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KFI Technical Director rescued from burning car by Good Samaritans

TheBigA said:
There was a point in time when I worked three part time jobs to supplement my radio money. I always tell people you don't work in radio for the money.
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Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, it would seem.
michael hagerty said:
Yeah, you do---but there was a time when people could and did earn living wages doing it, whether or not you're old enough to have experienced it personally.

And those of us who are and did aren't being unreasonable to remark on the fact that KFI, a high-billing station in market #2, pays poorly.
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The part-time status also likely blocks access to crucial benefits, including but not limited to, health insurance, other types of insurance, retirement savings plans, etc.
ChannelFlipper said:
This is why I didn't get into an industry that I love(d). I am far from rich, but I don't need to do Uber as a side hustle to my job.
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I did what I loved for seven years, working all sorts of hours with a strong sense of commitment. Still got my butt kicked, repeatedly. After the third firing in a row, I changed careers. It wasn't easy and, unlike the quote at the top of this post, I'm not holding myself up as a Role Model. One thing I managed to figure out was that I should do something that I liked, and was good at, but not emotionally committed to. That led to a successful career for more than 30 years, had some very lucky breaks, and consequently have a secure retirement. What I learned was that doing what you love opens you up for exploitation, financial and otherwise.
 
A Stefan Cabezas update. He's had 3 surgeries so far, and another one scheduled tomorrow. Tonight, Mo' Kelly spoke to his mother on the air. She said depending on how things go tomorrow, he may be able to come on the air for a few minutes during Mo's show. He has a very long road ahead recovering Some good news, The GoFundMe has raised just under $100,000.
 
henry said:
I mean, the elephant in the room: If Stefoosh is a part-timer because that's all iHeart hires nowadays, he probably doesn't have anything except maybe a high-deductible ACA plan. Especially if he's working two jobs.
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I can't find a number for them for 2024, but for 2023, BIA Kelsey says KFI billed $24,625,000.

They can afford to pay six people $80,000 a year plus benefits. Especially when those people are the final gatekeepers of their sound before it heads to the transmitter.

They may not want to, but they absof***inglutely can, and they'll still be profitable.

This is about protecting margins of profit, not profit itself. We're a long way from needing to start a GoFundMe if (God forbid) Bob Pittman or Rich Bressler are hurt in a freeway crash.
 
michael hagerty said:
When I stop posting or reacting on this board---which could be this week---hell, it could be before lunch today, I just want people to understand why.
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The job market is set by what people are willing to accept. I quit a full time radio job because it didn't offer insurance. I learned from that experience. I never accepted another job like that. I joined the union for that reason. They fought for health insurance and retirement benefits. Companies will gladly pay people minimum wage if they can get away with it. The point is to not give in to them. Why do I have to explain any of this? Even NPR's staff is unionized. At one time, their' technical staff was non-union. They decided to unionize. Anyone who has worked in this business should know what I'm talking about. I'm not saying it's good. I'm saying it's reality.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Because your circumstances are not universal.
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Which is why I say it, as a warning to people with rose colored glasses. Hopefully this poor guy will learn. Hopefully everyone else in that office will learn from his experience. I had to go to the hospital and pay for it myself. Never again. I worked in LA, but not Burbank, so I guess iHeart can dodge the union because it's in Burbank. My first thought when I saw the OP was why isn't the union fighting for him?

Actually I think a lot of people have had my experience, which is why AFTRA is seeing so much growth. Lots of cheap, disreputable owners who take advantage of their employees. And then fire them.
 
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TheBigA said:
The job market is set by what people are willing to accept.
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Which means that the lowest common denominator is desperation. And taking advantage of that are $20 million a year radio stations.

TheBigA said:
I quit a full time radio job because it didn't offer insurance. I never accepted another job like that. I joined the union for that reason. They fought for health insurance and retirement benefits.
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KFI used to be a union shop---AFTRA for talent, NABET for engineers/tech producers. I have no idea whether they still are or not. If they are, they're making a lousy case for themselves.

TheBigA said:
Companies will gladly pay people minimum wage if they can get away with it. The point is to not give in to them.
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Is it your belief that the position you quit wasn't filled? It was. There was someone who needed a job more than you needed it. There always is. Whoever's got that gig now probably makes less than you did and is doing someone else's job besides.

My first two years at Capital Public Radio, I was part-time. The good news is that their hourly pay was so much better than iHeart's that I made the same working 29 hours a week for them that I made working 40 co-anchoring the afternoon news at KFBK.

The bad news was the lack of benefits and paid vacation time cost me $15,000 a year.

