grantchester said:
you dont run a business on "goodwill". there is a reason a lot of you guys arent successful...
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
KVET CONTINUES TO SLIDE
- Thread starter austingeezer
- Start date
you dont run a business on "goodwill". there is a reason a lot of you guys arent successful...
you dont run a business on "goodwill".
Try running one on bad will, and see how far you get.
A lot of the people here are a lot more successful than KVET's been lately.
The point is that Austin's radio advertising market is still small enough where things like this still matter. A traffic reporter being canned in LA is dust in the wind. Firing a familiar voice in Austin is entirely different.
The point is that Austin's radio advertising market is still small enough where things like this still matter. A traffic reporter being canned in LA is dust in the wind. Firing a familiar voice in Austin is entirely different.
Saw this job posting:
Total Traffic Network Mobile Unit Driver The Total Traffic Network Austin is looking for a full time mobile unit driver to drive around the city of Austin during morning and afternoon drive and reporting on traffic. Applicants must have at least 2 years experience either reporting or producing traffic. Must have a valid driver’s license and auto insurance, and knowledge of the city of Austin. Full Time Position Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, 401k, Paid Vacation and Sick Leave, Salary in High Teens. No calls please. EOE Send resumes with cover letter to [email protected].
AND, YOU GET TO KEEP YOUR FOOD STAMPS!
Total Traffic Network Mobile Unit Driver The Total Traffic Network Austin is looking for a full time mobile unit driver to drive around the city of Austin during morning and afternoon drive and reporting on traffic. Applicants must have at least 2 years experience either reporting or producing traffic. Must have a valid driver’s license and auto insurance, and knowledge of the city of Austin. Full Time Position Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, 401k, Paid Vacation and Sick Leave, Salary in High Teens. No calls please. EOE Send resumes with cover letter to [email protected].
AND, YOU GET TO KEEP YOUR FOOD STAMPS!
High teens?
They can just go to Hell.
Regardless of what one thinks of the way a radio station should or should not be run, this is indefensible.
Well dallasboyz, you were right about one thing....this is clearly nothing but a money firing.
Y'know, Total Traffic has an interesting website. On it under bios you'll find nine suits, and NO on-air personnel.
Welcome to Clear Channel.
They can just go to Hell.
Regardless of what one thinks of the way a radio station should or should not be run, this is indefensible.
Well dallasboyz, you were right about one thing....this is clearly nothing but a money firing.
Y'know, Total Traffic has an interesting website. On it under bios you'll find nine suits, and NO on-air personnel.
Welcome to Clear Channel.
grantchester said:you dont run a business on "goodwill".
Try running one on bad will, and see how far you get.
no one is running one on bad will. you act like people sit in a room and figure out the best way to do bad things to people. its simply a cost cutting measure. and a good one. are you really having difficulty understanding this?
people sit in a room and figure out the best way to do bad things to people
It's called avarice. If you don't think it's a bad thing, then I guess you're right.
This is not something that is spur of the moment. CC Austin management has been keeping corporate at bay for awhile now. The mechanisms needed to move to the San Antonio hub doing Austin traffic have been in place for several years now. The Austin CC folks had been able to generate some revenue by aggressively selling the traffic sponsorships so they were allowed to keep it in house for awhile, but I guess their luck ran out. The funny thing is they just laid off a guy who was driving the mobile traffic unit and feeding info to SA and now they are hiring somebody to do the same job. Why not just keep the same guy with the experience?
Oh yeah, I just read the "high teens" part. So they want someone to work a split shift (6-10a and 3-7p), which guarantees them practically no possibility of finding a second job, for 40 hours a week and pay them less then $20k a year which is below the poverty level according to the government? Good luck.MisterRadio said:This is not something that is spur of the moment. CC Austin management has been keeping corporate at bay for awhile now. The mechanisms needed to move to the San Antonio hub doing Austin traffic have been in place for several years now. The Austin CC folks had been able to generate some revenue by aggressively selling the traffic sponsorships so they were allowed to keep it in house for awhile, but I guess their luck ran out. The funny thing is they just laid off a guy who was driving the mobile traffic unit and feeding info to SA and now they are hiring somebody to do the same job. Why not just keep the same guy with the experience?
dallasboyz said:you dont run a business on "goodwill". there is a reason a lot of you guys arent successful...
