KFI Technical Director rescued from burning car by Good Samaritans

[Mark Roberts]

Is it your belief that the position you quit wasn't filled? It was. There was someone who needed a job more than you needed it. There always is. Whoever's got that gig now probably makes less than you did and is doing someone else's job besides.

Precisely. If an employer is willing to make compromises that don't overtly cost money, they'll go for the cheaper choice. There's always someone who needs to make the rent.

The message may be getting through to the upcoming generations. I've read multiple articles over the last few years decrying the lack of male TV anchors. Potential candidates can make more money doing something else. So they do.

This also comes across in what you see on TV and hear on radio. The quality has slipped. But "quality" doesn't show up on a P&L.

Wow, part time hours, 17.60 an hour, and no benefits. In California, fast food workers start out at $20 hourly. So someone flipping burgers at Jack In The Box, gets paid more than a news editor starting out at iHeart.

Yep, I can't imagine anyone trying to make radio a career in 2025.

I couldn't imagine it in 1986, seeing the decline of radio news and being personally affected by it. I'm not setting myself up as a role model here; I'm just describing my own thought processes. I would never encourage anyone to go down the road I went. It was difficult to change to a new career and I was fortunate to have strong family support. My point is that very difficulty is what keeps people stuck with part-time gigs with no benefits.

My first job in my new career paid reasonably well, came with health insurance (80% covered; 90% for a small monthly extra fee), dental insurance, vision insurance, profit sharing, thrift plans (predecessors to 401(k)s), and other benefits that I never saw in radio. Some benefits have eroded over time, particularly health insurance, but others have gotten better. None of this required a union, by the way. It did require being in a profession where skills were in short supply, granting the ability to walk away from bad job offers. It also helped that I had no dependents. Recently, the labor market for that profession has changed a lot. AI gets the blame but there are other factors that are too off-topic to go into here.

Reliance on a union also depends on state laws and the likelihood of federal support through the NLRB and other agencies. Right now, that likelihood is low, even with the working-class posturing of the MAGA crowd. When it comes time to implement or retain meaningful help for working people, MAGA sells them out. (Exhibit A: Medicaid) At the state level, labor protections vary widely. California is the strongest; Washington is pretty close; Colorado is catching up. But Texas? Oklahoma? Arkansas? Good luck with that. They'd rather legitimize child labor than support workers.

That wasn't epic money then, but I was 18 years old. It was just enough---51 years ago---for a young man to begin to go out on his own, feed and clothe himself and have an address other than "Blue Ford Mustang, California License 625 NCS".

I suspect pay at KTRH was on the low side in the mid-1980s, though higher than other stations in the market. But costs were also low, the health insurance was decent, and I was actually able to save a little money. But I had no student loans to deal with and housing costs required a lower percentage of income than they do now.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

when people talk about radio pay and benefits and etc. and how theyre not in it anymore it makes me think of myself and how i make a go of it and what would make it come crashing down for me.

Im not partnered, no kids, i dont drive.. i purposefully look for work in places where theres a lower cost of living because small, rural unrated places are where my expertise is. am i good at saving money? hell no. should i be? hell yes.

do i love life? mostly. what are my expenses? rent, electricity, renters and health insurance, phone, internet, food and dx goodies.

is my life typical or good for others to follow? Nope. is it great for me? Thats debatable.

if i had kids (i never will) and owned a home, i likely wouldnt be able to afford to work in radio.

why do i still bother? because im 41, almost 42, doing for 22 years what i dreamed off since 3rd grade. and figure ill ride this crazy bus that is radio until the wheels fall slap off and cant be put back on.

what would i do with myself if it wasnt for radio? I've never had an answer and im afraid of what could happen if i had to hang it up one day. i havent found much else i enjoy... and i dont wanna do a job i hate. my life, sadly to say.. is my career and my hobby, both involving radio. radio was my escape as a young teen when i was made fun of, its the world i escaped into and never got into anything else.

