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Outpouring of support...

M

Meepster

Ahem!!! SOAPBOX time!

Having been a victim in the past of these types of corporate house cleanings, and knowing personally many others, I can certainly empathize with the people recently let go in the Memphis market. It sucks, especially when you haven't done anything to "deserve" being let go. This is sadly, and as has been reported on here many times, the nature of the beast.
Something I find a bit strange recently, though, is the "Oh, he's such a great guy", and "They didn't deserve this" , 'Let's boycott the station" posts AND the "Let's get together and get them to hire somebody" stuff.

So, being an opinion-laden redneck with a smart-mouth...I'm going to lay some things upon you to ponder...

1. These people, from high profile stations, that have been let go...Where was their out-pouring of support and emotion when the untold OTHER staffs have recently been let go and sent packing? I never saw a post or comment of support from Conley or Hart or ANY of the others when countless others met the same fate.
Did you?
I certainly haven't seen anyone trying to start a movement for another station to hire them.

2. In fact, I've never even seen any of them even acknowledge that a fellow staff from another station even existed unless it was to poke fun of them for working for Flinn or because they didn't have the budget or ammenities they had. (Much less any words of kindness when they got canned)

3. I didn't see this sort of stuff when Entercom let Steve Butler go after 25-plus years ON THE SAME SHIFT at the same station. Did Butler deserve it where Conley did not? What's your criteria? Butler was hanging with not just FM100 but even the ethnic stations in the ratings when he was unceremoniously dumped. Is it just that so many more people like Ron, Steve, and Karen?---the ratings certainly didn't show that.

4. What about all the folks behind the scenes at these same properties that have been axed as well? Most of those have NO contract to provide a decent severence package. They are losing their health benefits and security just as the others...only they're paid a lot LESS in the first place.

I'm not happy that this happens to anyone. I have absolutlely nothing against Conley or Bev, or even Ron.
I've only met either of them briefly, and they were all fine.
I'm no longer bitter about when I got shoved out the door, so no one can blame this post on that.
(It was more than 5 years ago-and I'm certainly NOT claiming that myself or Froggy was near as popular or talented as any (maybe SOME) of these folks)

I may be the only one to be puzzled by this, but I have noticed it. There WILL be others! (Soon) If it's anyone besides Tom P., Ron, BadDog or Spencer... will we just ignore it?
I'm NOT saying not to show support for folks like Conley and Hart...I'm just sayin' show it for the others, too. On AND off the air. They are people whose lives and livings have been placed in as much turmoil as anyone else's. Rob Grayson, Jim Sykes, DeadElvis (lawyer-type dude) and others have cast a really wide net in their support and offerings of help. THAT is classy!

I think (KNOW actually) that this sucks the same for EVERYONE it happens to, and I wish them ALL the best in their next endeavor...whatever that may be.

Meep!
 
You bring up an interesting point. Let me see if I can weigh in.

Sure; it was shocking for many when Steve Butler was let go. He was an institution in this town, but, when he was let go it simply seemed to be an isolated, though perplexing, incident. The events of the past week does not.

Steve Conley and Bev Hart being terminated symbolizes a larger issue. Radio is getting smaller. The number of jobs in this business continues to shrink. It used to be that talent and name recognition were an insulator against unemployment. That no longer seems to be the case. In short, if it can happen to Steve or Bev, both good people who were assets to their stations, it can happen to you. That's scary, and what drives the feelings of many regarding the changes over the past days.

Now, I am not one to gnash teeth and cuss the suits in the boardrooms. They have other fish to fry beyond worrying about the fortunes of employees in Memphis, or Peoria, or Pascagoula. But, the days of expensive talent-driven radio stations like WHBQ, KHJ, WLS, and the like are about over. It's sad; we all need to mourn a little bit. That's what this is about.

DE
 
I guess I can see that...
but this is certainly not the first time this has happened, nor the first people this has happened to.
 
DE took the words outta my mouth.... it's disturbing to read about a business burning down, but terrifying and gutwrenching to read about wildfires taking out entire communities.
 