Of course you don't. That would go against everything you learned in the Mr. Burns management courses you took.
Hi everybody. This is Kevin McAdams until recently of Total Traffic in Austin. I just want to tell my part of the story.
We started the local operation in 2004. I was hired for the mobile driver position but there was no vehicle yet so I was placed in kind of an assistant producer position with the main job being done by Chuck Mefford out of San Antonio. I pretty much just monitored the police scanner and relayed the info. At the time we were told that some but not all of our stations reports were going to be voiced out of San Antonio but it never happened. In 2005 we finally got a vehicle but Mac Daniels didn't want it on the street without sponsorship.
It took three years to finally get the vehicle on the road. I did the mobile job for three years while serving as backup producer and fill-in talent when Don or Anne were out. Mac took care of me by getting me paid for 40 hours a week when I generally only worked 30. He wasn't my favorite boss in other ways but I'll always be grateful for that. Local management was always trying to look out for us and keep it as much as possible local. In fact it is my understanding that Jay and Market Manager Pam McKay fought for our jobs until the end.
In may 2010 they let Chuck in SA go and offered me the full time producer's job. We were placed under the local supervision of former102.3 The River PD and current Digital PD Gary Walsh who pretty much left us alone to do the job but was always there whenever we needed anything.
During my time as mobile driver the producer's work station in the studio had been eliminated so when I filled in for Chuck I did it FROM HOME. It's easy. Pretty much all the resources you need as well as TTN's CCTraffic reporting system are online and even the scanner can be monitored via IP, All you really need is a good laptop and a cellphone. I could have done the job from Starbucks if I wanted to. Easily. After taking it on full time I continued to work from home. Mac knew about this but I am told he always intended to build a new producer's workstation and have me start working from the studio again. He was cut before that could happen. I continued to work from home. To this day I'm not sure if Gary or Mac's successor Jay Shannon even knew I was working from home. I kind of got the feeling that as long as the job was done well and all TTN goals met no questions would be asked, so I did my job well and kept a low profile. I produced AM drive 5 to 9 AM and 3 to 7 PM Monday through Friday with Don and Anne handling it themselves during the midday hours and TTN Dallas handling evenings overnights and weekends. I worked like that until this past Monday when I was let go.
We hired a great young woman named Chanel as our new mobile driver but she left after about eight months.
I don't know what the paid her exactly but from inferred conversation I gathered it was A LOT less than I was paid and she was only paid for 30 hours a week.
Now I'm going lay a couple of facts about Austin traffic on you that some of you aren't going to want to hear. IT AIN'T AS BAD AS EVERYBODY THINKS IT IS!!! At least not as bad when compared to larger markets. (Go to Houston and spend the morning on 610 sometime. You'll thank Jesus you live in Austin and never want to complain again!)
It looks worse than it is because we only have four major roads. 35 and Mopac were designed to handle a fraction of the traffic that they do today. There's a big lack of viable alternate routes so a single wreck can foul things for hours but for the most part the delays are PREDICTABLE! If you say SB 35 is stop and go from 290 East to Oltorf at 5:00 PM on a weekday you'll be right 99.50 percent of the time. Same story if you say Mopac SB is a parking lot from 183 to 2222 at 8:00 AM on a Monday. In fact it has always made me secretly wonder why even bother at all. I mean, does not EVERYONE in Austin KNOW THIS? Anne made that very point to me on several occasions which is why she chose to focus almost exclusively on accidents.
I especially have always wondered why even do reports before 6AM? 99.9% of the time there is very little traffic, no delays and no accidents. The only reason to do it is just so you can say you do it for imaging purposes and so you have another avail to sell. Obviously, given that I preferred gainful employment to the alternative, I kept these thoughts mainly to myself.
As far as voicing reports, it's true. you don't even really have to have that in a local studio. As was mentioned earlier in the thread and I mentioned myself, all the cameras, accident reports and road sensors are online. In fact a lot of it is info freely available to the public. I do take exception to one thing however. When you say all Don did was read a screen you do him a disservice. Don actually went above and beyond on a daily basis. Instead of just reading off the data I put into our system he was constantly going over our sources himself to be as up to date as possible, sometimes even catching incidents I missed. Don gave it his all every day when he really didn't have to.
