Be Glad Citadel is not in Seattle

[djdan]

Pretty grim today. My friends at Citadel are catching their breath after changes in just about every major market. Major league talent let go and formats about to change. Citadel earnings way off. In New York WPLJ was off 50% in national business. Jan/Feb numbers for Seattle are in double digit declines, but not what our agency is seeing in places like NY, LA, Chicago, Dallas and SF. All with 20% plus declines in national business. Local is dropping too.

My question for the programming side? How do you get through these times? Do you cut marketing? Do you cut staff?
Do you cut management? Seems Clear Channel is cutting marketing and freezing expenses, Citadel is cutting staff and revamping formats, Infinity is cutting upper management.

In the sales game, the cuts are instant. The people first hurt are salespeople, because when sales go down, their salaries go down. Talent love to mock us when times are good, but try living on commission when times are bad.

 

[radioprofessor]

In my humble opinion radio is finally going through what other companies went through a decade ago. The good talent will survive and be heard on more platforms than ever before. The primary competition for radio is internet advertising where many of the radio dollars are going. You can tell exactly how many people view or hear your message and use a hyper target parameter to reach audience. Radio must get better to win by leaving only the top local talent on a few stations and integrate national talent on the rest. Internet is where the new music debuts and where the new talent get trained. Radio needs to be bigger than that to win. The question I pose to Seattle radio is who would you keep if you wanted to create one great local news station, one great local contemporary station, one great country station, one great adult male music full service station and one great adult female music full service station. These are the five local formats that will be left. The rest will be national.

My picks:

News: Bob Rivers Mornings and KIRO the rest of the day. (Either Programmer)
Country: KMPS Mornings and WOLF the rest of the day. (KMPS Programmer)
Contemporary: KUBE Mornings and Afternoons. KBKS Nights (Either Programmer)
Adult Male Music/Full Service: BJ Shea Mornings and KZOK rest of the day. (KZOK Programmer)
Adult Female Music/Full Service: Kent and Alan Mornings and WARMthe rest of the day. (Either Programmer)

Five great station parameters with the top talent. National talent fill the rest of the stations. This is how local radio survives by going back to a handful of great stations. Go national or experiment with the others. My fear is radio won't get it before it is too late.

 

[TakeItFromMe]

Prof cowboy what are you smokin ???
First of all dude, radio ain't gonna get better by firing all the talent. What will make radio better
is for the corporate suits to quit demanding 40 and 50% profit. My buddy owns a small store and hopes
for 10%. It is time to get back to just owning one or two stations in a market and trying to win with what ya
got

I know that you are a consultant suit and that probably ain't what's gonna happen but if we
go your route you got the stations all wrong dude

Hit Music: T-man is all talk. Put on the ladies at Movin and Kube the rest of the day. Be young, play hits
Old News: Komo or Kiro take your pick :-\
Young Talk: Rivers, BJ and T-Man nights. Talk about a winner ;D
Country: Ich mornings, Fitz afternoons or reverse it
Old Ladies: You probablyh got that right
Guys: Shut up and rock ;D

 

[Darkon]

Prof cowboy what are you smokin ???
First of all dude, radio ain't gonna get better by firing all the talent. What will make radio better
is for the corporate suits to quit demanding 40 and 50% profit. My buddy owns a small store and hopes
for 10%. It is time to get back to just owning one or two stations in a market and trying to win with what ya
got

I know that you are a consultant suit and that probably ain't what's gonna happen but if we
go your route you got the stations all wrong dude

Hit Music: T-man is all talk. Put on the ladies at Movin and Kube the rest of the day. Be young, play hits
Old News: Komo or Kiro take your pick :-\
Young Talk: Rivers, BJ and T-Man nights. Talk about a winner ;D
Country: Ich mornings, Fitz afternoons or reverse it
Old Ladies: You probablyh got that right
Guys: Shut up and rock ;D

Can we please put a moratorium on the use of emoticons....save them for your myspace page.

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

Am trying to remain objective about this ... but it's hard not to be biased when a new operator takes over well-programmed and on-track stations and suddenly finds themselves in a world of brown gooey substance. Cumulus took over the Susquehanna stations and have taken most of the heritage ones straight into the toilet. THAT wasn't an economic thing .. it was idiots running the asylum who undid what it took years and years to develop. In this case ... harder to tell because Citadel is MUCH better operation than Cumulus (bunch of family suck-ups...kinda like the MaysTown circus), and they had good solid talent at both the mike and programming levels. Most of those stations had the same momentum that ABC had put behind .... even though ABC also notorious for "corporate culture" (people used to refer ro the "#@*#%$# cheap mouse"). CBS also let go some exceptional people...and for a company that SHOULD know better ... started having PD's double up ("you know country so we assume you know jazz too..."). The only major difference (besides all the competition on the media & programming fronts) that I really see today vs. a few years ago is that the senior management is much more quick to panic and play shell games to make each quarter report look stellar. When you "shell game" it, eventually whatever shuffles you have done come back to bite.... I used to accuse Fisher of doing that all the time. Every year had some super red herring transaction so you really had to dig to figure out how the company was doing (easier to do when you still have a real estate company). Acquisitions, selling properties, etc. are great ways to throw shareholders off the scent because there are always big herkin' adjustments showing up that are great ways when you have some 'splainin' to do.

I hope Citadel gets it back on track. Under Sir Lawrence they used to be an amazingly well-run company.

 

[djspills]

Agreed. Citadel used to be one of better companies to work for. I believe it's still that way in smaller markets. Heaven forbid they should become the next Clear Channel.

 

[Bongwater]

I may be wrong, but isn't KKDZ owned by ABC/Disney aka Citadel?

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

I may be wrong, but isn't KKDZ owned by ABC/Disney aka Citadel?

Don't believe so. ABC Radio spun its stations to Citadel (parent = ABC, whose parent is Disney). Disney radio is a division of Disney (not ABC) so was not affected by that previous sale. Amazing how little communication the two groups had in common (ABC + Disney) even though both were radio properties.

 

[Bongwater]

I may be wrong, but isn't KKDZ owned by ABC/Disney aka Citadel?

Don't believe so. ABC Radio spun its stations to Citadel (parent = ABC, whose parent is Disney). Disney radio is a division of Disney (not ABC) so was not affected by that previous sale. Amazing how little communication the two groups had in common (ABC + Disney) even though both were radio properties.

Amazing how damn little anybody in the brass of this industry communicates. It sure as hell don't help nothin'. There's better ideas floatin' around these boards from 18 year old upstarts with no prior radio experience whatsoever than those at the top.

But then again, EVERYBODY is (supposedly) right at the corparate level (SIGH!)

No wonder most commercial radio sucks these days.

I really think we need NOW more than ever to break up some of these "old boys" clubs radio consists of today (not old school jocks and owners. THEY had a vision. THESE people at the corporate level simply do not......)