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Metro financial re-engineering

N

newsperson

How much more can Metro cut back in San Francisco?

In 2006 they closed the San Jose office and moved it to S.F.

There is no office reception or secretary and every shift has multiple stations assinged to it as well as Sirius-XM.

So the only fat that could be cut are the managers. Would anyone in the San Franciso Metro office cry for them?

There has been a couple of close calls with their small planes that fly out of Hayward. Plus there is at least one less traffic reporter in the air during drive time on KGO.

Rich Davis had been full-time flying for over 5-years and one day his full time job and benefits disappeared. It's the slogan "Westwood One the company without a Heart"

Any comments on the busineess operations of Metro and what are your predicitions as to what may happen in San Francisco?

I will look for your replies.

Newsperson
 
Read the item on the home page at radio-info. They're dropping low rated or non-rated affiliates...and therefore the staff that service them.
 
Newsperson responds:

Well has KTRB received any ratings? If not don't they have a 3-year contract or does Westwood One have an early out clause?

Since Santa Rosa and San Jose have their own rating books, those stations should be showing numbers.

What about the station on 540 Khz. (somewhere near Monterey I can't remember the call letters), do they have fair ratings?

Of course there is 1550 KYCY except that is part of the CBS package deal.

In regard to TV the only remaining affiliate is KRON-4 since both KTVU and KGO-TV have left the building in the last two years.

Is cuting back on a few shifts really going to save Westwood One that much money to make a difference?

What about the long-term benefits of retaining these affiliates?

i will look for your responses.

Newsperson
 
newsperson said:
Newsperson responds:

Well has KTRB received any ratings? If not don't they have a 3-year contract or does Westwood One have an early out clause?

Since Santa Rosa and San Jose have their own rating books, those stations should be showing numbers.

What about the station on 540 Khz. (somewhere near Monterey I can't remember the call letters), do they have fair ratings?

Of course there is 1550 KYCY except that is part of the CBS package deal.

In regard to TV the only remaining affiliate is KRON-4 since both KTVU and KGO-TV have left the building in the last two years.

Is cuting back on a few shifts really going to save Westwood One that much money to make a difference?

What about the long-term benefits of retaining these affiliates?

i will look for your responses.

Newsperson
Click to expand...

KTRB and the other non-rated stations have been given notice that they will no longer be offered customized feeds. Same for 540 in Monterey. There are exceptions, including KYCY (the abovementioned CBS deal) and KDOW (Metro's relationship with Salem). Some Santa Rosa stations and personnel are still a question mark. On the TV side, Metro also has KTVU.

Laid-off staffers have Joel Hollander to thank. Of course, he won't feel a thing, wrapped in his golden parachute.
 
Newsperson responds:

The KTVU afiliation and their equipment left the Metro building a few months ago. Along with their departure went the right to record the 10:00 p.m. newscast and use audio of the newsmakers in the Metro Newscasts.

The only TV deal left at Metro is KRON-4.

Newsperson
 
Uh...Metro is likely paying KRON...Those are the kinds of deals they've made/still make. Westood One was absolutely the worst company I ever worked for...Although CC comes close.
 
secret said:
newsperson said:
Newsperson responds:

Well has KTRB received any ratings? If not don't they have a 3-year contract or does Westwood One have an early out clause?

Since Santa Rosa and San Jose have their own rating books, those stations should be showing numbers.

What about the station on 540 Khz. (somewhere near Monterey I can't remember the call letters), do they have fair ratings?

Of course there is 1550 KYCY except that is part of the CBS package deal.

In regard to TV the only remaining affiliate is KRON-4 since both KTVU and KGO-TV have left the building in the last two years.

Is cuting back on a few shifts really going to save Westwood One that much money to make a difference?

What about the long-term benefits of retaining these affiliates?

i will look for your responses.

Newsperson
Click to expand...

KTRB and the other non-rated stations have been given notice that they will no longer be offered customized feeds. Same for 540 in Monterey. There are exceptions, including KYCY (the abovementioned CBS deal) and KDOW (Metro's relationship with Salem). Some Santa Rosa stations and personnel are still a question mark. On the TV side, Metro also has KTVU.

Laid-off staffers have Joel Hollander to thank. Of course, he won't feel a thing, wrapped in his golden parachute.
Click to expand...

I always felt that these deals were too sweet for some stations. In some cases they are provided with on premise (at station) staff and still paid cash on top of that.

