Inky: KYW Circles Bowl

[Eagle]

This has been very amusing...

Is it over?

 

[Small Market Guy]

Can I suggest flipping XPN to sports?

 

[FredLeonard]

No, it is not valid as long as there is a significant number of managers who "get" and respect the programming and the need to satisfy the users first in order to get advertisers. As potential managers rise in the ranks, the ones that understand the balance between product and revenue and expenses are the ones who become good administrators.

And the managers in the smaller markets... thousands of them... are also owners and they know quite precisely what it takes to be successful since those owner-operator stations have the most cruel ratings system of all: the cash register at client businesses.

There are many managers who realize that selling the #1 station is a lot easier and a lot more profitable than selling the #10 or #20 station so they work hard with programming to get ratings. It's not a very hard concept to grasp; I figured it out at age 18 and put the concept to work immediately... I've met hundreds of other managers with the same outlook.



Newspapers deal in facts and opinion, often in direct conflict with the interests of sales. 90% or more of radio stations deal in entertainment and music, where there is no need for separation. The remaining sports and talk stations are not "the station of record" so there is no need to isolate programming from the realities of sales.

It's really different when a market has one major news paper while it has 30 radio stations.

Of course, I find it quite droll that you use newspapers as a model for anything today.

Using a large font, like shouting, does not increase credibility. It just reflects ego.

Translation of the quoted text: What newspapers do matters. What radio stations do doesn't matter. So, let some salesman with an office and a title screw things up.

Interesting that this thread is about an all news station, which the quoted post dismisses.

 

[TheBigA]

What newspapers do matters. What radio stations do doesn't matter.

And the interesting part of that is that if there's any medium losing audience and impact in bigger numbers than radio, it's newspapers.

That's why, as I said earlier in this thread, that it's ironic that a newspaper would do a story on audience loss in radio, when the reality is its own audience is disappearing even quicker. For pretty much the same reason.

 

[davideduardo]

Using a large font, like shouting, does not increase credibility. It just reflects ego.

That has been my default font for half a decade, through multiple board software and admin changes. I use it because it is easier to read as I am moderately affected by dyslexia. I'm sure you will find a way to demean that, too, though.

Translation of the quoted text: What newspapers do matters. What radio stations do doesn't matter.

No, what I am saying is that the model of a newspaper is different because so few markets have more than one.

So, let some salesman with an office and a title screw things up.

I began in radio cleaning toilets and filing albums. That did not disqualify me from management or programming or engineering or sales positions... it enhanced my background. Sellers who become managers can become very good managers.

Interesting that this thread is about an all news station, which the quoted post dismisses.

Again, radio is not the newspaper business. The operational model is very different.

And as BigA says, I would not be using newspapers as a frame of reference for anything. I walk through my LA neighborhood every morning, passing roughly 350 homes. There are 7 of them that get the LA Times. I'll bet 75% put the radio on at some time between 6 AM and 10 AM, though.

 

[FredLeonard]

No, what I am saying is that the model of a newspaper is different because so few markets have more than one.

Again, radio is not the newspaper business. The operational model is very different.

And as BigA says, I would not be using newspapers as a frame of reference for anything. I walk through my LA neighborhood every morning, passing roughly 350 homes. There are 7 of them that get the LA Times. I'll bet 75% put the radio on at some time between 6 AM and 10 AM, though.

Newspapers kept a wall between the business and editorial sides when there were multiple morning and afternoon newspapers in any large city.

But apparently you believe salesmen upon promotion to management are magically qualified to make programming decisions and to stick their nose into programming and tell people how to do a job they have never done - and never could do - themselves.

 

[davideduardo]

Newspapers kept a wall between the business and editorial sides when there were multiple morning and afternoon newspapers in any large city.

Few markets have had multiple daily papers for about the last 40 to 50 years (and where there were two, one was almost always losing money). Even few have had afternoon papers in the last many decades. Your idea of competition in the newspaper business is archaic.

But apparently you believe salesmen upon promotion to management are magically qualified to make programming decisions and to stick their nose into programming and tell people how to do a job they have never done - and never could do - themselves.

No, I do not know that such a thing happens in any sort of Kafkaesque metamorphosis, triggered by a change in title on a person's business card.

I do know that sellers who are also good administrators become sales managers. They are then part of the management process, party to department head meetings and corporate meetings if the station is owned in a group. If they do well there, and show promise, higher management may consider them for general management. It's a process that takes years, and is based on the acquisition of experience at each career stage.

By the time a sales manager is considered for general management, they have been part of the overall station or cluster management for considerable time.

So what if the new manager is not strong on programming? Plenty of managers are not strong on accounting or engineering, either. But they get corporate support from a CFO and a local business manager or from a corporate chief engineer. If programming is not a strength, companies have group programmers or format managers who handle the programming decisions in a team with the local programmers. The local general manager's job is, predominantly, to watch revenues and to supervise the staff.

 

[FredLeonard]

Didn't anybody tell you size doesn't matter.

If you sales types have such great people skills, how come all you do is twist things other people post to make your point. I will try to make this simple for you. The Chinese Wall in the newspaper business developed when there was competition. You claim it exists only because of a lack of competition. Wrong! It exists because newspaper publishers, despite other faults, were smart enough to realize that editorial is the dog; business is the tail. In broadcasting, the tail wags the dog. And the inmates (from sales) run the asylum. A big part of the reason for that is the (lack of) quality of people going into broadcasting and their willingness to anything just to be in the biz. Newspaper people won't put up the kind of crap radio people regularly do. Newspaper people are not so willing to believe whatever some idiot from sales who got himself a big office says.

 

[davideduardo]

Newspaper people are not so willing to believe whatever some idiot from sales who got himself a big office says.

Newspaper people are gasping for air, bleeding money and sweating bullets. They saw the sign in the newsroom that says, "The End Is Near" and they know it is true.

 

[chrocket87]

I hope you are being sarcastic; WOGL is the #5 billing station in the entire 44 commercial station market. It is also co-owned with WIP.

Guilty.

 

[ixnay]

KY' *must* be a bad business model. They make no effort any more (at least during rush hours) to be punctual with "traffic and transit on the 2's".

ixnay