Major WILM News

[Kyle D]

With all due respect Al, these are not industry-wide known names that were let go. With all due respect to those who were let go, their names are almost inconsequential to the story. The story in this case was that CC dumped a little over 100K in salary. Very few people know the names of the folks that were relieved of their duties. No one reported my name when I was fired from WWDB (along with 40 or so others) in November of 2000...and I understand why.

While I understand your comments, we DID give the names of those who were fired. I didn't update my news copy to include the names, but we did talk about each one of them during the course of the show.

A while back, I heard part of a similar conversation after an interview with a woman who was suing a former employer (I'm sketchy on the specifics at this point). The host said afterwards he had held back on some of his questions then for similar reasons.

That's simply not true. George held himself back from asking her (Elaine Keno from KYW) about other issues. None of us knew Elaine personally. If George now wants to say what he really wanted to ask her, that's up to him.

What you heard us discuss before we named names, was on-air show prep. Ideally that conversation would have taken place before the show started, but we didn't have time for a meeting before the show last Friday. Again I'll say that if you don't understand on why we even contemplated not naming them, you probably don't have many close friends. Had I not gotten them from the other source, we probably would have witheld them.

 

[BRUSSTAR]

Al,

While it may not have appeared to be the case from the tone of my earlier post, I do appreciate your taking the time to listen to the program now and in the past.

While I admittedly never went to J school and haven't one single moment of formal journalism training, I have managed over my years of experience as both a newsman and as a listener/viewer/reader to become familiar with the basics. Thank you for clarifying that your main point of issue was the lack of naming names in the hourly "Radio Racket Radio News", and not within the "talk show" portion of the program itself. (I'd forgotten the names weren't included in the 10pm TOH cast.)

I know most of the program is a talk show but the news segment is news and the rules of journalism should apply.

Your point above is well-taken. I too have had (albeit very mild) concerns of late that the "Radio Racket Radio News" may continue to be perceived as a straight-forward newscast, when really it's become more like a humorously-contemporary Paul Harvey "News and Comment" feature. For folks to understand the evolution, I'd like to give some background regarding the show's planning stages from well over a year ago. Kyle's role originally was supposed to have been mainly behind-the-scenes, as Executive producer (lining up guests) and call-screener. Because he wasn't going to be on-mic, we thought it would be nice to have him be the voice of the hourly news. As we came closer to launch (May 2006), I realized Kyle's potential contributions to the "talk show" part of the program would be much too valuable to have him be wasted in a largely off-mic role. As usual, I think I was right and cannot imagine how much poorer the Racket would sound had we gone with the original plan. We've even joked on the show about possibly re-naming "Radio Racket Radio News", precisely to avoid possible situations like these.

I won't guess your motives but this appears like your friends receive special treatment.

I can't speak for Kyle, but as far as I'm concerned, I think it's clear from reading my own earlier comments right here on this very thread that I'm not all that close with the majority of my former co-workers. Of the five laid off, I've never even met three. I spoke with one only a handful of times during my nearly three years there (because we worked opposite times-of-the-day), and toward the end of my tenure learned from several others that he frequently said things like, "George sits around and does nothing here every day." I saw Backer on a daily basis, and while we always got along well, unintentionally lost touch with him the moment I left in 2003. I can assure you I, at least, was protecting no one and remain glad we named the names last Friday night (even within the "talk show" portion).

A while back, I heard part of a similar conversation after an interview with a woman who was suing a former employer (I'm sketchy on the specifics at this point). The host said afterwards he had held back on some of his questions then for similar reasons. From your comments, you guys have all been newsmen. I'm not suggesting you beat up people, but you should decide whether your priority is the feelings of friends and guests or the interests of your listeners.

That host would have been me. Yes, I did hold back on a lot, because I do think I have a valid concern that it would be much more difficult for Kyle to continue booking quality guests (we've had dozens over the past year) if the show had a reputation for ambushing them. (Why anyone would ever go on "The O'Reilly Factor" remains a mystery to me.) I've said it before on the program, and I'll say it here: I've never been a big fan of guest-driven talk radio. But it's undeniable that we see a healthy spike in listenership when a good guest is scheduled, and many of the regular listeners may not have ever sampled the program had they not originally been tipped off to listen because of a guest. As far as my interviewing "style" goes, I'm not usually trying to do "60 Minutes" as much as I'm just trying to chat with the person (in other words, I'm not a journalist and never have purported to be one -- even when I was a radio newsman). I've never thought of myself as a great interviewer. To be frank and candid, I'd much rather hear myself talk.

Bottom line-- you're saying we should be more hard-hitting, and others are calling us bullies. I guess we're either doing something right, or, everything wrong...

Much thanks for taking the time to write...

