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Are cluster owners really the devil? Scenario one...

M

musicsweep

There is a four-station cluster located in a medium market. The formats are country, Hot AC, News/Talk and ESPN.

The country station has a live DJ in the morning, as does the Hot AC. Those stations are automated the rest of the day.

The News/Talker is your run of the mill talker... live mornings, Rush middays, Hannity afternoons, local show after Hannity followed by generic syndication overnight. ESPN is totally automated.

The morning shows are hosted by top-notch talent who are backed up by a staff of three production aces who help with commercial production and running boards for ball games and live remotes.

Sales are good too. The Country and A/C stations stay sold out despite ongoing rate increases and slight increases in avail allottments, while news/talk does okay and ESPN is, well, ESPN. Hey, football season is good, but what else do you do with a low-power AM?

DId I mention the stations (except ESPN) lead the market in ratings?

Does a responsible management team (a) Hire an entire air staff to fill the rest of the daytime slots on Country and AC? If so, how will they ensure the talent they hire will live up to their air checks and potential? Would it be wise to risk the high ratings and sales figures? (b) use the profits to improve station and signal infrastructure allowing for the station to provide a better sounding on-air product? (c) Use some of the profits to invest in public relations in the community (i.e. making financial contributions to local charities and school events) or (d) use the profits to purchase other clusters in similar markets to try the same proven approach?
 
FWIW.... I'm actually thinking a combination of (a) and (b).

Hire a local talent for afternoon drive on the music stations. Let them get in and get established (as the morning show is) and bring local elements to another drive shift. Once the live afternoons get locked in, look at adding another live personality to evenings, then mid-days. Start slow, build slow, but build solid. Get each shift established and solid before adding another. It may take a year or more to get the staff filled out, but you'll know that every one of the live elements is the best it can be.

BUT.... all of this is worthless without a strong station infrastruction and engineering. You've got to have the signal, or all that high-priced local talent won't be worth a damn. Make sure the signal is rock solid and clear, make sure the promotional backing is there for anything done on-air. Get a solid presence in the market so when you add the addtional local elements, there's a venue for them to get firmly established in the community.

Just my .02. That and $3.73 will buy you a small coffee at Starbucks.

Michael
 
I agree with Michael. I definitely would try to get PM drive live as well on both stations.

Middays next.

No need to do it all at once, step by step.

I would also consider a very interactive (phones, requests, letters, dedications, etc) show on the Hot AC at nights.

Try to get some kids for some shifts on the weekends as well if you have a broadcast school in the area, but that is down the line.
 
I'm not hearing any mention of a news department.
A good one commited to local news will give the casual listener another reason to tune in once or twice an hour.
 
The first thing the new management should do is look at why none of its ideas were done by previous management! My experience has been that most owners want what the rest of us want. Even Randy Michaels, by all accounts, didn't like the idea of automating so many of his stations at, first, Jacor and, later, Clear Channel. However, he also couldn't support funneling profits from stations like KIIS into small market clusters for a live staff that would never return, and could never return, that money as the revenue potential just didn't exist.

Once the new management finds out the answer to that question, it looks for a way to balance the needs of the cluster and the community with the available budget. Also, it doesn't sound to me like the talent at that cluster you're describing is being used very effectively. The morning shows that are backed up by three producers probably don't need the producers there during the morning show. Most of them also probably want some on-air experience. I'd give it to them. They can do the production when they're not on-air since they won't be on for more than 5 hours.
 
My 2 Cents...

I would answer A!

If you do not have a talented, hard working on-air staff... none of the other things will matter. You can make all the contributions to the community you want... what will that get you in the long run if no one is listening? If the product you are broadcasting isn't worth a crap... then why would you want to strengthen your singal for even more people to hear it? If the quality of your product is 75 - 80%... then thats what you will have in any other markets that you purchase clusters in. Why not work to make the product as close to 100% as you possibly can... then the opportunity to branch out into other markets will follow. You will have that revenue from the success of the original market to do that.

Look at all the main Radio Corporations... they ruined radio. They took an ok product and spread it out way to thin. The ultimate result is a much lesser product then you began with. Nothig positive came out of deregulation. Nothing at all. We are left with stations that are maybe half staffed and are fed syndicated crap that every other market has. I understand that if a formal works... then why not try it somewhere else. I understand this. But once you begin making a copy of a copy of a copy... it begins to become a much lesser copy of the original.
 
kac1 said:
If sales and ratings are great, why would you change anything?
Click to expand...

That's my thought as well. As much as I like local and live radio, it is hard to argue with something that is working well. From a strictly business point of view, I wouldn't be very wild about changing it a lot.

Of course, for many of us, there is more to radio than just hard numbers. The dreamer in me would like to have live radio during most of the day. Heck, I'm old enough to remember when everyone was glued to the radio in the evening to hear the latest Beatles or Rolling Stones records. Unfortunately, those days have passed. There are too many other distractions out there. Finding suitable talent and actually paying them something close a living wage isn't as easy as it sounds. You would hope that these live bodies would be so good that you needed a waiting list for spot avails. Sadly, that probably won't happen, even if they are great at their jobs.