THE END OF RADIO

This is the end of radio as we once knew it. Every corporate guy in the world will sell off all their properties and they will become religious stations. The internet killed radio and so did the Ipod, Itunes and anything else computer related. Why dont some of the stations sign off and stream 24/7 on the web. Most of the money is on the web anyway. Why bother with a tower reading.
 
In the words of one of my favorite all-time shows ever, Sports Night, after one of the producers is assaulted in a locker room:

Dana Whittaker (Felicity Huffman): This happens all the time, right?
Isaac Jaffe (Robert Guilliaume): In my experience?
Dana: Yes
Isaac: At least twice a year in the past forty years.
Dana: Then why does this time feel different?
Isaac: Because this time, it's happening to us.

Like Spencer said this morning, he's been fired eight times. Heck, I'm a relative newbie, only 10 years experience, and I've been fired once. For me, the reason it feels different is because it's not just firing because of expenses or performance. These changes mark a very real change in the way we do do the voodoo we do do.
 
I have to agree with Meepster. The fact that Conley or Bev were let go does not signal the end of the radio world in Memphis.

I am sorry they lost their jobs but I don't feel they were shafted by their respective companies. Neither one of them were owed anything by their companies.

I have never allowed anybody I've fired to do a final shift. No matter how much you trust someone or how professional they are, there is too much danger of their emotions getting in the way. They could say something that will come back and bite them in the butt in future job hunting.
 
Under CBS, and under the current FCC environment, CYA at 100 and associated properties extended to the point that one couldn't even do "live" interviews at remotes. So I am not surprised that they wouldn't allow someone on the air after they were cut. I have left 100 voluntarily 3 times. The first time I was allowed to work out a notice period. The other occasions, by the time the words left my mouth to the bosses ear, my name was off the schedule. Most everywhere else, I've offered notice, and been able to work it out. The times in my career when my services were no longer required, then my presence was also no longer desired; I was given a check (or told where to send the bill) and shown the door.

What makes this situation different? I've been here a long time, and don't remember so many people being let go from so many different places at the same time. And to be completely maudlin, I've never seen so much opportunity seemingly "gone with the wind". Back when things made sense, you would see cycles of personality supplanted by cycles of shut-up-and-play-the-hits. Each swing of the pendulum would be balanced by the next. But, for now, somebody has grabbed the pendulum and might not soon let go.
 
It's consolidation and technology that has caused this. When you can have one person voice track many stations in different markets, and don't care about live and local, it's going to happen. The bigs are trying to show continuing growth to the stock holders, and the only way they can do that in the world of reduced advertising revenues is to cut operating costs. Translated, people. I am amazed every year as they find more bodies to put on the street when they've cut to the bone the previous year, and the one's before that. With the technology, even if you didn't have consolidation there would have been a gazillion people out there with home studios selling their voice tracking services. Radio is morphing, and at the moment in a very bad way. Things will only change when operators get serious about content and are willing to settle for profit margins of 15% instead of the 50-60% they're chasing now.
 
Basically, simply put....its GREED!!

I don't blame the stockholders for wanting a return on their investment.

I blame CEOs, COOs, CFO or whatever....for thinking they deserve such OUTRAGEOUS salaries!

And people think some of these veteran announcers were overpaid?? Gimme a break!
::)
 
What's interesting about these cutbacks is that it's the talented people who are off-loaded while the corporate weasels-***-ad salesmen stay. This is what happens when the need to produce ever more ad revenue is greater than the need to provide news, information and entertainment. Of course radio needs revenue to survive, but when the emphasis is on revenue, radio cannot survive. There is a reason why people are turning to other alternatives to get what they used to get from radio. The arrogance of corporate types is that they refuse to acknowledge that maybe they, as much as anything else and maybe more, have caused the demise of terrestrial radio. By the time they tumble to this and begin off-loading once profitable stations, it will be too late. I am a member of the last generation to grow up listening to radio. This new generation has many options, all made more attractive my the failure of major corporations to understand or even care about what the public wants--and that is not to increase the ad revenue for big corporations. There is a balance, but somehow that is lost on the ad salesman who make broadcasting decisions.
 