I've just said alot more than ive ever said on this particular topic and reading some of the earlier comments in this thread, i felt complelled to shar.e please be kind.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

what would i do with myself if it wasnt for radio? I've never had an answer and im afraid of what could happen if i had to hang it up one day. i havent found much else i enjoy... and i dont wanna do a job i hate. my life, sadly to say.. is my career and my hobby, both involving radio. radio was my escape as a young teen when i was made fun of, its the world i escaped into and never got into anything else.

It would be interesting to hear what kinds of jobs others pivoted to after leaving radio. I know the subject comes up on the site occasionally, and even in this thread, but I don't remember most of the things people mentioned. It seems to me I've heard a lot of former radio people say they pivoted to roles far removed from broadcasting, though.

Years ago, I remember hearing about a Production Director who left the business, opened a coffee shop franchise location and made way more money than he ever did in radio with it.

 

[ted chittenden]

when people talk about radio pay and benefits and etc. and how theyre not in it anymore it makes me think of myself and how i make a go of it and what would make it come crashing down for me.

Im not partnered, no kids, i dont drive.. i purposefully look for work in places where theres a lower cost of living because small, rural unrated places are where my expertise is. am i good at saving money? hell no. should i be? hell yes.

do i love life? mostly. what are my expenses? rent, electricity, renters and health insurance, phone, internet, food and dx goodies.

is my life typical or good for others to follow? Nope. is it great for me? Thats debatable.

if i had kids (i never will) and owned a home, i likely wouldnt be able to afford to work in radio.

why do i still bother? because im 41, almost 42, doing for 22 years what i dreamed off since 3rd grade. and figure ill ride this crazy bus that is radio until the wheels fall slap off and cant be put back on.

what would i do with myself if it wasnt for radio? I've never had an answer and im afraid of what could happen if i had to hang it up one day. i havent found much else i enjoy... and i dont wanna do a job i hate. my life, sadly to say.. is my career and my hobby, both involving radio. radio was my escape as a young teen when i was made fun of, its the world i escaped into and never got into anything else.

I've just said alot more than ive ever said on this particular topic and reading some of the earlier comments in this thread, i felt complelled to shar.e please be kind.

When I was in high school (I was the first totally blind kid to attend an all-boys' Catholic school run by the Jesuits in Phoenix), all I ever wanted to do was radio. I took my radios almost everywhere with me--I wanted to see what I could hear in different places--I was an absolute radio nut!

When I went to undergraduate college at a Catholic, coed Jesuit-run university in Los Angeles, I majored in communications with an emphasis on radio. Even when I was excluded from other things because of my lack of physical vision, I always had my radio and my dx-ing to escape to and my dreams for making it in the business.

Then reality hit! While I was able to get on the air at the school's carrier-current AM, I was excluded from joining the FM. When I placed braille labels on some station albums to assist me in preparation for getting onto the FM signal, the then-station manager tore the labels off , telling me that I had to go through her first. I was told by her, the program director, and others that I really didn't have the vocal talent to make it in the business. So I never made it to the FM outlet.

After graduating from that school, I went back to Arizona, licked my wounds, and went to graduate school as a business major. At the time, I thought I could make it as a sales person in the radio business--I still loved the field of radio though it never loved me back! After receiving my MBA, again reality hit and I wound up, with the aid of the state's vocational department of rehabilitation, working in the hotel industry--first as a reservationist and then later in what was "Inventory Control,", a department for a chain of hotels whose primary responsibility was to write reports encouraging the local hotels (the company owned the hotel's brand names but the hotels themselves were owned by others) to make more rooms available for the 800 agents to book. At the end of my time there (2000), i was making around $13 an hour but with health insurance and a 401(k) which I always put the maximum amount into. And the reason I could do that was because after my stint at the university in Los Angeles, I returned to the home owned (and fully paid for as of 2000) by my parents.

And though both of my parents are gone, I still manage to live in that house, making sure I pay taxes and the electric bills from whatever money comes from Social Security Disability (SSDI). I later worked as a braille proofreader at Arizona State University, and I still perform that kind of work once a year for the state of Arizona's exams given annually to grade school and high school students.

