iheartradio layoffs

[TheBigA]

iHeart doesn’t seem to care much about its workplace reputation.

Very few companies do. In any business, not just radio. In fact, look at how the current administration is treating government workers.

A big change happened when companies began asking employees to sign "at-will employment" forms.

At-will employment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This idea of being "loyal" to a company because you work there really has no basis anymore.

 

[michael hagerty]

Very few companies do. In any business, not just radio. In fact, look at how the current administration is treating government workers.

A big change happened when companies began asking employees to sign "at-will employment" forms.

At-will employment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This idea of being "loyal" to a company because you work there really has no basis anymore.

50 years ago, when I was a 19-year-old with four years in the biz, a wiser, older jock told me:


"The moment the GM says "As long as I have a job here, you have a job here"---the clock is ticking. Learn which "e" the apostrophe goes over in "resume'".

 

[ted chittenden]

50 years ago, when I was a 19-year-old with four years in the biz, a wiser, older jock told me:


"The moment the GM says "As long as I have a job here, you have a job here"---the clock is ticking. Learn which "e" the apostrophe goes over in "resume'".

Right. Radio, more than most other businesses, has been about moving from place to place. Poster K.M. Richards is one of the few people I know of in the business who wasn't forced to move from city to city and from state to state seeking work.

As for the broader picture, what we're seeing now started back in the 1980s when stockholders like T. Boone Pickens began demanding that corporations give them higher dividends instead of employees higher pay and benefits. In most cases, the old-style pension plans were replaced with 401(k)'s where both the employer and employee contributed to the employee's retirement investment, with the employer contributing a whole lot less than it used to. What you're seeing now at IHeart is pretty much what is going on in most large companies today and, unless certain laws around executive pay, and stocks and dividends are changed, that corporate loyalty that everybody had in the past is now gone for good at the vast majority of corporations.

 

[K.M. Richards]

No local staff or studios. Save a lot of money with no local staff. iHeart is heading in that direction. But if they want to get any local advertising, they need someone to do the selling. K-Love doesn't do local anything.

Close to the business model that is the case with one of my client groups. Studios and offices are in a modest but owned building in the primary community of the coverage area. Using the plural of "studio" is a misnomer because there is exactly one ... the production studio.

All the stations are fed by automation computers. The production director also voicetracks morning drive on one of the stations and does ad sales half of the day. The morning guy on another of the stations voicetracks that shift and is in sales the rest of the time. I "voicetrack" afternoon drive on one station, which I also program, by using generic song tags and liners. I completely program one station with The Eighties Channel™, which is a turnkey format that by design has no live air talent (just liners and song tags as needed) ... in fact, I pretty much manage that station remotely for them.

And they are a locally-owned station group which also generates the programming remotely for other stations they own in the region. Practically everyone there is somehow involved in sales, even the owner.

All that is different about what iHeart is doing is the scale.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Very few companies do. In any business, not just radio. In fact, look at how the current administration is treating government workers.

To avoid going way off-topic, I'll keep this brief.

If all you've known is broadcasting and media, I can understand the sentiment. It can be different elsewhere, though. Companies spend quite a bit of effort on "internal communications" teams, HR, and engagement surveys. The extent to which those efforts are performative versus being sincere varies. But many companies, especially larger ones, do feel the need to at least appear to be in tune with their employees.

What's currently going on with the federal government and its employees is an outlier driven by sadistic politics...I will say no more because would really get off-topic.

This idea of being "loyal" to a company because you work there really has no basis anymore.

I said that in post #16.

 

[K.M. Richards]

This idea of being "loyal" to a company because you work there really has no basis anymore.

I said that in post #16.

Yes, you did. He said that in reply to your own post #16. I would call that agreement.

 

[michael hagerty]

Right. Radio, more than most other businesses, has been about moving from place to place. Poster K.M. Richards is one of the few people I know of in the business who wasn't forced to move from city to city and from state to state seeking work.