Now that said and speaking as a frequent fill-in talent, there could be a lot of downtime. Anne had an out of town voice track gig which she did concurrently with her reporting and when I filled in for her I did it as well.
So if you can produce from anywhere, call the police dept for info from anywhere, the data can be read and interpreted from anywhere, the data really doesn't change a lot from day to day, the talent has time to multitask two or more jobs and the reports can be recorded into the Prophet system from anywhere then it makes logical business sense to consolidate things. As a small business owner I can even sympathize to an extent. If applying technology can increase my bottom line then why not? The ONLY element that will be missing here will be feedback from listener phone calls. But seeing how the only live and local, non voice tracked day parts on CC's Austin stations are morning drive anyway there's not much there to miss.
I'm only going to say two negative things. First, Don and I first found out what was happening on Monday morning when we logged on and found Dallas personnel trying to do our jobs. When I contacted them the response was "oh....uh....nobody told you?" This of course led to a few panicky emails and then when I was asked to come in for a meeting at 12:00 I knew I was dead man walking! Second, I was actually offered the mobile position back, but at a VERY DRASTIC pay cut. I'm talking on the order of 10k here. Split shift, 30 hours for high teens? Been there done that. It's in my best interest to take the severance package and turn the page. I can't speak for Don, but I don't feel like I got fired. Rather I feel like I was FREED! I understand Anne is being given an on-air position with KASE 101 and I wish her all the best with that. For myself, I worked for years commuting twice a day for split shifts (which killed 3 cars by the way!) for entry level wages. I'm ok leaving that behind. For now I'm focused 100% on my business and am looking at returning to school to try to find a better future.
If I feel for anyone here it's actually those that take over for us. The Dallas voice talents are already reporting for multiple stations and the producers are already handling multiple markets. Their workloads just increased but I'm sure their pay hasn't. Whoever takes the mobile job will be working split shift for tiny wages in a vehicle with 140,000 miles on it with a spotty maintenance record (I had to fight just to get oil changes. We went over 70k miles on one set of tires. There's windshield damage and collision damage that was never repaired). They'll have minimal contact with other station staff and will be pretty much a ghost in that building. They'll also have to use their personal cell phone to report to the Dallas studio. These are simple statements of fact are are not intended as a poor reflection on anyone there. The lack of maintenance was mainly an issue of budget and from it being unclear whose responsibility it was at times.
Ok, that's lot I understand. If by pulling down the Great Wizard of Oz traffic curtain I have shattered anyone's illusions I apologize. I just felt like proper context could help some understand a little better.
So to finally relate it to the thread, is the fact that traffic reports are no longer produced locally going to affect KVET? No. I remember a time when if Don or Anne and I missed some accident in Hutto some listener would call in and gripe leading Bob Cole or Tom Allen or even Gerry Harmon from KASE to come in and very emphatically let us know how our mistakes affected the quality of their show. Those days are long past. When Bob or Bender or whoever throws to traffic Eric clicks on the screen and whatever happens to be recorded plays and that's pretty much it (I never like getting griped at but at LEAST we knew the talent CARED!). That's not going to change no matter who does the recording.
$0.02 paid in full.
Kevin
We started the local operation in 2004. I was hired for the mobile driver position but there was no vehicle yet so I was placed in kind of an assistant producer position with the main job being done by Chuck Mefford out of San Antonio. I pretty much just monitored the police scanner and relayed the info. At the time we were told that some but not all of our stations reports were going to be voiced out of San Antonio but it never happened. In 2005 we finally got a vehicle but Mac Daniels didn't want it on the street without sponsorship.
It took three years to finally get the vehicle on the road. I did the mobile job for three years while serving as backup producer and fill-in talent when Don or Anne were out. Mac took care of me by getting me paid for 40 hours a week when I generally only worked 30. He wasn't my favorite boss in other ways but I'll always be grateful for that. Local management was always trying to look out for us and keep it as much as possible local. In fact it is my understanding that Jay and Market Manager Pam McKay fought for our jobs until the end.
