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Layoffs.....

HenryOchs

HenryOchs

I know that there are quite a few radio people(like myself) looking for jobs.

These people are from all departments, not just jocks.

A lot of them have been cut from Clear Channel but I have also seen a couple from CBS Radio as well.

Does anyone feel that this is the direction we are headed for good?

I realize the economy is pretty bad but do you think that local radio will be a thing of the past in the next few years?

I hope not but I was wondering if you felt the same?
 
Large layoffs have not begun.
What we will witness between now and next Summer will be the worst ever in radio (Bay Area included).
I think you will see some stations going dark, others going into LMAs, more simulcasting, voicetracking, news-less and infomercials etc.
Not much local radio management could/can do to prevent this crisis, but revenues are terrible, despite a big political season for some and there is no reason to assume biz gets better any time soon.
I hope that all who rely on radio for a paycheck can survive. These will be the "rainy days."
 
Does this in a way be a good thing for someone trying to break into radio? Whereas they would use to pay an x amount for talent, now they may settle for someone who is young and willing to work for cheap?
 
Word Life said:
Does this in a way be a good thing for someone trying to break into radio? Whereas they would use to pay an x amount for talent, now they may settle for someone who is young and willing to work for cheap?
Click to expand...

Take a chance on someone who is "young and willing to work for cheap"? You're talking crazy talk! This ain't 1966 no more!

Order up more satellite-fed programming from some clearing house in Dothan, Alabama. More Seacrest! More low-budget generic talk shows! More cut-rate jocks voicetracking from Scottsdale, Arizona!
 
Henry Ochs said:
Does anyone feel that this is the direction we are headed for good?
Click to expand...

When people say "radio is dead" listen to them. There will always be a need for blacksmiths, TV repair shops, and radio stations, but in nowhere near the numbers as in the past. There was a heyday for blacksmiths when everybody drove horses. Today they still shoe the occasional horse, but they mostly they do decorative railings. TVs have become so reliable and cheap that except for high-end TVs there is no need for TV repair shops, either. Still a few exist for those high-end jobs.

As radio listening is replaced by Internet and MP3 players, there will be less need for radio stations, and with fewer listeners there will be less advertising money spent on radio.

I feel that these reductions are permanent and that they are just the beginning of what's to come. The future of Radio As We Know It is in the small locally-based non-comms such as college stations, etc.

The handwriting was on the wall several years ago when College of San Mateo gutted their broadcast department and hired a professional staff to run KCSM FM and TV. The explanation at the time was that there simply wasn't a need to train new broadcasters. And that was, what, 10 or 15 years ago?
 
DavidKaye said:
There was a heyday for blacksmiths when everybody drove horses. Today they still shoe the occasional horse, but they mostly they do decorative railings.
Click to expand...

You obviously refer to farriers, not blacksmiths. My grandfather was a lifelong blacksmith and never shoed (shod?) a horse. The skills of both diverged some time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrier
 
landtuna said:
DavidKaye said:
There was a heyday for blacksmiths when everybody drove horses. Today they still shoe the occasional horse, but they mostly they do decorative railings.
Click to expand...

You obviously refer to farriers, not blacksmiths. My grandfather was a lifelong blacksmith and never shoed (shod?) a horse. The skills of both diverged some time ago.
Click to expand...

It depends on where you are. My sister lives up in the mountains and uses a blacksmith farrier guy who puts shoes on her horses on a regular basis. Somebody who lives in, let's say West Oakland, probably won't be in regular need of this service, which is essential in some places, unnecessary elsewhere.

I'm sure in parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Texas, a blacksmith farrier guy who puts shoes on horses is in fairly high demand. In some places, he (or she) may be making a pretty decent living.

And I'm sure, in some places, there is a demand for skilled radio professionals, and that they make a pretty decent living at it. It's just become rarer.
 
Decorative railings? Heck - if I'd known that, I'd have a blacksmith on retainer right now. I love decorative railings!

They need to get the word out - maybe they should adverstise on all those unused Clear Channel and CBS billboards.

Slogan - "Old School Horse Shoes and Today's Decorative Railings"
 
BossRadioDJ said:
Take a chance on someone who is "young and willing to work for cheap"? You're talking crazy talk! This ain't 1966 no more!
Click to expand...

Yeah, thanks to the state and federal government and the restrictions on apprenticeships and and such, as well as the restrictions of liability insurance, etc., nobody lets people who are interested in radio hang around a station. Many are quick to blame stations when in fact it is the body of laws, our tort-crazy legal system, etc., that keeps new people out.

I learned by hanging around a staiton for over a year, getting coffee, running the board, cleaning the bathrooms and such before I was paid to do anything... and after I had demonstrated a degree of competence, interest and ambition. Today, I could not get past the front door.
 
It's tough out there. keep positive and look into new areas....maybe reinvent yourself. WIFI and HD channels will give everyone lots of opportunities. WIFI will be like local tv channels on cable.
 
this happens every year in radio, especially in this economy,

if your good u will keep ur job

with ppm its nice because talent is getting the props they deserve

radio is free, people will always be "doing" radio , satellite is the one suffering not radio


//posted via iPhone
 
Reggiefan1945 said:
It's tough out there. keep positive and look into new areas....maybe reinvent yourself. WIFI and HD channels will give everyone lots of opportunities. WIFI will be like local tv channels on cable.
Click to expand...

Some hours ago I looked at various websites of broadcasters and companies that list broadcast jobs. Man, I've never seen it so sparse. And while just about everybody usually has a sales opening posted, even this isn't true anymore. Stations probably don't want to dilute whatever sales commissions and bases they can pay by putting on extra sales folks.
 
1069_KIFR said:
Maybe it is an FCC regulation, but Cumulus advertises pretty often of their website for available jobs.
Click to expand...

Sometimes it's fishing in order to get enough applications to meet EEOC mandates that a station has done an adequate outreach to all people, not just white males. This is what the job fairs are often about -- getting names and numbers and resumes, not offering actual jobs.

It's not unusual that a station will advertise a job for weeks and then pull it without having hired (or intended to hire) anyone. Such is the case of the job open for producer for the Gil Gross show on KGO. The job was advertised at least a month. It was removed. I'm told that the job is still unfilled, in this case because KGO is in a hiring freeze.
 
I worked at KCSM FM/TV at the College of San Mateo from 1981 to 1988. They pretty much had a regular-paid staff at the time and I was a student whom eventually I got paid. They did have some radio students running the station but not many. When Clifford Brown Jr. took over as OM (I trained him) he was at KBLX and tried to run KCSM FM as a commerical station. What a mess.
 
jprg said:
I worked at KCSM FM/TV at the College of San Mateo from 1981 to 1988. They pretty much had a regular-paid staff at the time and I was a student whom eventually I got paid. They did have some radio students running the station but not many. When Clifford Brown Jr. took over as OM (I trained him) he was at KBLX and tried to run KCSM FM as a commerical station. What a mess.
Click to expand...

Clifford's at KDIA/KDYA now. I fixed his computers. He seems to be happy there.

When I was at KCSM, the only paid staff on the radio side were the CE, who was also CE for the TV, and the GM, who doubled as the lead radio teacher. During the summer KCSM paid people to work shifts, but that was it. Otherwise it was students doing all operations day and night. On the TV side, the live productions were led by paid staff (director and TD), but all crew were students. Non-live operations were all students.
 
Someone on another board posted that lots of layoffs will be occurring after Thanksgiving. Is this true? Why do they choose that time before Christmas to lay people off. It doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the holidays.
 
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