More Cuts Coming To CC/Boston?

[AcmeBuggywhipInc]

One-year (or less) trade schools for better paying/most secure jobs, is the way to go.

I trust you do not mean the Connecticut School of Broadcasting

 

[12 In a Row]

Considering the millions of jobs lost in the past year,
reporting another 1,000 won't even be a blip on the radar screen.

All we need to do is return to the days of yester-year.

Advertisers will come back with boatloads of money and people will turn off their TV's, computers, video on demand, cell phones, play-stations and return to a simplier life of listening to their favorite d.j. :

 

[magpie]

One-year (or less) trade schools for better paying/most secure jobs, is the way to go.

I trust you do not mean the Connecticut School of Broadcasting

CSB works for some people (at least it did before Dick Robinson sold it)

 

[JustinT]

One-year (or less) trade schools for better paying/most secure jobs, is the way to go.

I trust you do not mean the Connecticut School of Broadcasting

CSB works for some people (at least it did before Dick Robinson sold it)

A successful PD I know went to CSB, then went to apply for jobs in radio and basically got laughed at. After he recieved a communications degree from a four-year college combined with CSB, the one-two punch seemed to get his foot in the door.

 

[KarsonWithaK]

CSB (West Palm Beach) helped me learn the lingo and pointed me in the direction of my first gig. I would recommend them if the program is still as informative as what I learned. Fortunately, I had my Army G.I. Bill to cover the cost.

K~

 

[ChrisNH]

Love the anti-college sentiment in this thread.

I'm proud not to have attended college, and no child of mine will ever attend a private college on my dime.

Well, higher education did it to themselves. When was the last time you saw 'price roll-backs' at a college or university? And why haven't you seen them? Why are Liberals so incensed at 'big oil' but give a 'hall-pass' to 'Big University?' The obvious answer is that 'Big University' is an incubator for unfettered Liberalism, and of course Liberals will turn a blind eye to their 'friends' in Academe. And the chorus of cries to make college 'more affordable' always focuses on making loans more available...not on making the cost lower. So, in the end, I smile a bit when I see stories of enrollments coming down, or endowments shrinking. These institutions deserve to see the same economic pressures that everyone else is, and suffer from them accordingly.

 

[pocket-radio]

1500 people are being cut mostly from sales. The sales people left will be given accounts of those AE's who didn't make it. It's a joke, CC pays the lowest commissions and their clones plus the idiots across the street will follow their lead. It's like I'm an idiot and you're an idiot too..

AE's who’re left will be given these great and wonderful accounts, plus their budgets will then be raised even higher. Some might think the sales people will make more money, but it’s more work for less pay. If AE's don't hit budgets, now raised even higher they’ll be paid lowered commissions. It’s a management screw job. Many accounts don't return because it was the relationship that sold them in the first place. Once the relationship goes the accounts are gone too. But the salespeople are stuck with the accounts history that they didn’t create. It's no joke, Clear Channel is just cutting cost to sales and spinning their web of hype and lies. Cutting local talent for national programming is the same.

You bet management will be next. With less sales people who needs all those managers..
And you can double bet Clear Channel’s clones and the idiots across the street will follow their strategy.

I’m an idiot and you’re an idiot too, being an idiot counts for membership

 

[ChrisNH]

1500 people are being cut mostly from sales. The sales people left will be given accounts of those AE's who didn't make it. It's a joke, CC pays the lowest commissions and their clones plus the idiots across the street will follow their lead. It's like I'm an idiot and you're an idiot too..

AE's who’re left will be given these great and wonderful accounts, plus their budgets will then be raised even higher. Some might think the sales people will make more money, but it’s more work for less pay. If AE's don't hit budgets, now raised even higher they’ll be paid lowered commissions. It’s a management screw job. Many accounts don't return because it was the relationship that sold them in the first place. Once the relationship goes the accounts are gone too. But the salespeople are stuck with the accounts history that they didn’t create. It's no joke, Clear Channel is just cutting cost to sales and spinning their web of hype and lies. Cutting local talent for national programming is the same.

You bet management will be next. With less sales people who needs all those managers..
And you can double bet Clear Channel’s clones and the idiots across the street will follow their strategy.

I’m an idiot and you’re an idiot too, being an idiot counts for membership

Do people see this wave of firing sales people as cyclic (we'll hire them back when the economy turns) or systemic (this is our industry's new reality folks)?

 

[Deleted User]

No word from Cabot Road yet?

