any word whether any Seattle people are affected by the newest round of national layoffs?
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iHeart(less)
- Thread starter LITTLEBOYBLUE
- Start date
Sad to see cuts across the nation, hope Seattle was spared this round.
Here's the running list: https://radioinsight.com/headlines/227954/iheartmedia-initiates-round-of-layoffs/
Doesn't that usually happen in November, just in time for the holiday shopping season? After all, that's the month most corporations work up the following year's budget, not June.
They need local sales. So it's not likely. But that's exactly how EMF works.
How would a station just being a rack alter that? Are local sales reps all that important in this day of Zoom and other computer conferencing apps?
Plenty of European stations are just this - a computer in an office building somewhere, which takes the network feed and injects local ads (and news/traffic, where required). Local sales work out of that office, but there are no or very limited studio facilities, usually just a news booth.
Same in Latin America. As in Europe, in many cases, the national format has no local inserts... just national content. The local traffic and other items are provided on the web service as apps within the network website.
Because in most of Europe and all of Latin America, there is only minimal news at the state-equivalent level due to vastly greater centralization of power, there is little daily news in Oaxaca or Bordeaux or Punta Arenas. So stations have a way to do emergency network break-aways for storms and other disasters, but otherwise there is nothing local.
Metromedia tried to do a local news station in Berlin about 25 years or so back. No ad buys, little audience. Buyers and listeners wanted German news, not Berlin news.
The USA is far more decentralized than other nations, so there is a tendency to think that localism is needed. The lack of same killed the NBC all-news syndicated format back in the late 70's, but that was nearly half a century ago.
Getting back to the main topic, this doesn't appear to be a big deal. Seattle recently eliminated the staff of KUBE when they created the KJR simulcast. So probably no additional cuts in Seattle.
The problem is that inflation has increased the cost of doing business. So everything the station does costs more, from utilities to office supplies, and revenues aren't making up for that. So the only solution is to trim the local budget somehow. You will likely start to see this at other non-broadcast companies.
The problem is that inflation has increased the cost of doing business. So everything the station does costs more, from utilities to office supplies, and revenues aren't making up for that. So the only solution is to trim the local budget somehow. You will likely start to see this at other non-broadcast companies.
I agree, I think that eliminating KUBE probably went a long way in preserving some key positions at the stations that perform better.
I've heard this is literally what they are working on. Just a playout server box at each transmitter. Which in theory would be nice cause it would eliminate all studio side audio chain.
This, and key radio plus TV advertising is way down, including: Automotive, Furniture, and Big Box stores. Much of those categories being off are due to inflation and continuing supply chain issues.
GEICO and Progressive buy expiring stock. It's all about volume for those two. If you have an extra space that would otherwise be taken up by a PSA in order to fill the stopset before going back to network, a few bucks from the lizard is better than nothing at all.
You bring up a sales niche that is seldom mentioned and not even known by many.
Usually, these are "standing orders" and today's traffic systems allow for some variant of what we used to call "run of schedule" orders that got filled at the very last if they fit in otherwise unsold slots.
I once launched a new radio format in a Top 20 market over a weekend that was the 30'th and 31st of December. After Christmas, TV stations have loads of avails, and commercial breaks tend to be filled with Smokey the Bear and Safe Driving spots. So, on the 29th I called the sales managers of the Big 3 TV outlets and offered them less than $30 a spot to run in every stopset with an avail on Saturday and Sunday. They cheerfully accepted, and for what ended up being less that $15,000 I got something like a 1,200 GRPs over that weekend. Sometimes you could skim channels and see the spot simultaneously on all three.
The TV sellers each got a little bit more revenue to close out the year and did not have to run awful PSAs back to back. It's a great way to run TV. And I used the same concept in several other markets where I did standing orders for Monday and Tuesday unsold avails... the days local retail does not buy as heavily.
Correct although a lot of the buys are made at the national level by the various programming and commercial distribution syndicators.
I would wager that sort of 'trimming' of staff will indeed hit other businesses because of inflation.
inflation is not necessarily a factor that can just be dealt with by raising your prices. I get into arguments online periodically with anti-tax people who claim that whenever taxes are increased on businesses, they instantly pass it on to consumers.
Such people don't understand that not all businesses can do that. Many businesses have to cut costs to deal with increased 'fixed' costs, be they taxes, or inflation in this case. They also have to cut costs to compete in field where there is a lot of tough competition
Radio is competing in a tough advertising market. You can't just raise your rates and survive. it's a sad fact of many businesses, including radio, where your advertising competition is so varied, and increasingly internet-based.
And as BigA and David pointed out; insurance companies aren't local or regional like car dealers and furniture stores. They're national ad buys based on volume rates. It's impossible to maintain past expense and still make a buck when your local income sources has suspended buying ads. Radio groups are being forced to adapt to the expectation, that this sort of thing effecting the greater economy could, and probably will, happen more often in the future.
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