Flag Draped Coffins at Susquehanna

[spark gap]

You know it is too bad people lost their jobs on at Susq, however most of us who frequent this board have 401K's invested in the stock market. There are two ways to make stock prices go higher...increase sales or decrease expenses. So we all sit here and decry how horrible Cumulus is; we all laud similar actions in different industries. Does this qualify as a conundrum?

 

[VOXPOP]

If I am a stockholder in a company, I do not want them to harm their product by cutting expenses. That eventually results in decreased sales and decreased shareholder value. It's called penny-wise/pound foolish. KLIF used to be making a lot of money with ratings almost twice what they have now before they started cutting expenses to make their quarterly, bi-annual and annual reports make management qualify for bonuses.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Cutting muscle out for short-term gains may cause quick improvements to the bottom line, however the end result won't be positive. Even Crap Channel has slowly learned to a certain extent you HAVE to have some good people working the machine, or it just won't run properly. The Indian might have had a few extra administrative people around, however, the weren't overburdened with too many extra actual workers. Overall corporately, they had a good operation IMHO due to having good people. Now they have purged many of them, look for the new Cume-less to loose some ratings and ultimately revenue.Lets watch and see. I bet in a year or less the result of their ruthlessness will come to light. You can't cut muscle and win long-term.

 

[CatfishJimPrewitt]

Good point. However i would say the profit margin seems to be widening quite a bit in recent years. I recall a time when investors were happy with 5, 10, 15% return, now gimme gimme gimme 30, 40, 50 +

 

[Kent]

You know it is too bad people lost their jobs on at Susq, however most of us who frequent this board have 401K's invested in the stock market. There are two ways to make stock prices go higher...increase sales or decrease expenses. So we all sit here and decry how horrible Cumulus is; we all laud similar actions in different industries. Does this qualify as a conundrum?

Yes, it's a contradiction. It's human nature, plain and simple. People don't mind, and may even be happy, seeing cuts so long as they are the beneficiaries and neither they nor those close to them are affected.However, the other posters in this thread also have a point. You can cut too much, and you can cut good people who really helped you. Given Susquehanna's management structure and how it wasn't a publically-traded company, some cuts were inevitable. Susquehanna did have a lot of duplicate positions that paid high salaries, and it had a lot of positions that simply don't exist in the Cumulus world. However, you have to cut sensibly. People really should be seen for who they are and what they do as opposed to just a figure on a budget. It wasn't too long ago that I was an award winning employee who got the shaft after my operations manager apparently decided very abruptly to try sending my career into a downward spiral for reasons I still neither know nor understand. I just got a call from my PD one day saying our OM wanted me off-the-air and would do my airshifts himself with no further explanation. It's purely coincidence, however, that the company signing our paychecks was Cumulus. My point is that bad things happen to good people in this industry, and it's really quite common whether you work for the largest company in the business or one of the smallest. I see that as a real problem and something that's bad for everyone involved. By the way, if you're curious, he didn't succeed in sending my career south. In fact, even the very same Cumulus cluster has called me twice and asked me to come back, which I have declined because I have a much better job. He didn't end up hurting me in the least, and he knows it. Granted, he made about three months of my life pure hell and turned what I had called my dream job into a nightmare. However, I got a much better job and still get to do radio. He's seen me twice since my departure, and you should've seen the look on his face! I've moved up in the last two years while he's moved down. His own downward spiral is largely the result of his cutting good people for sport (I was not the only one) despite their helping him do his job. So, maybe there's a little message of hope to those good employees who suddenly, and unexpectedly, found themselves out of work this past week.

 

[SmokeRing]

"most of us who frequent this board have 401K's invested in the stock market. There are two ways to make stock prices go higher...increase sales or decrease expenses. So we all sit here and decry how horrible Cumulus is; we all laud similar actions in different industries. Does this qualify as a conundrum?"First off, I don't laud similar actions in different industries. I applaud companies that innovate. Companies that offer new and fresh twists on existing products. Companies that fill their ranks with the brightest and sharpest individuals they can find--individuals who thrive on competition and winning the race.These are the companies that grow and succeed by throwing talent at problems--not by cutting cost. Most (but not all) of the people I've met who run radio stations--the PD's, the GSM's, the GM's--would rarely get an interview at such companies, much less be hired by them. That's radio's problem. Too much mediocrity at the top. Too many yes-men at the bottom.An analogy: Ever watch the first episodes of American Idol each season? And have you seen the people who step up and pinch off the most off-pitch and wretched vocals you've ever heard? And then they are shocked--SHOCKED!--to learn they didn't make the cut. They truely have NO idea they can't sing--at least not at a professional level.We have a similar problem in radio. The decision makers in the industry have NO idea they can't sing. But the audience does.Oh, were we talking about our 401K's?

 

[spark gap]

Yes we are talking about our 401k's. Everyone brings up great points. KVIL used to run a jingle back in the 70's or early 80's "It's a shame what happened to radio...they can't afford to do it anymore."Where are the likes of Fairbanks Broadcasting? Susquehanna seems to have been one of the last big broadcasting companies wearing a white hat.