 

[BRUSSTAR]

Kyle posted his response as I was typing mine; I only read his after submitting mine. He does bring up two good points that I hadn't thought of.

Most of us arrived at the studio just minutes before 10pm this past Friday, which is somewhat unusual. We like to spend an hour or so going over things before each show, but weren't afforded the opportunity this past week. That may explain some of the on-mic discussion over whether or not to name the names.

While the few of us here on the Delaware board are familiar with WILM, about 95% of our listeners are not. Most didn't even know who veteran WILM PD Allan Loudell was when we had him on in-studio the week before. They certainly wouldn't know or care specifically about most of the ones let go on Friday.

 

[Al Johnson]

Dear Mr. Brusstar,

Thank you for a very informative reply. I think I understand where you are coming from.

I can't speak to your audience composition but certainly in the local market and even in the region, the people who were fired are known to people in the business, including those who visit this website. In the local market as on air talent they are public figures. Celebrity is a continuum from the people who got Oscars last night to people who read news on the local radio station. I do recall seeing the story about people being fired from WWDB the day before an election. 40 people is a long list but I remember some of the better known names were reported.

I understand your concern about guests being reluctant to come on in the future. I did talk radio interviews some time ago. Now I book interviews (persuade people to be interviewed), pre-interview and sometimes even serve as an off-camera interviewer. I am not a psychologist but I have found that - excluding politicians and PR types - people generally want to tell their story. They want to be heard and they want to be understood. If a broadcast has a reputation for being fair, and an interviewer comes across as really interested, you can ask anything and people will tell you anything. I keep being surprised how much people will open up. You do have to be really interested (people can tell) and you have to trust yourself to ask the right question without thinking. If you are thinking about the next question, you're not really interested. But if the question is right there for you to ask, trust your instinct and don't hold it back.

 

[fredflintstone]

Yes, I did call in to the Radio Racket - not brag but to gloat and say "I told you so." Sorry, I don't get that many chances.

I said on this board that the only thing holding Clear Channel back from the kind of personnel cuts seen in other markets was the need for warm bodies to keep the station on the air from the 12th and French parking lot. I said as soon as they move to the new facility, they would start cutting.

As already pointed out in this thread, they are still over-staffed.

Fatso said on the Radio Racket it was money (or lack of it) that prompted me to leave WILM. It was not. It was constant petty harassment from one particular individual, who was one of those fired. I wish the others who have been fired well.

More predictions: Look for Jim Quinn to take over morning drive and Glenn Beck to move into late morning. Look for WILM and WDOV to become all or mostly simulcast with shared branding (Radio 14 or some such).

 

[MikefromDelaware]

With those changes at WILM, the voice tracking also has started. I've noticed during Rush that after Fox news on the hour comes a news capsule that sounds voice tracked (today Annie Nefosky), with out any weather. They voice track the weather on the half hour break without a current temp (Female voice, I believe from 94.7, I've not heard her voice before on WILM). Yesterday, the computer or whatever fouled up at 12:58pm and rather than going from Rush to local spots and legal Id, Fox News, local headlines, it just stayed with Rush's bumper music which ran from about 12:58 to 1:06 where Rush's theme music came on. I wonder how many of the "older pre-Boomer" (60+) Rush listeners tuned out as the music was not exactly their type of music which did air for about 8 minutes non stop.

All of this reminds me of when AM 1290 aired Westwood One nostalgia music, prior to Clear Channel owning AM1290 and 94.7. That computer or whatever controls it, would kick off and the station would go off the air or you'd only hear a beep every few seconds. This would go on for 10-15 minutes. I'd try calling the station and would finally get a receptionist to answer, who had her monitor speaker on 94.7 rather than AM1290. Apparently no one in the building was listening to AM 1290 as everytime this would happen, nothing would happen for at least 10 minutes, sometimes longer. One would think that someone would be assigned to have to have their monitor on to the automated station for such emergencies. Ah yes, computer techology is great, WHEN it works, when it doesn't, it's a real pain.

 

[WTUX]

A speaker monitor is not necessary. When I was at WDEL/WSTW, there was a strobe light that would go off to alert the FM jock whenever WDEL audio had been silent for a particular length of time. The person would then know to go across the hall to the AM studio and fix the computer issue. For CC to lack any monitoring system at all is inexcusable.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I guess the WRDX jock will need to have two strobes, one for WWTX and one for WILM. If both go out at the same time, that jock will be busy.

 

[TJStone]

This is why so many radio employment notices nowadays emphasize "ability to multi-task." LOL

 

[WTUX]

And apparently, they have no ability to multi-task. Today, we had a full minute of dead air at 3:05 between Fox News and Hannity. This is great, CC has turned a formerly great heritage radio station into a joke. Now they should know why they needed those extra people. Automation is fine if you have people who know how to run it! They apparently do not!