KYW: Sad State of Local Radio

[MattParker]

They are. And you've shown zero evidence of that happening, just a personal desire for am enterprise to lose money 364 days a year because on one of them a supposed major news event is happening for the six people still awake and listening to the radio.

Let me guess, next we'll be told that if only radio had done whatever money-losing thing you personally want, iPods would have never caught on.

The free market lets people decide what they consider quality, based on their needs. Sorry that the rest of the modern world doesn't share your view, but so it goes. In a far more diverse media landscape, KYW remains near the top of the heap within its category. Yeah...first step to failure, indeed.

On top of a category that keeps shrinking. Yes, indeed.

Zero evidence? How about the declining revenue that prompted the station to start running canned news in off-hours. Shrinking cume and aging demographics. A viscous cycle. Cut corners. Revenue shrinks some more. So cut corners so more. Cutting corners to increase short-term numbers is how so many segments of US industry have ruined themselves.

Not singling out KYW; this is endemic to the entire industry. KYW stands out because it used to be such a class act.

A listener posts a complaint and it gets dismissed out of hand here. That is the root of the sad state. Radio isn't alone. We hear similar responses from SEPTA when it cuts corners and raises fares.

 

[imhomerjay]

And where, pray tell does SEPTA magically get more money as increasing costs outstrip fares and various subsidies? Out of thin air?

It's less complaints being dismissed out of hand because they're complaints than the utterly comical lack of basic business principles they demonstrate. Few more so than the "do it like it was done years ago" silliness. Kind of like suggesting profitability would improve from doing things that start losing money. A factually false bit of nonsense trotted out time and again. It hardly takes a Harvard MBA to do the math.

 

[alistairdarling]

Just to reiterate for factual purposes (I used to work there) that KYW is staffed 24/7/365: there's always an anchor and an engineering 'type' in the building and there are only a couple hours in the early mornings when an editor or reporter is not present.

During the week, the overnight anchor is on from 10pm to 430am and does the first 6 minutes of each half-hour show after midnight live, for the purpose of being able to update the top two stories should events warrant. Traffic reports are always live, without exception. Weekend shows are all live, though Weekend Roundup and Face the Nation take up chunks of time in the overnight.

Also, I think you'll find an "anchor with 20 years experience" makes a lot more than "$60,000" a year (as a previous poster mentioned in passing) at a station like KYW (rejoice, radio students at Temple: it's not as bad as the Monster salary survey might have you think).