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iHeart Restructures - Departures

DavidEduardo said:
Unless we want nearly all news to be distributed by Facebook and Twitter and the like, changes have to be made to allow consolidation at the local level of traditional media.
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Absolutely correct. The irony is that those opposing this are actually hurting truly local news generation and making it harder for both radio stations and newspapers to be financially viable.
 
That's part of the problem. The other one is that people can self-select their info silo. People want Facebook to do something about that, from conservatives who would like Facebook to force feed Breitbart and pro-Trump stories to liberals who don't want them, to liberals who thing conservatives should be force feed "the truth". Then there are folks who want to only follow photgraphy and music pages.

There are complaints that Facebook won't fact check and censor political ads. I don't know how, with the sheer volume of local, state and national ads they could even begin. "My opponent suppors high taxes!" How do you fact check that at the county level?



CTListener said:
It's not so much that Facebook and Twitter and Google are distributing the news, it's that they're distributing news gathered, slanted or just plain fabricated by so many "news organizations" practically indiscriminately. I don't trust Breitbart, I don't trust Occupy Democrats. But like so many people, the first thing I do when going online is check Facebook and Google News. Both know what sort of subject matter interests me, so they push stories about those topics my way -- hardly any of them objective.
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If the stripped down Gannett merges with the stripped-down iHeart, that means two entities that barely do local news still not doing local news.

umfan said:
Absolutely correct. The irony is that those opposing this are actually hurting truly local news generation and making it harder for both radio stations and newspapers to be financially viable.
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DavidEduardo said:
Interestingly, a look at Bernie Sanders' platform shows a plank that rather vehemently opposes newspaper and electronic media cross ownership.
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It's not just Bernie. Most of the Democrats are against media consolidation, and the Republicans are against the liberal media and liberal tech companies. Both views are bad for freedom of the press. The 1st amendment says "Congress shall make no law." But they're trying to use anti-trust laws to regulate the media.

The problem isn't just first amendment, but also how media is financed. The ad-supported model is based on audience size. The bigger the audience, the better for advertisers. So the goal for ad supported media has been to grow distribution or circulation. So if the public wants FREE media, they can't limit the size of the audience. But that would also be the case for subscription-based media.

Both newspapers and iHeart have cited Facebook and Google as the reasons for their financial issues. That's because of the immense size of the internet platform compared to conventional terrestrial media. But both Facebook and Google are built on user-generated content. They don't create their own content. So a partnership between newspapers and Facebook or radio and streaming would provide the internet-based companies with a source of content that they don't have now.
 
RadioPatrol said:
Here is an editorial on the Iheart cuts
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Interesting editorial, One particular section stood out to me:

From talking to many people on the programming end as well as those in the record industry, the remaining local Program Directors will no longer directly schedule music at their stations. They will still have the ability to suggest additions or removals of songs for their stations but the actual playlists will be done on the corporate level.
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This idea has been discussed many times before over the past 20 years. The primary problem has to do with music charts run by Billboard and iHeart-owned Mediabase. Reporting to those charts carries certain requirements. The purpose of being a reporting station is to submit your unique playlist for the purpose of creating an airplay chart. If the station playlist isn't being created by the station, but from corporate, they should only count as one station. Perhaps one very big station, with a huge number of listeners, but it's still one playlist. There is that phrase where stations will have the ability to suggest additions or removals, but I wonder how significant that will be. I'm sure this has already come up, and I'm sure the labels have weighed in on this because the record labels will be directly affected by this. We will see how this is handled in the coming weeks.
 
TheBigA said:
This idea has been discussed many times before over the past 20 years. The primary problem has to do with music charts run by Billboard and iHeart-owned Mediabase. Reporting to those charts carries certain requirements. The purpose of being a reporting station is to submit your unique playlist for the purpose of creating an airplay chart. If the station playlist isn't being created by the station, but from corporate, they should only count as one station. Perhaps one very big station, with a huge number of listeners, but it's still one playlist. There is that phrase where stations will have the ability to suggest additions or removals, but I wonder how significant that will be. I'm sure this has already come up, and I'm sure the labels have weighed in on this because the record labels will be directly affected by this. We will see how this is handled in the coming weeks.
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But the charts based on airplay are weighted by listenership. A station in NYC counts a lot more than one in Miami, and the Miami one more than one in Pensacola.
 
DavidEduardo said:
But the charts based on airplay are weighted by listenership. A station in NYC counts a lot more than one in Miami, and the Miami one more than one in Pensacola.
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As I said, that weighting would be accounted for, as it is with certain existing group reports. It may end up being a massive number. But it's only one playlist, not identical playlists submitted by individual stations. As a result, we may see fewer station-produced events, such as listener appreciation shows in specific markets, and more corporate events, such as the iHeart Music Festival or iHeart Music Awards. Given there is less staffing at those stations, they probably couldn't handle those local events any more. That ends up being another competitive advantage for other stations in the market.
 
seatownmedia said:
A lot of times in these type of situations the managers are the last to be fired in order to allow for smooth firings of the rank and file. I’m not sure this is going on here as I see some managers are already gone. Either way this a bloodbath and likely cements the end of radio as we know it. The medium will survive but will continue to be very different from it has been in our lifetimes. Sad.
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Keep in mind IHeart is 850 of 15000 signals. They make up a very small pecentage of the total collective. There are a lot of stations that produce local content and have live jocks of local voicetracking. As I said in another post, take off the IHeart blinders.
 
Part 2: Time expired on the last post.

It's not about the song anymore, it is about the brand. You'll see fewer established acts and more flavor of the week artists (or bands). Expect to see songs linger on the charts longer. The latest trend is to quickly remix a song (CHR HAC) to hopefully edge it up the chart a little further before it runs out of steam.

There are songs now that are dead on the chart. I think is a opportunity for programmers on a local level to weed out what doesn't work in their market (That song in Portland might not work in Pensacola).

I think you will see fewer local sales reps in Iheart markets which could be a opportunity for many local stations.

In the words of the Imagine Dragons "Welcome To The New Age"
 
From talking to many people on the programming end as well as those in the record industry, the remaining local Program Directors will no longer directly schedule music at their stations. They will still have the ability to suggest additions or removals of songs for their stations but the actual playlists will be done on the corporate level.
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I was told this was also the case at Townsquare, as of several months ago.

It remains to be seen if iHeart can execute this kind of programming strategy better than Cumulus did when Jan Jeffries and Mike McVay were leading the programming effort.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I was told this was also the case at Townsquare, as of several months ago.

It remains to be seen if iHeart can execute this kind of programming strategy better than Cumulus did when Jan Jeffries and Mike McVay were leading the programming effort.
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From listening to Cumulus stations. It sounds like local PD's have some say in adds now.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Very sad to see Michael and his position eliminated. Not only is he a fine professional, KFBK was an example of a local news focused station of great excellence. .
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David, thank you. That's very kind.

One error that comes from the first media outlet to report the news---I hadn't been News Director there since April 8 of 2019, when iHeart's 24-7 division took over local newsroom operations with the exception of the largest stations (KFI, WBZ and a handful of others). There is now a Pacific Region News Director, Veronica Carter, a pro who I hired from WBBM in Chicago as morning news producer about six months before, and the region hub is Sacramento.

That resulted in my getting a new contract purely as co-anchor for the afternoon news, which, without going into detail, put me in a comfortable position in terms of severance. I'll be fine. I'd urge everyone to take a moment to think of, and if so inclined, pray for, the people who are suddenly out with a whole lot less.
 
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