There's a case in another market where the station owner's "significant other" ran the board in the morning at the station while on the traffic/news service payroll. This person also cleaned the station office between breaks, but that was more as a favor to the owner since the owner was this person's meal ticket. This individual would occasionally miss a break because he/she was too busy vacuuming the station floor or cleaning a toilet.
 
Newsperson responds:

Those deals do sound good for the station and from what I am hearing those days are gone. In the next few days Metro will be re-branded with the Westwood name and many of the deals with the stations will change.

If a station has ratings or is part of a CBS or a group of stations in a market with ratings on some of the stations, then they are OK.

Some stations without ratings are being offered services they have been receiving for barter an opportunity to pay cash! What!..... pay cash for what you to use to get for trade?

Well there are always words for Westwood/Metro for what they can do with their offer to pay them cash.

What's the broadcast world coming to...no more trade deals?

I will look for your replies.

Newsperson
 

I always felt that these deals were too sweet for some stations. In some cases they are provided with on premise (at station) staff and still paid cash on top of that.
[/quote]

Historically, that kind of thing was done to subsidize certain talent for the "golden" affiliates. Recently, though, it's been expanded to include admin personnel.
 
secret said:

I always felt that these deals were too sweet for some stations. In some cases they are provided with on premise (at station) staff and still paid cash on top of that.
Click to expand...

Historically, that kind of thing was done to subsidize certain talent for the "golden" affiliates. Recently, though, it's been expanded to include admin personnel.
[/quote]

The station I was talking about is hardly a golden affiliate.
 
I just read today's press release. It talks about a restructing charge of 20 to 24 million in the third quarter. Who are the recipients of that money?

In San Francisco I always thought the office space was way too big because half of it is unused. Will Metro relocate to a smaller office in the City?

S.F. must remain as one of the 13 regional hubs, so who do the close in the west?

Could Sacramento disapear? What about Fresno, San Deigo and Las Vegas? I know Phoenix is a major hub so it could serve some California cities.

As far as the planes are concerned it sounds like their days are numbered.

Any local news on the above?

Newsperson
 
newsperson said:
S.F. must remain as one of the 13 regional hubs, so who do the close in the west?
Click to expand...

Why? They could relocate to Oakland or San Ramon or just about anywhere, especially if they could save a fortune in rent.

Also, it always seemed to me that Metro was overbuilt in the sense that they don't need to provide custom reports to most of their stations, just the A-list stations. In fact, leave off the callsigns and most Metro reports don't vary between stations. The most variation I've seen is between the reports for KALW and KQED. On KALW they specialized on SF since KALW's signal is mainly SF, and included BART and Muni information. On KQED, due to its reach with KQEI and the large KQED signal, they've done more regionalized reports and mentioned little about public transit.

But other than that I don't see any difference between their reports for KNEW, KKGN, and others. No reason why they couldn't just do a generic report.

With the staff reduction will we be hearing fewer people using more names?
 
David:

My main question is will San Francisco remain one of the regional hubs? I expect that they will stay here and the audio line costs to each station is much lower within S.F. Also the San Francisco rental costs have dropped greatly.

There will only be 13 hubs including Phoenix and they will not create any new ones.

The question who are the fortunate 13 cites?

These are my guesses:

1. S.F.
2. L.A.
3. Phoenix
4. Chicago
4. New York
5. Miami
6. Dallas
7. Huston (headquarters although they could be moved)
8. Atlanta
9. Seattle
10. Boston

Wow that leaves out alot of important cities.

Your thoughts?

Newsperson
 
newsperson said:
My main question is will San Francisco remain one of the regional hubs? I expect that they will stay here and the audio line costs to each station is much lower within S.F. Also the San Francisco rental costs have dropped greatly.
Click to expand...

These are the days of the Internet. If the traffic reports don't go out live, they can be MP3'd and sent via any old connection. There's no reason for a dedicated line. And there's also no reason to feed them live. A 5 or 10 minute delay is not a big deal.

And with all the data input in traffic being Internet-ized, those 13 regional centers can be anywhere. There is no reason they have to be in SF, LA, NY, etc. For instance, where's CNBC located, somewhere in non-union New Jersey, no?
 

With the staff reduction will we be hearing fewer people using more names?
[/quote]

Have any staffers been "right-sized" yet in SF? Which ones?
 
DavidKaye said:
I don't see any difference between their reports for KNEW, KKGN, and others. No reason why they couldn't just do a generic report.
Click to expand...

KKGN and KNEW traffic (and reports for all the other stations in the cluster) are provided inhouse by CC's Total Traffic Network. I'd wager it's that kind of competition that figures into Metro's downsizing.
 
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