Once in a different lifetime, I decided to really expand my business. We added all kinds of inventory and employees. We promoted it heavily and did all the things that you do to expand the business. As luck would have it, we did triple our gross sales in a year’s time. You'd think that would be great. I did, until I realized that I was working three times as hard, had a lot more responsibilities, financial obligations, and had to deal with a lot of employee related issues. Worse yet, I discovered that I actually made less money that year than I had in the last several years. Yes, our business was flourishing, but it was a lot more work for less rewards. Most of the money went to support our company’s new expanded lifestyle.

Sometimes, there is a comfort zone, where businesses do well. I wouldn't blame the owner of this cluster for leaving well enough alone. That does not mean letting it deteriorate, or gutting it like some cluster owners have done. But sometimes, "comfy" is not a bad place to be.
 
I guess you didn't take comfort in the jobs you created rippling through the local economy creating other jobs and being part of a living breathing community. The salary you paid was spent at local merchants and landlords. They all paid taxes which helped build fire stations and buy police cars. And everyone down the pipe was better for it. It's the kind of stuff you won't see on the station balance sheet.
 
Willis1000 said:
I guess you didn't take comfort in the jobs you created rippling through the local economy creating other jobs and being part of a living breathing community. The salary you paid was spent at local merchants and landlords. They all paid taxes which helped build fire stations and buy police cars. And everyone down the pipe was better for it. It's the kind of stuff you won't see on the station balance sheet.
Click to expand...

Assuming you are addressing me, the answer is "Sure I did." Most of my employees were like family to me. I still keep up with many of them, even those who worked for me 20-25 years ago. For the most part, they moved on to other things all by themselves, usually after five to seven years. We never had any lay-offs, and only a few were ever fired. Those dismissals were because of repeated offenses that you simply couldn’t overlook. They were never because we were downsizing. Some of those folks started their own very successful businesses. In fact, one former employee bought my company after having been gone for about ten years. He was a great employee when he worked for me. He and his partners are doing very well with it six years later. Many of the same people still work there after all this time.

I'm all for employing people whenever it makes sense. On the other hand, the idea of taking a successful business and doing something to it that jeopardizes its financial stability is reckless behavior at best. Every employee comes with their own set of challenges. Hopefully the positives outweigh the negatives and they contribute more to the bottom line than they are being paid. That is how business works. If they can't do that (maybe through no fault of their own) and the company goes belly up, then everyone loses their job, the community loses, the local economy loses, and the owners lose. In fact, everyone loses.

Running a business, and being responsible for the livelihood of your employees is not an easy a task. There is a lot that happens in day to day operation that is not obvious on the surface. Making too many changes too fast is a good formula for disaster. Over the 30 years I ran the particular business I spoke of, I learned a lot. Frequently it was done the hard way.

Over and over, I watched as competitors would spring up making a huge investment that featured flashy offices and a huge staff. They would attempt to get very big very fast. Usually, in less than a year, their initial investment would run out so they would borrow even more to prop up the business. They'd continue to party on like there was no tomorrow. Like clockwork, they'd be gone in a couple of years, leaving their bank and investors holding the bag. Did I mention that all those people were out of work? I saw this over and over. The only good thing that ever came out of it was that I occasionally got some pretty good employees as a result of their demise. During that 30 years, the only competitors that ever survived intact did it by sticking to the basics and growing very slowly. The rest went away about as rapidly as they came on the scene.

This wasn't radio, but the principles are the same. If you have a business that is working, you should be very cautious about making rapid change or expansion. I know that isn't fashionable these days, but please note the people who are currently having financial trouble are the same ones who will tell you "If you aren't growing, you are dying." Like everything, there is some truth in that idea, but the key is, "how much growth is enough?"

There are a lot of people who run small clusters that are quite successful. They always have some very good people working for them. In the case of the example at the beginning of this thread, if I were the new owner, I'd be very cautious about making any wholesale changes. I'd put some of my profit into having the best facility I could. This doesn't mean I'd go on a buying spree and replace everything, but I'd make sure that the people who worked for me had the tools they need to do their jobs as best as possible, and that those tools worked properly. This includes maximizing the on air signal and audio quality. I would not rule out adding more air shifts, but I certainly wouldn't be in a huge hurry to do it. Using some of the profits to extend your presence in the community usually pays back. Once again though, I’d be very cautious about how I did it.

From the choices given, the one thing I wouldn’t do (at least not immediately) is to use the profits to buy another cluster and repeat the same formula. If you spread your attention too thinly, you are asking for trouble. Growth if fine, but it needs to be done with caution. Call me old fashioned, but I’ve made a good living by doing that.
 
It seems the veterans of professional radio are rising to the top.

Station owners are in business to make money. The more financially viable the station, the better the station will be equipped to fulfill its responsibility to the community. Still, adding airstaff for the sake of being live is not always best. Finding a good airstaff is almost impossible these days. Let's be honest, even in the hey-day of live radio, many jocks were disfunctional people at best (and I say that as a veteran radio personality). Why jeopardize a good situation with unpredictable people?

Radio listeners listen for their favorite song (in music radio) while N/T listeners want information and ESPN listeners want to hear Colin Cowherd dis Brett Favre. What listeners don't want to hear is idle DJ chatter, and endless bits. DJs should complement the product, not try to be the product.

However, I liked what was said about adding local news, because that could be sold as a sponsorship and N/T listeners like local newscasts at the top and bottom of the hour.
 
Now that everything has been figured out as to how to make these stations work -- when will I get hired to do mid-days or afternoons?

This veteran is ready to rise to the top -- again.

Thanks! ;D
 
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