Why did I do it? Because it was the best offer out there, I hoped to be made full-time, and I was. And then I got the equivalent of an extra 11 hours a week salary, was paid for 52 weeks a year instead of 49 and most of my out-of-pocket expenses vanished (the days of "we provide coverage at no cost to our employees" ended the year before I went full-time).
 
michael hagerty said:
PS: And I full-throatedly supported CapRadio's (successful) efforts to unionize. The election didn't happen until just after my retirement date, so I couldn't participate in the final decision of staff---but my colleagues deserved protection.
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The bad news is that now these places are being hit by either funding cuts or revenue losses. So while the employees may get benefits, there are a lot less of them there. KUOW and KQED unionized a few years ago, and now they're laying off staff.
 
The hourly minimum wage for Burbank CA is $16.50, then you cross the city limits into LA, it's $17.87. Then you cross the city limits into Pasadena, CA it's $18.04. Where you work in LA county, may depend on how much you get paid.

I'm wondering if iHeart (located in Burbank) takes advantage of that situation?
 
TheBigA said:
The bad news is that now these places are being hit by either funding cuts or revenue losses. So while the employees may get benefits, there are a lot less of them there. KUOW and KQED unionized a few years ago, and now they're laying off staff.
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Which is them. We're talking about KFI. And again---$20 million+ in billings.

iHeartMedia, Inc. Reports Results for 2025 Second Quarter

iHeartMedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: IHRT) today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. Financial Highlights:1 Q2 2025 Consolidated Results Q2 Revenue of $934 million, up 0.5% (Excluding Q2 Political Revenue, Q2 Revenue up 1.5%) GAAP Operating income of $35 million, compared to a...
investors.iheartmedia.com investors.iheartmedia.com

I don't want to go around and around about this. These are guys, and this station in particular is a station, that can afford to pay six people 80 grand a year and benefits. Period.

If you don't want to do that, then don't have them. Make Bill, Gary, Shannon, John, Tim and Mo run their own boards.
 
TheBigA said:
The bad news is that now these places are being hit by either funding cuts or revenue losses. So while the employees may get benefits, there are a lot less of them there. KUOW and KQED unionized a few years ago, and now they're laying off staff.
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KQED has been union for a long time with NABET for the engineers.
 
KilowattKat said:
The hourly minimum wage for Burbank CA is $16.50, then you cross the city limits into LA, it's $17.87. Then you cross the city limits into Pasadena, CA it's $18.04. Where you work in LA county, may depend on how much you get paid.

I'm wondering if iHeart (located in Burbank) takes advantage of that situation?
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If you go back to the job listing on the first page of this thread, the bottom of their range is $17.60, so yeah. More than Burbank requires, not as much as L.A. or Pasadena.
 
radiofan2023 said:
KQED has been union for a long time with NABET for the engineers.
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As I explained to my CapRadio colleagues when we were working on the early stages of unionization (it was a year-plus in the making), the union is a good thing, but it's not magic. It can make management prove their argument when they say they can't afford pay increases or benefits, but if management does prove that, there's a pretty limited list of options.

iHeart/KFI are not in that situation, by a long shot.
 
Wow, part time hours, 17.60 an hour, and no benefits. In California, fast food workers start out at $20 hourly. So someone flipping burgers at Jack In The Box, gets paid more than a news editor starting out at iHeart.

Yep, I can't imagine anyone trying to make radio a career in 2025.
 
KilowattKat said:
Wow, part time hours, 17.60 an hour, and no benefits. In California, fast food workers start out at $20 hourly. So someone flipping burgers at Jack In The Box, gets paid more than a news editor starting out at iHeart.

Yep, I can't imagine anyone trying to make radio a career in 2025.
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And, look---to some extent, there's always been an element of that.

I burned a lot of my goodwill with my bosses at a large-market network TV affiliate that made money hand over fist by arguing----for a year---that competing with Taco Bell in terms of compensation was a bad idea for videotape editors who pretty much determine what your final product is gonna look like at 5, 6 and 10 every night.

If you added up my salary, the photog's salary, very often the helicopter pilot's salary, the cost of however much Jet A we burned that day, it wasn't cheap. We shot the stories on $30,000 BetaCams. But the final product was in the hands of someone making $7.25 an hour.

And I lost that argument.

But I've also worked for people who didn't low-ball me, who opened with a decent offer and explained that they thought that they'd get better work from someone who wasn't worried about paying their bills or working a second job.

A final bit of context:

KSLY, San Luis Obispo (1974)---a 1,000-watt station in a town of 30,000 people---paid me $450 a month. $35,093.82 a year (adjusted). $16.87 an hour (adjusted).

That wasn't epic money then, but I was 18 years old. It was just enough---51 years ago---for a young man to begin to go out on his own, feed and clothe himself and have an address other than "Blue Ford Mustang, California License 625 NCS".
 


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