How does the economy/housing market affect Radio jobs?

[TheBigA]

Re: Quelle Surprise

And people wonder why buyers give radio such a small share of their advertising money...

If you think that's unique to radio, you're nuts.

I know of a public school system that is firing teachers and not buying books, and meanwhile paying several former administrators years and years of severence pay.

This goes on in all industries, in all kinds of work, private and public, and in the government. It also goes on in other countries. I know it's easy and convenient to pick on radio here, but this situation isn't unique. Sure that doesn't excuse it, but let's not throw up our hands in disgust, while this same situation is tolerated everywhere.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Unique - or is that Eunuch?

Yes, the stupidity goes on in other industries as well.

That doesn't make it any less stupid.

 

[mleach]

When was the last time radio was a booming business as in the kind of business that is always hiring? Sales maybe but announcers? Nah I don't think it ever was. Radio as far as the jocks goes it has always been hard to get into reguardless of the overall ecomony, of course with the way things are now with the economy, it surely doesn't help.

Back in 1993 ( when the economy was good ) my radio station was one of the first to pick up the then-new program Blair Garner's After Midnight. True there were other satellite shows and even satellite formats that happened for years before Blair Garner and even Rush Limbaugh but I am pretty sure in the case of After Midnight that was the first show designed to replace a day part..the overnight live airshift on a music station. Ones that were making money, not really so much ones that were having money woes ( or who had very cheap owners ) who used SMN or Unistar rather than local jocks. I still remember the promotional video After Midnight sent us saying how much money a station can save by getting rid of that position and the fact that board-ops aren't needed either to run Blair Garner. Needless to say a lot of radio stations took up the offer including mine and within a couple of years it seemed that just about 80-90% of America's country music stations in both big and small markets were airing Blair Garner. Who knows how many jocks lost their jobs.

Of course after Blair, over the years came other syndicated shows designed to replace other day parts and in other formats too like Delilah, John Tesh, Lia, Tom Kent and of course Ryan Seacrest and this list goes on. Today even many sporting events are automated from locl high school games to major league sports like the Baltimore Orioles and of course many talk shows are toned too where as back in the early 90's many stations still had someone to run the board for them.

As I said earlier, yeah automation and even voice tracking have been around for years before After Midnight and even Rush Limbaugh but I
really believe when those "big" stations started hooking up with After Midnight, that was the start of seeing so many stations starting to turn to automation.

In other words, even if today's economy were to be booming ( of course it isn't ), with technology being the way it is and how so many owners will do anything to save a few bucks, chances are we would still be talking about some bloodbath taking place at this station or how this jock was fired at that station. The economy makes the radio business from one that has always been hard to get into to one that it is next to impossble.

 

[TheBigA]

Long before Blair Garner and Larry King, you had network radio.

It was like network TV. A station signed on as a radio network affiliate, and got a full evening's entertainment, including variety shows, drama, sports, and other entertainment. The station didn't have to hire anyone. This is how radio operated from 1926 until around 1948, when most of the radio stars left for TV. That was the end of the first golden era. Somehow, radio recovered, reinvented itself, and began again. I believe we're at that same point again.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Network radio indeed had a major impact in the early years of radio; but, it was hardly the only source of programming, even for affiliates. There were about half a dozen major networks, and they didn't provide programming 24 hours a day. They did provide network news, but even O&Os had large local news staffs to deliver local news. Network programs had board-ops at every local affiliate, and most had local news cut-ins and local commercials - often delivered live.

Check out any of the old AM studio buildings that are still around. You'll find very large studios that housed the "house orchestra" and locally originated music shows. You'll find large newsrooms with separate announce booths for both staff announcers and newspeople. There were vastly more people employed at network affiliates, and vastly more local programming than we hear at many stations now.

Radio continues to remove live and local programming at its own peril. When you become little more than an iPod with 300 songs, there's no compelling content to bring listeners in. Their MP3 players have a much larger playlist, and can play favorites on demand. What the MP3 player doesn't deliver is new music that might appeal to a listener, and the value-added content of what's going on around town NOW, what their favorite artists are up to NOW, where they can get a great deal on a hot product, etc.

Radio has already "saved" so much money on programming that it's considered largely irrelevant to listeners under 30. More Ryan Seacrest on more stations ain't gonna turn that around.

 

[TheBigA]

they didn't provide programming 24 hours a day.

Most radio stations were not on the air 24 hours a day. That is a very recent phenomenon. You'd be surprised how many stations would sign on and off several times during a day.

You'll find very large studios that housed the "house orchestra" and locally originated music shows.