In may 2010 they let Chuck in SA go and offered me the full time producer's job. We were placed under the local supervision of former102.3 The River PD and current Digital PD Gary Walsh who pretty much left us alone to do the job but was always there whenever we needed anything.
During my time as mobile driver the producer's work station in the studio had been eliminated so when I filled in for Chuck I did it FROM HOME. It's easy. Pretty much all the resources you need as well as TTN's CCTraffic reporting system are online and even the scanner can be monitored via IP, All you really need is a good laptop and a cellphone. I could have done the job from Starbucks if I wanted to. Easily. After taking it on full time I continued to work from home. Mac knew about this but I am told he always intended to build a new producer's workstation and have me start working from the studio again. He was cut before that could happen. I continued to work from home. To this day I'm not sure if Gary or Mac's successor Jay Shannon even knew I was working from home. I kind of got the feeling that as long as the job was done well and all TTN goals met no questions would be asked, so I did my job well and kept a low profile. I produced AM drive 5 to 9 AM and 3 to 7 PM Monday through Friday with Don and Anne handling it themselves during the midday hours and TTN Dallas handling evenings overnights and weekends. I worked like that until this past Monday when I was let go.
We hired a great young woman named Chanel as our new mobile driver but she left after about eight months.
I don't know what the paid her exactly but from inferred conversation I gathered it was A LOT less than I was paid and she was only paid for 30 hours a week.
Now I'm going lay a couple of facts about Austin traffic on you that some of you aren't going to want to hear. IT AIN'T AS BAD AS EVERYBODY THINKS IT IS!!! At least not as bad when compared to larger markets. (Go to Houston and spend the morning on 610 sometime. You'll thank Jesus you live in Austin and never want to complain again!)
It looks worse than it is because we only have four major roads. 35 and Mopac were designed to handle a fraction of the traffic that they do today. There's a big lack of viable alternate routes so a single wreck can foul things for hours but for the most part the delays are PREDICTABLE! If you say SB 35 is stop and go from 290 East to Oltorf at 5:00 PM on a weekday you'll be right 99.50 percent of the time. Same story if you say Mopac SB is a parking lot from 183 to 2222 at 8:00 AM on a Monday. In fact it has always made me secretly wonder why even bother at all. I mean, does not EVERYONE in Austin KNOW THIS? Anne made that very point to me on several occasions which is why she chose to focus almost exclusively on accidents.
I especially have always wondered why even do reports before 6AM? 99.9% of the time there is very little traffic, no delays and no accidents. The only reason to do it is just so you can say you do it for imaging purposes and so you have another avail to sell. Obviously, given that I preferred gainful employment to the alternative, I kept these thoughts mainly to myself.
As far as voicing reports, it's true. you don't even really have to have that in a local studio. As was mentioned earlier in the thread and I mentioned myself, all the cameras, accident reports and road sensors are online. In fact a lot of it is info freely available to the public. I do take exception to one thing however. When you say all Don did was read a screen you do him a disservice. Don actually went above and beyond on a daily basis. Instead of just reading off the data I put into our system he was constantly going over our sources himself to be as up to date as possible, sometimes even catching incidents I missed. Don gave it his all every day when he really didn't have to.
Now that said and speaking as a frequent fill-in talent, there could be a lot of downtime. Anne had an out of town voice track gig which she did concurrently with her reporting and when I filled in for her I did it as well.
So if you can produce from anywhere, call the police dept for info from anywhere, the data can be read and interpreted from anywhere, the data really doesn't change a lot from day to day, the talent has time to multitask two or more jobs and the reports can be recorded into the Prophet system from anywhere then it makes logical business sense to consolidate things. As a small business owner I can even sympathize to an extent. If applying technology can increase my bottom line then why not? The ONLY element that will be missing here will be feedback from listener phone calls. But seeing how the only live and local, non voice tracked day parts on CC's Austin stations are morning drive anyway there's not much there to miss.
