It hit Vermont Public Radio early. Its local news and feature programs are still on its VPR News network, but its VPR Classical network's three local hosts were replaced by Classical24 programming early in April. Vermont is a small but mountainous state, and numerous stations and translators are needed to get programming to its cities and towns, most of whose residents are in valleys with severely restricted FM reception.
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Massive reduction at Hubbard
- Thread starter iamarussianpirate
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It hit Vermont Public Radio early. Its local news and feature programs are still on its VPR News network, but its VPR Classical network's three local hosts were replaced by Classical24 programming early in April. Vermont is a small but mountainous state, and numerous stations and translators are needed to get programming to its cities and towns, most of whose residents are in valleys with severely restricted FM reception.
JPR at least has the backing of Southern Oregon University, so if they run a deficit it probably won't threaten the service, at least not immediately. For a smaller non-profit like All Classical Portland, it could affect the service rather quickly, as CT Listener points out with Vermont.
Like any media outlet, the effects of the pandemic will certainly hurt for All Classical Portland, but they are uniquely positioned with a loyal donor base of fairly well-off retirees to keep them afloat until things start to normalize, plus newer technology to maximize operational efficiency. Since 60+% of their shows are already voicetracked, they could easily down-size a few staff positions (if required) with little impact on their programming.
they've filled several of the movin positions with new hires, so, it wasn't that- and it wasn't even really a financial layoff thing. It was so Scott could put in his people.
Bingo. The several of the Movin staff cuts were not about Covid-19 money loss. Pretty gross way to cover your change-up. This was all Scott.
Not sure this is the case. What about their entire Promotions staff that's been let go. Were they all replaced too?
Pu-leeze...
Put the conspiracy theories and the ulterior motives to rest. Commercial broadcasting depends on advertising by businesses, and advertising revenues have dropped dramatically and very suddenly, because businesses have closed, and lost significant revenues themselves. It isn't rocket science. When your revenues drop 40%, 50%, 70%, no matter who you are, big or small, the money isn't there.
If you're in the biz, don't take it personally. Ask Hollywood, ask the people that produce television series, ask anyone. We're all in this boat.
Put the conspiracy theories and the ulterior motives to rest. Commercial broadcasting depends on advertising by businesses, and advertising revenues have dropped dramatically and very suddenly, because businesses have closed, and lost significant revenues themselves. It isn't rocket science. When your revenues drop 40%, 50%, 70%, no matter who you are, big or small, the money isn't there.
If you're in the biz, don't take it personally. Ask Hollywood, ask the people that produce television series, ask anyone. We're all in this boat.
Thank you for your take on this, Bossbill. I think it's too easy for those of us here who aren't in the business to forget such things and such perspectives.
Which I why I said "several". They lumped in some political / regime layoffs in with the more financial based cuts like promo and such.
Sometimes when right-sizing staff to meet the business environment is required, one can certainly take performance into account, along with tenure and salary.
And it's always legal to change under-performing staff members for new hires that are felt will do a better job. Even when there is a union contract, there are procedures for such changes.
It's only in higher education where the "tenure" concept guarantees permanent employment for even the least competent.
Those who don't get this can look at television shows: if the ratings and sales are not good, shows are cancelled, putting as many as several hundred people out of work, from actors down to best boy grips and key grips and gaffers. But the production company may start work on another show with a whole different staff; they are not required to keep all the folks from the cancelled show on staff.
One of the best performing stations in the market, let alone country, those can't all be under-performing staff members. I cant tell if you're part of the management team there, or have no clue of the internal workings of that cluster/station... haha. It's just a weird thing to defend, imo.
Kelly A said:
"right-sizing", gross.
I've actually owned and managed stations and groups since I was 18. Based on experience, there can be staff members who are not team members and who have internal issues ranging from behaviour to addiction that prevent them from being "as good as they can be" within a station or group.
In such cases, we are not thinning the herd; we are culling the ones that are not behaving well in a group.
The world is filled with politically correct terms for "You're fired". Remember, nearly no company will give references on an ex-staff member for fear of reprisal or litigation. So we now have non-offensive terms for "fired" that can't be construed as an opinion or commentary.
Darwin never saw that as humans evolved, our skin would get so thin!
Any manager worth their salt will tell you that terminating an employee for inadequate or poor performance, and certainly because of staff reductions, isn't fun. It is however, part of the job to protect the best interest of the company.
It's a term commonly used to describe staff reductions to either match the economic environment or other business-related challenges. Staff reductions could include straight-up cost-cutting to make budget, to reducing numbers of positions due to adding some form of automation.
Hence why I said they couldn't all be. I'm familiar with that staff and building- I promise you it wasn't 100% underperforming staff that got cut. Maybe one or two of them. I have plenty of experience with managing stations/regions, btw. I know nobody has each others resume on hand here lol.
First time someone close to me got let go, my GM had called me in to let me know, and I'll never forget how he started the meeting: "These are the days in radio that I hate, but we had to let xxx go today as we move in a different direction." While I don't agree with his decision still (15 years later lol), I appreciated the humanity involved, and have repeated those words when I had to make staff changes. Even when I fired someone who was an absolute garbage human being, it still sucks.
I feel like it's usually used by corporate to try to spin the term "down-sizing". RIF (reduction in force) is slightly less gross feeling, imo.
I don't think it's this at all, it's more of a spin tactic used by corporate for PR or to make their board feel better.
So is it less offensive to tell people that you're down-sizing your marriage instead of mentioning the "D" word?
What's the d word? Personally, I feel that "right-sizing" doesn't make the employee feel better at all, it feels self-serving of the company. Again, these are all just feelings and opinions anyway.
The board is responsible for the auditing of management's functions. Their interest is in seeing that the managers, from the president on down, do as well as possible.
The use of less negative terms than "firing" are intended to avoid as much as possible negative feelings by consumers when a company has to let people go. That is all about public relations, not internal feelings by the board. In fact, a major downsizing generally comes with the approval of the BoD.
Divorce, I would assume.
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