I have never really thought about this, but...

What if corporations kill radio? For those who love real entertainment radio (like the "old" days) this would be a good thing. If there is no money in radio, corporations will sell off to smaller groups. AND maybe radio will be reinvented as what it once was.

I know, I am stretching for that one.

Excuse me while I step out to interview for a sales job. (No, really, I am)
 
The CEO's, CFO's, VP's, etc., all have a legal obligation to do one thing --- create "profit." If they do that,
they get the rewards. The local stations salaries, are in many cases, amazingly polar. Lots of newer talent
is available for 20% of the old and it's been an issue in corporate meetings for years that those "below"
are disposable and often over payed and value their own importance to the overall system to much.
Hence, a 25-year veteran, making say $100,000 with benefits, working slightly over part time on the air,
can be replaced with four salespeople making a base of $25,000 and returning more "value" to the
bottomline, instead of taking from it, if you will. It's a cat and mouse game, that looks like something
is being done in the interest of the shareholders, which is 100% ALL THAT MATTERS on paper.

No one knows these local legends at corporate headquarters. They don't listen to the stations. The
next part of the equation is dispensing of mid-level management and local top management. More
"regional" execs and much less in-house local and that local will be expected to VT or do more shifts
for less pay than the old 25 year vet got for showing up just before his shift and running out just
after. It's indeed a nasty cycle. Before dereg, remember how everybody made it with one or two
FM's, lots of management, high salaries and all these stations had different locations in leased or
owned buildings and still stations OFTEN made money? That money has just been sucked to the
top.

A whole new round of this is starting. It's the next cycle. There can't be many more cycles to
go through, until the truth will be told that all these corporation house of cards sucked dry the
very essence of valid radio and left nothing but a dusty trail of disaster. This is one more ass-
saving move for shareholders watching before all the money goes away to the top players.

CC is bolting because they see the last rounds of cutting expenses still doesn't justify the stupidly
insane multiples of the past buying sprees and they can't increase their local station counts enough
to show the extreme profit pictures of the future. It's the start of a long down cycle flamed by
non-terres radio's growth and relative low costs outshadowing radio's performance.

Local staff, local listeners and radio with feelings are all that is left to cut. Memphis just got a
huge chunk taken out in the last month. It would have been a lot less obvious over a year, but
still would have happened. Sad, but true. I sit in and see this horrible situation unfold monthly
and hear horror stories from many in other boardrooms.

The cashing out is beginning as is the future of many in radio. It's very sad and very real. Not one
person that I know of has been "big" enough to stop it and certainly doesn't get respect, rather
becomes an outcast, at the very whim.

As poster above made the comment that the sky is falling, it's the end, etc. It's not that bad, but it
is true that the radio machine of 2007 is more lifeless radio formats, more budget cuts, raise the
revenue and ultra cut the cost (obvious) to get the stock selling higher and sell the companies to those
like KKR that'll be willing to overpay like the big 10 did.

And someone up in the chain got a nice bonus for the "cost cutting" in Memphis that took away years
of community connection and branding in a split second. And there was a celebration, of sorts.
 
Yes, indeed, CEOs have an obligation to provide profit for their investors and to pay salaries. I don't think anyone argues with that. I don't think anybody argues with the basic fact that radio must make money or it cannot succeed as a business. But when advertising revenue comes before profits, then one has created a problem. In an effort to increase it's profit line, and maybe to be more attractive to a buyer, Clear Channel is cleaning house--but is it off-loading high paid execs or lower paid talent? Three years ago, Mays said that Clear Channel was not in the business of communication but rather in the business of providing a healthy return on an investor's money. But what no one figured out then is that eventually the Clear Channel approach would turn people off and this time there are plenty of other places to go for news, information and entertainment. I say abandon terrestrial radio now, go elsewhere, maybe some time in the future radio will re-invent itself back to where it was and maybe it will just program infomercials, providing a nice health bottom line for whatever corporation comes in after Clear Channel leaves.
 