 

[radioobservant]

Even a handyman with just BASIC carpentry skills (here's a hammer & here's a nail) is getting work at $45 per hour.

Who? Where? For how long?

As for colleges teaching unfettered liberalism -- assuming such an absurd generalization is true -- what's the problem with that? Or do you simply have a problem with people thinking for themselves?

Uneducated morons babbling on the radio is a prime reason why fewer people earn a living talking on the radio.

 

[aaronread]

Well, higher education did it to themselves. When was the last time you saw 'price roll-backs' at a college or university? And why haven't you seen them? Why are Liberals so incensed at 'big oil' but give a 'hall-pass' to 'Big University?' The obvious answer is that 'Big University' is an incubator for unfettered Liberalism, and of course Liberals will turn a blind eye to their 'friends' in Academe. And the chorus of cries to make college 'more affordable' always focuses on making loans more available...not on making the cost lower. So, in the end, I smile a bit when I see stories of enrollments coming down, or endowments shrinking. These institutions deserve to see the same economic pressures that everyone else is, and suffer from them accordingly.

Uhh...ChrisNH, you ARE the Chris who does a lot of work for WFNX, right? If so, you've got some real stones to make the above comment considering what WFNX's target demo is. Even if you're not, pretty much the only thing that separates Boston from cities like Providence, Rochester, and even Albany, is the huge presence of higher ed. Take away all those colleges and watch Boston instantly become the #40 city in the Arbitrons; students make up nearly a quarter of the region's population, and a huge part of the local economy.

And your point is still laughably misinformed. "Big University"...even with Harvard...is a drop in the bucket budget-wise compared to Big Oil, Wall Street, or any one of a dozen other major industries. And the reason why colleges got so unaffordable was threefold:

• The shifting of the American economy from an industrial base to a knowledge base put a premium on a four-year degree, to the point where it became a de facto standard for most people who wanted a middle-class job.
• Accordingly, the giant push of more and more students into the system (and with more and more of those students being in "Generation Me" aka "The Entitlement Generation") kicked off a competitive environment where colleges felt enourmous pressure to spend millions on expensive upgrades like campus LAN's, fancy dorms, high-quality food, and more-more-more-more student activity programs.
• Most damningly, in the 1990's Congress removed the restriction on how much federal loans a student could take out. That restriction was an effective brake on how much students, in the aggregate, could really afford to spend on college. With that gone, the one-ups-manship took off like a rocket and you have the problems we see today.

Perhaps most tellingly, it wasn't colleges who lobbied for that loan restriction removal; everyone in higher ed knew exactly where that madness led. It was the banking industry...that paragon of virtue and honestly...that fought so hard for it. :-\

And JIBGUY, I know some carpenters that reaaaaally want to know where you see their fellow hammerers getting work at all, much less at $45/hr. The housing bust has turned the construction boom into a bloodbath just like everything else.

 

[aaronread]

and prepare for more syndicated stuff on Kiss 108 and JMN 94.5

Actually, GETTING BACK ON THREAD, this is something I've wondered about. Did Matty get the ax or not? Despite CC's rush to uber-syndication, I haven't heard much in the way of programming cuts at Kiss108.

 

[ChrisNH]

Well, higher education did it to themselves. When was the last time you saw 'price roll-backs' at a college or university? And why haven't you seen them? Why are Liberals so incensed at 'big oil' but give a 'hall-pass' to 'Big University?' The obvious answer is that 'Big University' is an incubator for unfettered Liberalism, and of course Liberals will turn a blind eye to their 'friends' in Academe. And the chorus of cries to make college 'more affordable' always focuses on making loans more available...not on making the cost lower. So, in the end, I smile a bit when I see stories of enrollments coming down, or endowments shrinking. These institutions deserve to see the same economic pressures that everyone else is, and suffer from them accordingly.

Uhh...ChrisNH, you ARE the Chris who does a lot of work for WFNX, right?   If so, you've got some real stones to make the above comment considering what WFNX's target demo is.   Even if you're not, pretty much the only thing that separates Boston from cities like Providence, Rochester, and even Albany, is the huge presence of higher ed.  Take away all those colleges and watch Boston instantly become the #40 city in the Arbitrons; students make up nearly a quarter of the region's population, and a huge part of the local economy.

