It's a blue Christmas on Oxford Street.
But not just there.
All across the USA, Clear Channel firings continue.
www.RadioAndRecords.com has actually created a web page to track them.
And it's not just Clear Channel.
On July 12, CBS Radio abruptly terminated 115 people, of all job descriptions; some recently hired, others longtime employees; at stations all over their O&O map, including stations they were offering for sale. Shocker firings included President of Programming Rob Barnett, who had just keynoted the Talkers magazine New Media Seminar.
But all of this is after-the-fact reporting, of a train wreck that began in 1995.
What you are about to read could give you chills.
One radio station owner, in Texas, was a lonely voice, trying to warn the most influential person in broadcasting that industry deregulation -- which RADIO STATION OWNERS were being rallied to support -- would end with what's happening on Oxford Street, and in markets everywhere right now.
The detail with which he predicted PRECISELY what has happened to radio since the Telecom Act of 1996 is no less than stunning.
Unlike many mom-and-pop owners who were seduced by Clear Channel's willingness to over-pay for stations like WHJJ, this Texan kept his stations. To this day, he's still there, in the corner office, managing an operation that employs more local talent than many larger market stations now have. It's called local programming.
Recently, he found the eerily prescient letter he wrote to then National Association of Broadcasters President Eddie Fritts...a letter that went unanswered...back before what-is-now-playing-out began to unfold.
This was 1995...so long ago that it took the writer a while to get modern computers to open the file he had written with word processor software then in use.
When he did, he sent me the letter.
When I read it, I was as taken-aback as you will be.
I asked him, my client Paul Gleiser, if I could print his letter, for the entire industry to read.
Without hesitation, he drawled, "PLEASE DO!"
See page 2 of the download you'll get when you click http://hollandcooke.com/20062007.pdf
Make sure you're sitting down when you read what Paul wrote, before the train left the station.
Good evening from Block Island,
HC
www.HollandCooke.com
But not just there.
All across the USA, Clear Channel firings continue.
www.RadioAndRecords.com has actually created a web page to track them.
And it's not just Clear Channel.
On July 12, CBS Radio abruptly terminated 115 people, of all job descriptions; some recently hired, others longtime employees; at stations all over their O&O map, including stations they were offering for sale. Shocker firings included President of Programming Rob Barnett, who had just keynoted the Talkers magazine New Media Seminar.
But all of this is after-the-fact reporting, of a train wreck that began in 1995.
What you are about to read could give you chills.
One radio station owner, in Texas, was a lonely voice, trying to warn the most influential person in broadcasting that industry deregulation -- which RADIO STATION OWNERS were being rallied to support -- would end with what's happening on Oxford Street, and in markets everywhere right now.
The detail with which he predicted PRECISELY what has happened to radio since the Telecom Act of 1996 is no less than stunning.
Unlike many mom-and-pop owners who were seduced by Clear Channel's willingness to over-pay for stations like WHJJ, this Texan kept his stations. To this day, he's still there, in the corner office, managing an operation that employs more local talent than many larger market stations now have. It's called local programming.
Recently, he found the eerily prescient letter he wrote to then National Association of Broadcasters President Eddie Fritts...a letter that went unanswered...back before what-is-now-playing-out began to unfold.
This was 1995...so long ago that it took the writer a while to get modern computers to open the file he had written with word processor software then in use.
When he did, he sent me the letter.
When I read it, I was as taken-aback as you will be.
I asked him, my client Paul Gleiser, if I could print his letter, for the entire industry to read.
Without hesitation, he drawled, "PLEASE DO!"
See page 2 of the download you'll get when you click http://hollandcooke.com/20062007.pdf
Make sure you're sitting down when you read what Paul wrote, before the train left the station.
Good evening from Block Island,
HC
www.HollandCooke.com