As for the broader picture, what we're seeing now started back in the 1980s when stockholders like T. Boone Pickens began demanding that corporations give them higher dividends instead of employees higher pay and benefits. In most cases, the old-style pension plans were replaced with 401(k)'s where both the employer and employee contributed to the employee's retirement investment, with the employer contributing a whole lot less than it used to. What you're seeing now at IHeart is pretty much what is going on in most large companies today and, unless certain laws around executive pay, and stocks and dividends are changed, that corporate loyalty that everybody had in the past is now gone for good at the vast majority of corporations.

Well, a lot us who did move weren’t forced…we just made choices. If you’re up for adventure and someone wants to double your salary to work in Phoenix instead of Las Vegas, why wouldn’t you?

 

[cc333]

Well, a lot us who did move weren’t forced…we just made choices. If you’re up for adventure and someone wants to double your salary to work in Phoenix instead of Las Vegas, why wouldn’t you?

For me, it would be really hard, because I like where I am, and I don't enjoy the moving process.

However, if I had a decent job in, say, Lakeport, CA, and someone in LA offered me a position that paid 10x what I'm making, I might be tempted.

c

 

[ted chittenden]

Well, a lot us who did move weren’t forced…we just made choices. If you’re up for adventure and someone wants to double your salary to work in Phoenix instead of Las Vegas, why wouldn’t you?

While I very much recognize the validity of your argument, the fact remains that at many stations in many locations, there are noncompete agreements in place, meaning that if you are fired or you wish to move elsewhere for better pay, you can't just walk across the street or even drive to a nearby city for your next radio job.

 

[TheBigA]

While I very much recognize the validity of your argument, the fact remains that at many stations in many locations, there are noncompete agreements

If you're in a different market, you're not in competition. You may not be able to walk across the street. But you can move to the other side of the country.

 

[michael hagerty]

For me, it would be really hard, because I like where I am, and I don't enjoy the moving process.

However, if I had a decent job in, say, Lakeport, CA, and someone in LA offered me a position that paid 10x what I'm making, I might be tempted.

c

I left Ukiah for Reno for a 25% raise, enhanced by the lack of a state income tax in Nevada and the opportunity to perform and program in a city with 20 times the number of available listeners.

 

[michael hagerty]

While I very much recognize the validity of your argument, the fact remains that at many stations in many locations, there are noncompete agreements in place, meaning that if you are fired or you wish to move elsewhere for better pay, you can't just walk across the street or even drive to a nearby city for your next radio job.

Yeah. But a lot of us moved voluntarily as well. As I said in the last post, Ukiah to Reno was a 25% raise and 20 times the available audience.

Reno to Las Vegas was a 30% raise and double the available audience.

Las Vegas to Phoenix was double the money and three times the available audience.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I left Ukiah for Reno for a 25% raise, enhanced by the lack of a state income tax in Nevada and the opportunity to perform and program in a city with 20 times the number of available listeners.

Much of my career was spent either in my hometown market or adjacents. But one of those adjacents was Los Angeles, where I still reside; running a consultancy from market #2 doesn't hurt one's reputation.

 

[michael hagerty]

If you're in a different market, you're not in competition. You may not be able to walk across the street. But you can move to the other side of the country.

Or down the freeway. Or in a different part of the same state.

 

[blindowl1234]

Noncommercial and donation-supported radio (the recent CPB and NPR funding brouhaha notwithstanding) seems to be doing relatively OK compared to their commercial counterparts, at least in larger markets where donation-based revenues presumably are fairly strong.

EMF et. al. seem to be among the strongest of all, of course. How is it that they have so much money in an environment where hardly anyone else seems able to earn any? Tax exemptions and donations alone can't account for all of it....

c

Probably because they're always begging listeners for $$$ lol

 

[Steve Scott]

I can weigh in on traumatic job loss and relocation.

After 18 years at WCBS in NYC, the station shut down in August of 2024. For the first time in my adult life, I was unemployed.

I had moved before - San Jose to Chicago, Chicago to NYC - but those moves were my choice. The radio news market in NYC was/is tight. The days of a station just “inventing” a job because they like you are pretty much gone.

There was nothing there.

Fortunately, KCBS rescued me from the scrap heap. They actually wanted me (it’s a nice feeling!). Even though I’m originally from the Bay Area, packing up and moving 3000 miles isn’t easy (or cheap). I’m lucky to have family here who helped to cushion the blow.