Yet, despite everything, I still love radio though (as noted earlier), it has never loved me back! I now use this and other sites to keep up with the industry but due to health concerns in other areas (I survived a heart attack in 2015), I have stopped looking for full-time employment. But I still like following the industry, I still do some dx-ing, and I manage to make single annual pledges to my local NPR outlet, KJZZ. I don't know how long any of this will last given the behaviors and misbehaviors of current Federal leadership, but I'm holding on for now.

I'm saying all of this to let all of you know, especially SomeRadioGuy, that I appreciate what you have done and still continue to do on the airwaves. And, in the case of you, SomeRadioGuy, I hope that when /if (and it seems more like a when now) the current NPR outlet you manage ends, you are able to find employment elsewhere in the radio field. Good luck to you!

 

[michael hagerty]

It would be interesting to hear what kinds of jobs others pivoted to after leaving radio. I know the subject comes up on the site occasionally, and even in this thread, but I don't remember most of the things people mentioned. It seems to me I've heard a lot of former radio people say they pivoted to roles far removed from broadcasting, though.

Years ago, I remember hearing about a Production Director who left the business, opened a coffee shop franchise location and made way more money than he ever did in radio with it.

Most of the people I knew went somewhere media-adjacent---production houses or TV stations for tech folks , PR/Comms/Government agency press gigs for the writer/producer/on-air types.

One of my former colleagues at Capital Public Radio, Nicole Nixon, jumped to the Sacramento Bee. Moving from public radio to a print newspaper sounds like going from the frying pan into the fire, but the situation at CapRadio was bad, and their legendary political reporter, Sam Stanton, was retiring. They needed her and I hope she made sure they paid for the privilege. She's top-notch.

Apart from those, off the top of my head, one guy went into fleet management for a local transit company, another opened a shirt shop specializing in custom-embroidered logo shirts for businesses.

A surprising number of the people I worked with just found a way to stay on the horse and get to retirement.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

It would be interesting to hear what kinds of jobs others pivoted to after leaving radio. I know the subject comes up on the site occasionally, and even in this thread, but I don't remember most of the things people mentioned. It seems to me I've heard a lot of former radio people say they pivoted to roles far removed from broadcasting, though.

I reconnected with a former boss a few months ago. She left radio sales in 2020, when there were few commissions to be had, and now answers phones and dispatches trucks for a plumber.
A young salesman I worked with pivoted to selling kitchen renovations when he was let go during a dry spell.
A few DJs I worked with became a high school teacher, a clerk at a Kroger, and an elected official.
A newscaster who mentored me was laid off when his employer went bankrupt, and became a USPS letter carrier.

There's a lot of others who I lost touch with, or who had ordinary retirements, and several who died young.

 

[gr8oldies]

When I was in high school (I was the first totally blind kid to attend an all-boys' Catholic school run by the Jesuits in Phoenix), all I ever wanted to do was radio. I took my radios almost everywhere with me--I wanted to see what I could hear in different places--I was an absolute radio nut!

When I went to undergraduate college at a Catholic, coed Jesuit-run university in Los Angeles, I majored in communications with an emphasis on radio. Even when I was excluded from other things because of my lack of physical vision, I always had my radio and my dx-ing to escape to and my dreams for making it in the business.

Then reality hit! While I was able to get on the air at the school's carrier-current AM, I was excluded from joining the FM. When I placed braille labels on some station albums to assist me in preparation for getting onto the FM signal, the then-station manager tore the labels off , telling me that I had to go through her first. I was told by her, the program director, and others that I really didn't have the vocal talent to make it in the business. So I never made it to the FM outlet.