That was because radio stations were prohibited by law from playing recorded music. That changed in the mid-1940s, and that's when all the local orchestras went away.

There were vastly more people employed at network affiliates, and vastly more local programming than we hear at many stations now.

The process of doing radio has become easier and less technical. Combo operation became the norm 40 years ago.

I disagree with the "more local programming then than now" line. The radio networks in the 30s and 40s provided as much as 10 hours a day of national programming. The only company that does that much now is NPR. Most commercial radio stations have local shows at least 20 hours a day. Some even more than 20. It is to their advantage to run local shows, because the station keeps all of the money, while a syndicator will demand several spots an hour. If you have a good ad rate, that will add up to more than a full time salary.

More Ryan Seacrest on more stations ain't gonna turn that around.

Ryan does a much better job of entertaining the public than a local DJ with another ten in a row. He is better known, and has access to bigger stars. There are very few local DJs that can make a more compelling show than Ryan.

Back in the 50s, listeners used to DX far-away stations in order to hear great radio. Today, that's more difficult since FM doesn't carry as far as AM. The solution is to take the best talent in the country, and make them available to more listeners.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

It appears we all "remember radio in our own special way". And since every message does not carry the date-of-birth of the writer, we are not sure what era they are talking about when they share with us a story about "back in the day".

In the 1950s in rural America, it was typical for a full-time station in the Central Time Zone to sign-off at 10 P.M. I can't remember whether network programming was still going on after that hour IF the station had chosen to keep burning kilowatts. And I can tell you that towns gave evidence that they too were "signed off" as you drove home from the station shortly after the 10 P.M. sign off.

And just because the networks were pumping out hours and hours of programming does not mean affiliated stations were plugged in a carrying it all. The networks needed to start early enough to meet the opportunities of the Eastern time zone, and continue until the Western time zone was put to bed.

If your combo announcer/technician shift ran from 6 A.M to 1 P.M., you needed to "ride the network" for an hour to two hours late morning so you could pull together you Noon hour. The pig markets and the hog markets and the baseball scores did not magically appear in your hands at 11:59. Sometime during the morning you went through reams of teletype copy pulling out all those obscure flotsams of information that some salesman had convince the local Purina dealer he should sponsor on a daily basis, complete with a marching band theme song.

Just in case some of you have not heard: RADIO DID NOT BEGIN circa 1991.

P.S. my memory is that it was not LAW that required lived musicians and prohibited record playing in the 30s and into the early 40s: it was the musicians union rule. And every program on the networks (and I assume large city major stations) carried that unforgetable tagline that this program was possible "through the cooperations of JAMES P. PATRILLO, president of the musicians union.

 

[jackandcoke]

When was the last time radio was a booming business as in the kind of business that is always hiring? Sales maybe but announcers? Nah I don't think it ever was.

Radio was "always hiring" all through the sixties, seventies & eighties and didn't come to a full halt until the Telecom Bill of 1996 virtually mandated consolidation (as my boss said at the time "You've gotta be a buyer or a seller--there's no in-between"). During the pre-consolidation "trial period" of LMAs in the early nineties hiring slowed a bit, but it was not until CC began scooping up stations by the truckload and stripping them down of employees in '96-'97 that the door got slammed to outsiders.

Why? Because the sudden glut of skilled, experience radio pros turned loose on the job market all at once meant that every opening--no matter how small or low-paying--attracted tons of highly qualified applicants.

Getting hired as a jock was indeed always difficult--because it is a "talent" field (like singing or dancing or carrying a football)--and because so many people wanted to do it. As a PD in the seventies and a GM in the eighties I recall getting swamped with tapes & resumes every time an on-air opening occurred--and each applicant would be willing to work for less than anyone else!!! That supply/demand dynamic had the effect of keeping jock salaries permanently low.

Now? It's tough to get an 18-year old high school grad or a 22-year old college grad interested in being on the radio. When the current crop of 50-year old jocks retires and/or dies...

 

[Stewy]

The sleeper will awaken........

 

[TheBigA]

Now? It's tough to get an 18-year old high school grad or a 22-year old college grad interested in being on the radio.

I just posted a job opening, and 25% were under 25. Another 25% were over 55. The rest were in between.

I went back to my old college station, and was amazed at the number of college kids who love radio.

 

[SirRoxalot]

College Must Be Working

I went back to my old college station, and was amazed at the number of college kids who love radio.

I went back to my old college station, and was amazed at the number of college kids who love radio, but have NO intention of getting into the business because "IT DOESN'T PAY".

Then again, they think that $50K is a starting salary...