I love KCBS, and hope it will be my “forever” radio home. I’m lucky. But there’s no denying the trauma of being laid off and forced to move across the country.

I wish all here happiness, contentment and good health.

 

[ted chittenden]

Probably because they're always begging listeners for $$$ lol

Not only that but many of those listeners are true believers who will give even if they really have nothing to give anymore. I'm thinking here of my dad's mom and stepfather. For a while in the late 80s and early 90s, they lived in Wickenburg, an almost-suburb northwest of Phoenix. They asked my folks for money saying they didn't have any and my father sent them some. Then my father found out that they weren't using it to sustain themselves; instead they were sending it to one of the TV preachers who was apparently building a retirement community. If I remember correctly, they finally stopped sending that TV preacher money (I wish I remember which one it was) when they actually visited the place and discovered that the "retirement community" being built was not only too expensive for them but wasn't intended for people like them in the first place.

But yes. It's the "true believers" who are looking for something, anything to escape the real world that are funding these religious radio outlets and there sure are a lot of them...

 

[luperm]

I can weigh in on traumatic job loss and relocation.

After 18 years at WCBS in NYC, the station shut down in August of 2024. For the first time in my adult life, I was unemployed.

I had moved before - San Jose to Chicago, Chicago to NYC - but those moves were my choice. The radio news market in NYC was/is tight. The days of a station just “inventing” a job because they like you are pretty much gone.

There was nothing there.

Fortunately, KCBS rescued me from the scrap heap. They actually wanted me (it’s a nice feeling!). Even though I’m originally from the Bay Area, packing up and moving 3000 miles isn’t easy (or cheap). I’m lucky to have family here who helped to cushion the blow.

I love KCBS, and hope it will be my “forever” radio home. I’m lucky. But there’s no denying the trauma of being laid off and forced to move across the country.

I wish all here happiness, contentment and good health.

You and your colleagues are very much missed back here in New York. I'm glad you've found a new home.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Yeah. But a lot of us moved voluntarily as well. As I said in the last post, Ukiah to Reno was a 25% raise and 20 times the available audience.

Reno to Las Vegas was a 30% raise and double the available audience.

Las Vegas to Phoenix was double the money and three times the available audience.

Much of my career was spent either in my hometown market or adjacents. But one of those adjacents was Los Angeles, where I still reside; running a consultancy from market #2 doesn't hurt one's reputation.

Everyone's circumstances are different. A lot of it is luck. Some of it is also the nature of the career.

In my first career (broadcasting), only one move was taken because it was voluntary. Except it wasn't, exactly. That move happened after I was demoted, with strong hints that it would be time to go soon. At least that management gave me the needed time and accommodations to find another job that while remaining employed. That wouldn't happen nowadays. And when I did move, halfway across the country, the ultimate result was disastrous.

In my second career (IT/cybersecurity), all moves were taken for a better job: more money and a more urban environment. Then I got to the Bay Area and career moves didn't require a physical move. In one case, though, a commute one hour each way was the result. After a couple of years of that, I changed jobs, actually demoting myself, but gaining back a downtown San Francisco work environment and a reduction in stress.

To repeat, everyone's circumstances are different. There is no universal rule.

 

[davideduardo]

As for the broader picture, what we're seeing now started back in the 1980s when stockholders like T. Boone Pickens began demanding that corporations give them higher dividends instead of employees higher pay and benefits.

I began investing in stocks around 1956, and nothing has changed since then. Some companies pay dividends, some depend on share growth.

In most cases, the old-style pension plans were replaced with 401(k)'s where both the employer and employee contributed to the employee's retirement investment, with the employer contributing a whole lot less than it used to.

That was due predominantly to longer life spans and lots more job changing by the labor force.

What you're seeing now at IHeart is pretty much what is going on in most large companies today and, unless certain laws around executive pay, and stocks and dividends are changed, that corporate loyalty that everybody had in the past is now gone for good at the vast majority of corporations.

The issue, and I say it again, is that inflation adjusted radio revenue is down by over 65% since 2005. There are many contributing factors, including the economy, the 2008 recession, the introduction of the people meter, so called the new media and the move from local business at the retail level to national chains that do not use local radio or TV.