After graduating from that school, I went back to Arizona, licked my wounds, and went to graduate school as a business major. At the time, I thought I could make it as a sales person in the radio business--I still loved the field of radio though it never loved me back! After receiving my MBA, again reality hit and I wound up, with the aid of the state's vocational department of rehabilitation, working in the hotel industry--first as a reservationist and then later in what was "Inventory Control,", a department for a chain of hotels whose primary responsibility was to write reports encouraging the local hotels (the company owned the hotel's brand names but the hotels themselves were owned by others) to make more rooms available for the 800 agents to book. At the end of my time there (2000), i was making around $13 an hour but with health insurance and a 401(k) which I always put the maximum amount into. And the reason I could do that was because after my stint at the university in Los Angeles, I returned to the home owned (and fully paid for as of 2000) by my parents.

And though both of my parents are gone, I still manage to live in that house, making sure I pay taxes and the electric bills from whatever money comes from Social Security Disability (SSDI). I later worked as a braille proofreader at Arizona State University, and I still perform that kind of work once a year for the state of Arizona's exams given annually to grade school and high school students.

Yet, despite everything, I still love radio though (as noted earlier), it has never loved me back! I now use this and other sites to keep up with the industry but due to health concerns in other areas (I survived a heart attack in 2015), I have stopped looking for full-time employment. But I still like following the industry, I still do some dx-ing, and I manage to make single annual pledges to my local NPR outlet, KJZZ. I don't know how long any of this will last given the behaviors and misbehaviors of current Federal leadership, but I'm holding on for now.

I'm saying all of this to let all of you know, especially SomeRadioGuy, that I appreciate what you have done and still continue to do on the airwaves. And, in the case of you, SomeRadioGuy, I hope that when /if (and it seems more like a when now) the current NPR outlet you manage ends, you are able to find employment elsewhere in the radio field. Good luck to you!

I worked at a station where the news director was blind, and also signed the station on and operated an old-school automation system. He did a lot of his newsgathering by listening to other area radio stations, making his own calls, and he still attended Council and School Board meetings. He'd record his newscasts, which he had to type in Braille. We, the rest of the staff, had to type cart labels for the sighted and in Braille on the same label. Eventually, the state society of the blind hooked him up with a Braille Associated Press machine, which he only operated to receive the state and national news feeds he needed. He still works at that same station.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I reconnected with a former boss a few months ago. She left radio sales in 2020, when there were few commissions to be had, and now answers phones and dispatches trucks for a plumber.
A young salesman I worked with pivoted to selling kitchen renovations when he was let go during a dry spell.
A few DJs I worked with became a high school teacher, a clerk at a Kroger, and an elected official.
A newscaster who mentored me was laid off when his employer went bankrupt, and became a USPS letter carrier.

There's a lot of others who I lost touch with, or who had ordinary retirements, and several who died young.

quite a few years ago when i was struggling to find radio work, i was extremely close to finding a post office job in alaska... theres lots of waivers, things they wont require, etc in rural alaska that they do elsewhere because they have a hard time getting and keeping postal staff. plus in alaska, you can file for a class d non comm at any time, so i thought for a while of doing post office stuff on weekdays and playing radio on weekends

 

[gr8oldies]

It would be interesting to hear what kinds of jobs others pivoted to after leaving radio. I know the subject comes up on the site occasionally, and even in this thread, but I don't remember most of the things people mentioned. It seems to me I've heard a lot of former radio people say they pivoted to roles far removed from broadcasting, though.

Years ago, I remember hearing about a Production Director who left the business, opened a coffee shop franchise location and made way more money than he ever did in radio with it.

"
"I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out" (excerpt from Frank Sinatra-That's Life).
My nickel tour: Jobs outside of radio included being an "Engineer-On-Duty" at a small CBS affiliate in Indiana. Probably one of my most "fun" jobs, and I still keep in touch with a few co-workers from there, one who is now a Vice President for CBS Sports (Paramount/Skydance). Gigs totally divorced from the broadcasting business included Customer Service, phone research, cellphone sales, and a short stint at ice cream bar factory (at least got to take samples home). I had taken all the career aptitude tests in the world to find my alternate "dream career"and they never pointed me in the right direction. I'd started getting interested in Social Media around the time Facebook went mainstream, and joined the local social media club. I also started researching career options and made some connections. For various reasons I wanted to move from Ohio to Tennessee, and made a lot of connections on Twitter here before I even packed the U-Haul. Tourism clicked with me too and I signed on with a marketing agency that provided a variery of services to cabin rentals, attractions and the county's Destination Marketing Organization. It was fun aand it was hell (and let's say the job included damage control). I've been retired for awhile, not entirely by choice.
.I could address "would you choose this career again"? and you might expect me to say "oh hell no I'd do insurance sales". But no, I would choose it again, but I would make drastically different decisions than I did.