I'm only going to say two negative things. First, Don and I first found out what was happening on Monday morning when we logged on and found Dallas personnel trying to do our jobs. When I contacted them the response was "oh....uh....nobody told you?" This of course led to a few panicky emails and then when I was asked to come in for a meeting at 12:00 I knew I was dead man walking! Second, I was actually offered the mobile position back, but at a VERY DRASTIC pay cut. I'm talking on the order of 10k here. Split shift, 30 hours for high teens? Been there done that. It's in my best interest to take the severance package and turn the page. I can't speak for Don, but I don't feel like I got fired. Rather I feel like I was FREED! I understand Anne is being given an on-air position with KASE 101 and I wish her all the best with that. For myself, I worked for years commuting twice a day for split shifts (which killed 3 cars by the way!) for entry level wages. I'm ok leaving that behind. For now I'm focused 100% on my business and am looking at returning to school to try to find a better future.
If I feel for anyone here it's actually those that take over for us. The Dallas voice talents are already reporting for multiple stations and the producers are already handling multiple markets. Their workloads just increased but I'm sure their pay hasn't. Whoever takes the mobile job will be working split shift for tiny wages in a vehicle with 140,000 miles on it with a spotty maintenance record (I had to fight just to get oil changes. We went over 70k miles on one set of tires. There's windshield damage and collision damage that was never repaired). They'll have minimal contact with other station staff and will be pretty much a ghost in that building. They'll also have to use their personal cell phone to report to the Dallas studio. These are simple statements of fact are are not intended as a poor reflection on anyone there. The lack of maintenance was mainly an issue of budget and from it being unclear whose responsibility it was at times.
Ok, that's lot I understand. If by pulling down the Great Wizard of Oz traffic curtain I have shattered anyone's illusions I apologize. I just felt like proper context could help some understand a little better.
So to finally relate it to the thread, is the fact that traffic reports are no longer produced locally going to affect KVET? No. I remember a time when if Don or Anne and I missed some accident in Hutto some listener would call in and gripe leading Bob Cole or Tom Allen or even Gerry Harmon from KASE to come in and very emphatically let us know how our mistakes affected the quality of their show. Those days are long past. When Bob or Bender or whoever throws to traffic Eric clicks on the screen and whatever happens to be recorded plays and that's pretty much it (I never like getting griped at but at LEAST we knew the talent CARED!). That's not going to change no matter who does the recording.
$0.02 paid in full.
Kevin
nice post Kevin. Glad to see your honesty...
I worked with Don, Anne, and Kevin for many years, and I can say I never worked with 3 more diligent co-workers when it came to getting their job right. And yes, dallasboyz, you are correct; "it's all about saving money." But, these are three people who took their jobs VERY seriously, and did it well for a very LONG time. You would do well to have more compassion for these dedicated people. This "good business decision" affected the lives of REAL people. You make it sound like they were three computers that were no longer needed. You are in desparate need of some serious attitude adjustment. And the way CC management "botched" their dismissal is simply unforgiveable.dallasboyz said:traffic guys are expendable. they were just reading from a computer.
the same computer screen will be read from by a guy a few hours away.
its about saving money. and a good business decision. should have been done earlier
Thanks, jras20; I appreciate your thoughts. KDRP has already approached me twice about doing a Country Gold show. Issue #1 is that it would mean driving to Dripping Springs, on the other side of the world from me. Issue#2 is that I'm enjoying retirement too much to go back to radio. I'm not familiar with KCTI.jras20 said:Tom have you thought about working at KCTI or KDRP? KVET is just not worth even tuning in on saturday morning much less any other time.
intx said:they found out they were being let go when they came in and saw people in another city were doing their jobs??? how in the hell does management let this happen? clearly the layoffs had been in the works awhile. awesome work, folks.
I remember a co-worker finding out he was fired when he checked the posted schedule and he wasn't on it. Nice.
Actually, Fred, this was the SECOND time management botched Don Miller's dismissal. Back in the late '90's, Don was doing mid-days on K-VET at the old building on Lamar while voice-tracking for Star Systems. He was actually holding down two jobs. He walked in one day to do the mid-day show, and it was the RECEPTIONIST who said to Don "sorry we won't be seeing your smiling face around here anymore." That was the first Don had heard of it.fredcantu said:I remember a co-worker finding out he was fired when he checked the posted schedule and he wasn't on it. Nice.
- Status
- This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.