive office reception area had a most visible sign saying "If your business is advertising, I'm not in".

I went to a hardware store and wrangled them out of one of those little scaled down doors in a door frame they use to sell different styles of doors and hardware. I had a sign painter letter it to say, "if your business is selling, my door is always open".

I had it delivered to the garment maker. Within hours, I had a call and an appointment and ended up with a nice campaign that went on for years and expanded as I built more stations.

Not "I'm from the radio station. Would you like to buy some spots?"
 
TheBigA said:
Except, as I said, local advertisers are out of money. The public isn't spending. They're staying home, eating in, buying online. Thanksgiving and Christmas are canceled this year. No big 4th quarter buys. This is not a joke. This isn't corporate radio. We're talking about small owners.
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I have a friend who owns a station in a smaller Texas market that has enough local business to sustain a station nicely in normal times. It's far enough from a much bigger city to not suffer from folks driving off to nicer stores and malls.

His business is off perhaps 10%. Mostly that is the loss of the restaurant business. Everything else is fairly normal. People are spending at retail and for services. The economy is oil and farming / ranching, neither of which are terribly affected, so the unemployment is bearable.

The local stations that are affected were nearly marginal to begin with. They made enough for the owner to live nicely, paid debts, and had little else left over. Those were fading before the pandemic, just not as fast.
 
TheBigA said:
So this is not exactly what I expected when I saw the OP about The Zone. Now they announce a whole new staff:

https://news.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/headline_id=n39774
Click to expand...

Kobe's the last live body there, and likely has a contract so they won't save any money by cutting him. Rover was over, and they dumped the PD/MD who was doing mid-days. Nothing says that the new morning show won't be syndicated along with mid-days. Still smells like cost-cutting to me.
 
TheBigA said:
Which would you prefer: Hire local staff at minimum wage, or carry a professional show for barter? What's better radio?
Click to expand...

You're the one that announced "a whole new staff." I'm just pointing out that it's less of the same thing that they were doing.
 
"On to new heights..." sounds like radio speak for "same pig, new lipstick." WDKX owns the demo and very likely will continue to do so. Alt is a dead end format because, as a few legacy posters here have pointed out in previous posts, it's an amorphous format featuring inconsistent product and the target listeners are fickle.
 
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