 

[TheBigA]

It would be interesting to hear what kinds of jobs others pivoted to after leaving radio.

Keep in mind that there are lots of kinds of radio jobs. It's not all on-air, it's not all local stations, it's not all one thing. If you're flexible and a quick learner, then you can do different kinds of work, and still be in radio.

 

[Mark Roberts]

It would be interesting to hear what kinds of jobs others pivoted to after leaving radio. I know the subject comes up on the site occasionally, and even in this thread, but I don't remember most of the things people mentioned. It seems to me I've heard a lot of former radio people say they pivoted to roles far removed from broadcasting, though.

A few people I've known over the years who were radio colleagues, in no particular order (these are people I could remember immediately), who went on to other things:

Journalism professor at the University of Missouri
Journalism instructor at the University of Kansas
Assistant attorney general for the state of Washington
Attorney in private practice
Executive director of an association supporting a national monument in Kansas
Freelance TV producer working mostly with European broadcasters
PR for a state school boards association
Artist (as in paintings)
Working for a beer distributor
Chief of staff for a Houston city council member

I became a cybersecurity architect and risk manager, including a few years as a chief information security officer.

I was able to repurpose research and writing skills in my new career. Those skills got me some positive notice along the lines of "how did you do that?"

 

[ted chittenden]

I worked at a station where the news director was blind, and also signed the station on and operated an old-school automation system. He did a lot of his newsgathering by listening to other area radio stations, making his own calls, and he still attended Council and School Board meetings. He'd record his newscasts, which he had to type in Braille. We, the rest of the staff, had to type cart labels for the sighted and in Braille on the same label. Eventually, the state society of the blind hooked him up with a Braille Associated Press machine, which he only operated to receive the state and national news feeds he needed. He still works at that same station.

I didn't get his permission to say what I'm about to say but Rick Lewis, who worked at KAFY in Bakersfield in the late 70s and early 80s, is also totally blind. Today he operates a great Internet radio station featuring oldies and classic country music.

Ride Radio, Your Oldies Headquarters. Quality radio for quality listeners

He does live shows on most evenings, and on Saturdays (and the show is taped for repeats the following Wednesdays), he counts down the entire chart listing for a radio station from 1956 dates to dates in 1975. (He mostly uses the surveys at the ARSA site.) He doesn't get paid for any of this as far as I know but he loves to do it.

 

[radiofan2023]

That’s cool Ted

 

[RayydioLA]

Which means that the lowest common denominator is desperation. And taking advantage of that are $20 million a year radio stations.



KFI used to be a union shop---AFTRA for talent, NABET for engineers/tech producers. I have no idea whether they still are or not. If they are, they're making a lousy case for themselves.



Is it your belief that the position you quit wasn't filled? It was. There was someone who needed a job more than you needed it. There always is. Whoever's got that gig now probably makes less than you did and is doing someone else's job besides.

My first two years at Capital Public Radio, I was part-time. The good news is that their hourly pay was so much better than iHeart's that I made the same working 29 hours a week for them that I made working 40 co-anchoring the afternoon news at KFBK.

The bad news was the lack of benefits and paid vacation time cost me $15,000 a year.

Why did I do it? Because it was the best offer out there, I hoped to be made full-time, and I was. And then I got the equivalent of an extra 11 hours a week salary, was paid for 52 weeks a year instead of 49 and most of my out-of-pocket expenses vanished (the days of "we provide coverage at no cost to our employees" ended the year before I went full-time).

KFI used to be a union shop---AFTRA for talent, NABET for engineers/tech producers. I have no idea whether they still are or not. If they are, they're making a lousy case for themselves.