And your point is still laughably misinformed.  "Big University"...even with Harvard...is a drop in the bucket budget-wise compared to Big Oil, Wall Street, or any one of a dozen other major industries.   And the reason why colleges got so unaffordable was threefold:

• The shifting of the American economy from an industrial base to a knowledge base put a premium on a four-year degree, to the point where it became a de facto standard for most people who wanted a middle-class job.
• Accordingly, the giant push of more and more students into the system (and with more and more of those students being in "Generation Me" aka "The Entitlement Generation") kicked off a competitive environment where colleges felt enourmous pressure to spend millions on expensive upgrades like campus LAN's, fancy dorms, high-quality food, and more-more-more-more student activity programs.
• Most damningly, in the 1990's Congress removed the restriction on how much federal loans a student could take out.  That restriction was an effective brake on how much students, in the aggregate, could really afford to spend on college.  With that gone, the one-ups-manship took off like a rocket and you have the problems we see today.

Perhaps most tellingly, it wasn't colleges who lobbied for that loan restriction removal; everyone in higher ed knew exactly where that madness led.  It was the banking industry...that paragon of virtue and honestly...that fought so hard for it.  :-\

And JIBGUY, I know some carpenters that reaaaaally want to know where you see their fellow hammerers getting work at all, much less at $45/hr.  The housing bust has turned the construction boom into a bloodbath just like everything else.

No, I'm not that Chris who works at WFNX. And I'm not at all misguided about 'Big University' getting a hall-pass from the same people who would seethe at 'Big Oil.' Conveniently (for you) you forgot to mention a little thing about endowments...that pile of cash all colleges and universities have. Care to 'rationalize' that away?

Yes, welcome to the new reality 'Big University.'  Welcome to a new era of 'Hope' and 'Change.' Your hope is that enrollments won't plunge too much, and the 'change' is already upon you: More and more people realize that they don't want or need what you're selling. Spend $100k so that you can exit four years later paving roads for one-fifth that? Go for a Doctorate degree so that you can be part of socialized health care and also make $20k? Do you think smart people are going to beat down the doors of medical schools if they know what awaits them on the other side? You do realize that socialized health care is going to result in a spike in demand for more doctors at precisely the time when the supply of them will start going down? maybe you can't, or don't want to. Can you say, 'lines-around-the-block?' Of course you can. You're dreaming some sort of whacked dream if you believe otherwise.

 

[Zeb Norris]

Welcome to a new era of 'Hope' and 'Change.'

Wow, YOU'RE awfully bitter ONE DAY into the new administration.

So let me get this straight; hope and change are bad?

Personally, I'm hoping for change... things pretty much suck right now, and not just in radio.

 

[aaronread]

No, I'm not that Chris who works at WFNX.

Whoops...apologies to both Chris's then! :-[

And I'm not at all misguided about 'Big University' getting a hall-pass from the same people who would seethe at 'Big Oil.' Conveniently (for you) you forgot to mention a little thing about endowments...that pile of cash all colleges and universities have. Care to 'rationalize' that away?

No need to rationalize...it's exactly the same as a company having cash on hand. What's the big deal? Again, besides Harvard, most colleges and universities don't exactly have thunderously huge endowments. Sure, you can point to a total dollar value and say "That's a lot of money." but it's meaningless without context. The context, for most higher-ed outlets, is that they have a huge endowment in order to generate viable annual revenue off interest and other dividends. And, even in good times, it takes a lot of money in an endowment in order to generate viable annual revenue. For example, let's say it takes your average small, 4-year "liberal arts" college about $70-75 million to operate. You'd probably want at least $5mil of that to come from your endowment's earnings every year. Ideally more like $10 or $15mil. At a 5% rate of return, measured annually (which no investment is, but I'm making this a simple example) you need $100,000,000 (that 100 mil) in investments to get $5mil a year.

Also, unlike many businesses, colleges almost by definition have regular, ongoing capital projects as they have to build new dorms, expand capacity, replace/fix-up old buildings, deal with athletics projects, etc etc etc. These projects require a LOT of money, most of it effectively up-front. In order to get loans on favorable terms, you need an endowment to effectively serve as collateral.

And having a big endowment is also just a frickin' smart way to run things. Every year it's a question mark as to how many students you'll get, and how much aid they'll need. So some years you'll get lots of green...other years you take it in the shorts. A healthy endowment means you can afford to weather a couple of lousy years without having to make painful cuts in areas that can be very hard to rebuild later.

Imagine if banks were run that way. Oh wait, they used to be required to do so....oops.