 

[davideduardo]

The sleeper will awaken........

Radio Shai-Hulud?

 

[davideduardo]

Most radio stations were not on the air 24 hours a day. That is a very recent phenomenon. You'd be surprised how many stations would sign on and off several times during a day.

Not since the 20's has that been anything but a rare exception.

In the dark days of FM (FM count fell by nearly half from 1950 to 1960), some of those FM stations that did not simulcast had limited schedules of perhaps 6 to 8 hours a day, but that was due to the hard times for all FMs back then.

24/7 broadcasting came in the 50's and 60's when stations had better equipment, sometimes unattended, but still found that sign on was the biggest stress on the transmitter. Rather than lose morning drive when the gear did not work, or be on the low power AUX, they stayed on all night! Anecdotally, I had a similar experience: my first FM would not go on one morning, and the cause was a rat that somehow got into the transmitter and went to sleep only to become a crispy critter at sign on!

That was because radio stations were prohibited by law from playing recorded music. That changed in the mid-1940s, and that's when all the local orchestras went away.

Not law, just the greater power of unions in the 30's and 40's. Joe Petrillo's AFM (American Federation of Musicians) has a stranglehold on radio, and even in small markets like Chatanooga a house orchestra was required. By 1949-1950, the union's hold on radio programming was on the wane, and that is how we got music stations such as those of Todd Storz and Gordon McLendon in the early 50's.

(If you can get late 40's Broadcasting Magazine editions, nearly every week there is something about the AFM and the legal cases that eroded its grasp)

There were vastly more people employed at network affiliates, and vastly more local programming than we hear at many stations now.

Of course there were more people at the individual stations. In 1940, there were 1000 stations, today, with LPFMs and such, there are nearly 16,000. KFI was one of the network's Palm Springs affiliates... nearly 150 miles away! Or, in a smaller market, Traverse City, MI, there was one 250 watt station after the War... today there are more than 15 city grade signals over that market.

The process of doing radio has become easier and less technical. Combo operation became the norm 40 years ago.

Try 50 or more years ago. The music stations known as Top 40 nearly always, save union shops, had combo operations because it was tighter and sounded better!

The radio networks in the 30s and 40s provided as much as 10 hours a day of national programming. The only company that does that much now is NPR. Most commercial radio stations have local shows at least 20 hours a day.

Nope. The webs of the 30's and 40's have been replaced by syndiactors such as Dial Global and many smaller ad hoc network configurators providing in many cases 24/7 programming.

Back in the 50s, listeners used to DX far-away stations in order to hear great radio. Today, that's more difficult since FM doesn't carry as far as AM. The solution is to take the best talent in the country, and make them available to more listeners.

Listeners tuned to distant stations because overally there were few stations and, often, none for 50,100, 200 miles in some parts of the country.

Check the Radex Magazines at www.americanradiohistory.com for a monthly narrative of what was on the radio and how you could hear it if you were not in one of the large cities... in an era when far fewer Americans lived in the big cities.

 

[amfmxm]

Now? It's tough to get an 18-year old high school grad or a 22-year old college grad interested in being on the radio.

I just posted a job opening, and 25% were under 25. Another 25% were over 55. The rest were in between.

I went back to my old college station, and was amazed at the number of college kids who love radio.

I teach broadcasting courses at a Big Ten university and have been able to hire several excellent grads from the College of Comm. But they are the exceptions, not the rule. The 18-24 set was the first to flee radio for online music four or five years ago, and the current crop seems much more focused on careers in webcommerce than either radio or television. TV still has some glamour attached, but radio is "something I listened to in junior high school."

Again, there are exceptions, but it is much more difficult for radio companies to attract the Best & Brightest.

 

[TheBigA]

Again, there are exceptions, but it is much more difficult for radio companies to attract the Best & Brightest.

Hmmm. When did radio ever attract the best & brightest? The current managers for the most part have been in the industry for 20 years. Would you call them the best & brightest?

If I was among the best & brightest, I'd be looking for ways I can start my own business. Not become an employee of someone else's. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Hmmm. When did radio ever attract the best & brightest? The current managers for the most part have been in the industry for 20 years. Would you call them the best & brightest?

If I was among the best & brightest, I'd be looking for ways I can start my own business. Not become an employee of someone else's. Just my 2 cents.

May I suggest you have confused intelligence and personality traits.

Some people who have the entrepreneurial drive to start their own business (the PERSONALITY drive) are very intelligent, most are modestly bright, and some are a bit dim-witted.

Some people who choose to ally themselves to a company or an industry or to government emplyment are very intelligent, most are modestly bright, and some are a bit dim-witted.