They are still SAG-AFTRA. KFI's part-time scale rate for news anchors is between $35-39/hr. Sort of ok, hours being based on a FT 40 hour week. Not great. Should be more, for a heritage high-profile News/Talk station that bills the number listed above in this thread. And they just fired 20 top talent including a longtime (probably hansomely paid) News Director, last November. Their high-profile talk talent obviously have much better contracts negotiated far over scale. Down the hall at KBIG, their union contract calls for approx. $50/hr for part-time jocks. So, that means their full-timers are pretty comfortable by LA standards, plus whatever they negotiated above scale. That's more like it.
Quite a shame that a technical staff member is that underpaid.

 

[michael hagerty]

KFI used to be a union shop---AFTRA for talent, NABET for engineers/tech producers. I have no idea whether they still are or not. If they are, they're making a lousy case for themselves.

They are still SAG-AFTRA. KFI's part-time scale rate for news anchors is between $35-39/hr.

So the $27-$34/hr quoted in the anchor/reporter position I posted on page one is probably not for a KFI staffer, but for an iHeart 24-7 employee.

Quite a shame that a technical staff member is that underpaid.

Are they still NABET?

 

[henry]

The job market is set by what people are willing to accept.

Story time:

Once upon a time there was the Utah Copper Company. Out of high school, employees were "willing" to take a job where they were:

• Paid in company "money"
• Had a spend that "money" at the company store
• Pay rent with their "money" on a company house

If you pull open old newspaper archives, you'll find during the 1920s and '30s times where unionization got violent. Upper management literally got shot so that employees could wrestle themselves out of a monopolistic environment into a competitive environment where the union could negotiate toe-to-toe with the mine on a more even playing ground.

An individual has no negotiating power against a media giant. Sure, somebody's gonna take it. But getting screwed is still getting screwed. If we believe in a true free market, then we have to be fair: smash up corporations **AND** smash up unions. But we haven't done that. We smashed up unions but let companies become HUUUUUUUGE and force employees to fend for themselves. That ain't capitalism. That's cronyism.

(And sidenote: that's how I, a "Connecticut Republican" became a staunch California Democrat).

 

[TheBigA]

An individual has no negotiating power against a media giant.

It depends on your deal. Legally, most workers are what they call an "at will" employee. You're there because you want to be there. One way to change that is to become a "contract employee." That's either through a union, or by signing a personal services contract with the company. My point is that workers have options. They just have to think about them.

 

[ted chittenden]

It depends on your deal. Legally, most workers are what they call an "at will" employee. You're there because you want to be there. One way to change that is to become a "contract employee." That's either through a union, or by signing a personal services contract with the company. My point is that workers have options. They just have to think about them.

While your point is a legitimate one, most people, especially when they are looking for their first jobs, are not in a position to negotiate with their employers about pay and benefits. The math is simple. If you have no, or very little, money on which to live, you really don't have the option to turn down or negotiate pay and benefits for any jobs at which you are accepted.

 

[TheBigA]

While your point is a legitimate one, most people, especially when they are looking for their first jobs, are not in a position to negotiate with their employers about pay and benefits. The math is simple. If you have no, or very little, money on which to live, you really don't have the option to turn down or negotiate pay and benefits for any jobs at which you are accepted.

That's why you join a union. But the person in the OP was not some newbie. He's 37 years old.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

Legally, most workers are what they call an "at will" employee. You're there because you want to be there. One way to change that is to become a "contract employee." That's either through a union, or by signing a personal services contract with the company. My point is that workers have options. They just have to think about them.

I guess you're pretty special if you can choose any job you please because you want to be there. How entitled are you if you think it's so so easy? Most workers have to take what they can get, especially in a field that has vastly consolidated, contracted, laid off a huge percentage of its former workers and isn't exactly in hiring mode. Do you think radio people can just waltz into a union shop and say, I'll take this one? What planet are you living on? Maybe try opening up a news website and read about the American job landscape for a dose of much needed reality.