::DEEP BREATH::

ok...Meep, you make a lot of great points - I too am an opinion-laden redneck with a smart mouth~! sooooo....
-you're right...this isn't the first time this has happened. Where was I? I either sent a private email, or made a phone call, or posted under a different (anonymous) name. Or I expressed my sentiments when I next crossed paths with the affected person. Yes, there have been countless talented folks who have come & gone from Memphis radio. And I include the support staff as well...it doesn't matter if it happens to airstaff or janitors, it's a bitter pill for everyone.

DE was right...the first really loud bell of change rang when Steve Butler & Debby Hall were let go...everyone in radio could sense maybe something was afoot. And then when Steve Conley was shown the door...it really signaled a departure from the norm. And I still felt blindsided by the bean-counter who excised me from my team; but I don't blame him personally for a business decision that is very personal to me. The isolated, one-at-a-time incidents have grown to a large wave of "overhead reduction." My heart goes out to everyone who has lost their job ...and to those who will inevitably join our ranks.

I consider myself extremely lucky that in my 30 years of being in radio, I have been fired/laid off/let go/insert-your-own-euphemism-here only once. Luckier still that 20 of those 30 years were at the same place with mostly the same people.
I've worked with - and learned from - the best in the business. If you're in radio, and if I haven't met you yet, I hope I will soon!

Yes, Radio is changing, and we must change with it... all you can do is put on your big-girl panties and deal with it. ;D
 
How true about the folks at 103. I remember when the entire staff of 96X-WRXQ was let go and none of us received a single call from anyone at 103 and we worked in the same building. I wish them the best, but there is life after radio.
 
"How true about the folks at 103. I remember when the entire staff of 96X-WRXQ was let go and none of us received a single call from anyone at 103 and we worked in the same building. I wish them the best, but there is life after radio. "

Actually there were many kind words sent to some of the former employees of 96X - if you were there then you probably know me better as DT the production dude, seeing as how there was already another Zeke employed there. Plus I was the only one kept on, in hind sight I should have bailed with the rest of ya'll.

We knew our days at 96X were numbered, hell EVERYONE in the building knew that, but up until that final day we had fun. I was there for only the final few months of that station, but it was still probably my most fun experiance to date here in Memphis.

That situation was different from what's happened recently - We KNEW it was gonna happen. The folks fired recently did not. It was totally out of the blue. That's what makes it different.

As far as "life after radio", I'm sure there is one ... just not ready to find out for myself.

To those who have joined the recently unemployed, I wish you the best - anything that I can do to help a fellow radio gypsy just ask.
 
bev hart said:
::DEEP BREATH::

ok...Meep, you make a lot of great points - I too am an opinion-laden redneck with a smart mouth~! sooooo....
-you're right...this isn't the first time this has happened. Where was I? I either sent a private email, or made a phone call, or posted under a different (anonymous) name. Or I expressed my sentiments when I next crossed paths with the affected person. Yes, there have been countless talented folks who have come & gone from Memphis radio. And I include the support staff as well...it doesn't matter if it happens to airstaff or janitors, it's a bitter pill for everyone.

DE was right...the first really loud bell of change rang when Steve Butler & Debby Hall were let go...everyone in radio could sense maybe something was afoot. And then when Steve Conley was shown the door...it really signaled a departure from the norm. And I still felt blindsided by the bean-counter who excised me from my team; but I don't blame him personally for a business decision that is very personal to me. The isolated, one-at-a-time incidents have grown to a large wave of "overhead reduction." My heart goes out to everyone who has lost their job ...and to those who will inevitably join our ranks.

I consider myself extremely lucky that in my 30 years of being in radio, I have been fired/laid off/let go/insert-your-own-euphemism-here only once. Luckier still that 20 of those 30 years were at the same place with mostly the same people.
I've worked with - and learned from - the best in the business. If you're in radio, and if I haven't met you yet, I hope I will soon!

Yes, Radio is changing, and we must change with it... all you can do is put on your big-girl panties and deal with it. ;D
Click to expand...

Hey Bev. I hope you are doing well. Please know that you will be missed. You did make a difference in so many people's days. It won't be the same without you, and we hope to hear from you soon!
 
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