My old mentor used to say: "All the guys who made As in college went on to be professors, all the guys who made Bs in college went on to be judges, and those of us who made Cs went on to make all the money."

Before you break your arm patting yourself on the back for being bright and intelligent, remind yourself that a lot of people have to start their own business because they are so personality challenged that they cannot successfully work FOR someone.

The sad thing for radio is that the current breed of "I have to run the show" folks that manage and own radio can't get along with the hired help well enough to keep the best and the brightest who have a love for the art of communications.

 

[TheBigA]

Most radio stations were not on the air 24 hours a day. That is a very recent phenomenon. You'd be surprised how many stations would sign on and off several times during a day.

Not since the 20's has that been anything but a rare exception.

Nope. It continued in the 1930s. In New York City.

The webs of the 30's and 40's have been replaced by syndiactors such as Dial Global and many smaller ad hoc network configurators providing in many cases 24/7 programming.

Those are program formats. Not comparative to programming that NBC or CBS did in the 30s and 40s. NPR still does that kind of production intensive programming. "Webs" ceased to exist when satellites and other forms of distribution replaced AT&T long lines.

Not law, just the greater power of unions in the 30's and 40's.

What I meant was the notation on recordings during that time that clearly said "Not For Broadcast." But yes, you're correct.

 

[davideduardo]

Nope. It continued in the 1930s. In New York City.

Are you, perhaps, confusing shared time facilites like 1380's WBNX and WAWZ with limited schedule operation?

The webs of the 30's and 40's have been replaced by syndiactors such as Dial Global and many smaller ad hoc network configurators providing in many cases 24/7 programming.

Those are program formats. Not comparative to programming that NBC or CBS did in the 30s and 40s. NPR still does that kind of production intensive programming. "Webs" ceased to exist when satellites and other forms of distribution replaced AT&T long lines.

A network is simply a group of stations taking programs / programming from one or a few central points. Today's music based networks are just as "networky" as the Red and the Blue networks were... and then we have webs such as the talk providers, whether 24/7 or for just one of a couple of shows. They are networks, too.

What has canged is the content that "works" on radio. Before TV, radio was the sole purveyor of entertainment shows based on drama, comedy, etc., as well as news and sports. As TV exploded in the post-freeze era, radio abandoned that model and developed, first, music formats or music and news formats and then talk offernings.

Technology made it possible to network once again, providing good programming to smaller markets or exceptional talent to larger ones. And they are still networks.

 

[TheBigA]

Are you, perhaps, confusing shared time facilites like 1380's WBNX and WAWZ with limited schedule operation?

No. Those were not the stations I was thinking of. Time sharing continues today, especially with some LPFMs.

Technology made it possible to network once again, providing good programming to smaller markets or exceptional talent to larger ones. And they are still networks.

I'm not debating "networks." My comment has to do with the production level of the content. If it's content that a station can do on its own without giving up any inventory, then there's not much value in the content. These stations have decided the economics is worth it, and that's fine for them. But on its own, the content has minimal value. As compared to the kind of content that networks had provided in the past.

What we're starting to see, with shows like Ryan Seacrest and Steve Harvey and a few others, is content that actually is beyond what most local stations can do. It's too early to judge Seacrest, but Harvey is a success. I'm hoping that we'll get a revival of national programming that has value to advertisers and listeners, and in that way, creates value for radio in general.

 

[mleach]

Re: College Must Be Working

I went back to my old college station, and was amazed at the number of college kids who love radio.

I went back to my old college station, and was amazed at the number of college kids who love radio, but have NO intention of getting into the business because "IT DOESN'T PAY".

Then again, they think that $50K is a starting salary...

50K Huh? Well for a lot of folks, they really believe radio is this "Hollywood" type of business that pays BIG. They read about the millions that Stern, Limbaugh, and John Tesh makes and assume they "could" make that same amount in small town North Carolina. The hear stories about limos taking employees to work at NYC's WABC and assume the same thing is being done at WTBO-AM in Cumberland, Maryland. They see Ryan Seacrest and old photos of the late Real Don Steele hanging around the biggest stars as if they were like family and assume the same thing can happen in South Dakota too. Working in Grafton, West Virginia one day and then Los Angeles the next. Those radio contracts one must sign before they go on the air ( funny..I had never had to sign any !!!" ) Oh....Sooooooooooo Hollywood...just like Lana Turner !!!!!

Sadly over the years I have met many newbees in the biz who really believed this stuff only to actually get into the biz and then they learn..well it aint all that. None of that..actually !!!