Radio Jobs are being slashed daily

[LasVegasRadioJunky]

Every other news story these days is about our industry cutting jobs. Today the legendary WLUP downsized the entire top tier of the programming and promotion departments. Yesterday I read that CBS has cut almost 300 positions in the last couple of months. And stock prices continue to decline. A half dozen broadcast stocks are below a buck. These are scarey times.

Let's not rant on this thread. Let's instead suggest solutions.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Simple. "The fish rots from the head down."

Unfortunately, it ain't the head that's being cut off. Every million that goes to one of the guys at the top means 15 people who end up out of work.

Farid Suleman will make over $11-million this year. That's 165 people who'll be gone, while the company stock hovers under 30 cents.

 

[davideduardo]

Simple. "The fish rots from the head down."

Unfortunately, it ain't the head that's being cut off. Every million that goes to one of the guys at the top means 15 people who end up out of work.

Farid Suleman will make over $11-million this year. That's 165 people who'll be gone, while the company stock hovers under 30 cents.

In this week's Fortune, an article discusses whether financial giant General Electric will survive the current economic crisis, even after thousands and thosands of layoffs. We're in a global recession and everyone is cutting costs.

Very few radio-only executives make $1 million, while in other fields such salaries for good leaders is common.

 

[12 In a Row]

Every other news story these days is about our industry cutting jobs. Today the legendary WLUP downsized the entire top tier of the programming and promotion departments. Yesterday I read that CBS has cut almost 300 positions in the last couple of months. And stock prices continue to decline. A half dozen broadcast stocks are below a buck. These are scarey times.

Let's not rant on this thread. Let's instead suggest solutions.

Every other news story these days is about EVERY industry cuttting jobs.
Autos, banks, home builders, you name it. Even health and drug companies are cutting jobs.
We're just a tiny part of this mess.

The after effect is even worse.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Very few radio-only executives make $1 million, while in other fields such salaries for good leaders is common.

"Good leaders" don't take their stock from $20 to $0.20.

 

[davideduardo]

Very few radio-only executives make $1 million, while in other fields such salaries for good leaders is common.

"Good leaders" don't take their stock from $20 to $0.20.

No, the economy, traders, and the perception of an industry do.

GE, the financial giant often considered the best run company in the US, is off over 50% from its 52-week high... that is a loss of $200 billion for investors, dwarfing the losses of all pure radio stocks combined by many times.

The CEO of GE gets around $12 million in salary and benefits for losing more shareholder value than the GDP of half the world's nations.

 

[landtuna]

"Good leaders" don't take their stock from $20 to $0.20.

No, the economy, traders, and the perception of an industry do.

Performance wasn't mentioned but it is probably the most important of the indicators investors consider when placing their bets. Advertising in general always takes a big hit during bad economic times and radio lives and dies by that business. Most investors are betting on growth and increased profitability and radio has taken a huge economic hit in its earnings potential not to mention the technical challenges from other forms of electronic entertainment.

The CEO of GE gets around $12 million in salary and benefits for losing more shareholder value than the GDP of half the world's nations.

Well....not quite. GE's CEO isn't paid to lose shareholder equity, he's obviously paid to grow it. But any CEO has a limited ability to manage the business downside in today's economic storm - those not in the oil and gas business, that is. I haven't seen GE on the list of corporations at the gubmint's welfare table yet though and that's a good sign.

 

[SirRoxalot]

GE vs. Citadel

So, you're saying that Farid, who runs a piddly little company compared to GE, and who lost 90% of the shareholder value, and who makes almost what the CEO of GE makes, is GROSSLY OVERPAID?

I guess that we do agree on something.

 

[davideduardo]

Well....not quite. GE's CEO isn't paid to lose shareholder equity, he's obviously paid to grow it. But any CEO has a limited ability to manage the business downside in today's economic storm - those not in the oil and gas business, that is. I haven't seen GE on the list of corporations at the gubmint's welfare table yet though and that's a good sign.

Pick up last week's Fortune, which has a cover that is something like "Will GE Survive?" and see what is hapening. They have been hit very hard on the mortgage and financial side, and since GE is considered a financial sector stock, not an industrial (over 60% of 2007 profit was from the credit and lending division) they could very well have great troubles; the success of the industrial part of GE involves the ability to get money even cheaper than banks do to finance buyer's turbines and major industrial products.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: GE vs. Citadel

So, you're saying that Farid, who runs a piddly little company compared to GE, and who lost 90% of the shareholder value, and who makes almost what the CEO of GE makes, is GROSSLY OVERPAID?

I'm saying that, probably, most radio group executives are underpaid.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Must be that you're a radio group executive, huh?

 

[RadioStarOne]

Don't look now but Citadels stock price is up to $1.06 in after hours trading. Seems they are doing a deal with Comcast and it gave them a little bump up. Also Westwood One is up to $1.07 in after hours trading too. And I was going to buy 2500 shares the other day when it was down to .10 a share. Darn!

 

[davideduardo]

Must be that you're a radio group executive, huh?

I've been one since I built my first market cluster in the 60's.

However, I was speaking of equivalent positions outside radio that pay better... so one of radio's issues may be not paying enough at the CEO or COO level.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Must be that you're a radio group executive, huh?

I've been one since I built my first market cluster in the 60's.

However, I was speaking of equivalent positions outside radio that pay better... so one of radio's issues may be not paying enough at the CEO or COO level.

So you're saying that radio has second-rate executives that weren't able to get one of those "equivalent positions" outside radio. OK. I guess that we agree again.

BTW, just what is an "equivalent position" to a radio CEO?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

BTW, just what is an "equivalent position" to a radio CEO?

It's very had to make an "apples to apples" comparison between industries but start with these criteria:

1. Headcount. How many employees report to the position.

2. Gross Profits. Industries that market products have very high gross sales but a good comparison might be to compare the gross profits of a manufacturing operation or a retailing interprise to the gross sales of a broadcast organization.

3. Investment/Captialization. To use the story from Christian Scripture of the master who gave a servant ten talents and another servant five talents and another servant one talent to manage.... compare a radio company's capitalization to another company in another industry.

4. The management of entanglement. It is one thing to manage your operations, your business, your marketing. But some businesses also require management of the REGULATORY process. Broadcasting has the FCC. Airlines have the FAA. Healthcare has Medicare, Medicaid and state regulatory and licensing agencies. (I once worked for a broadcaster who purchased a funeral home so he could have at least one business that was not 'regulated'. I reminded him the government would probably check to see if he was digging the graves exactly 6 feet deep.) ;D

 

[SirRoxalot]

Widget Radio

GRC, one of the problems I see in radio is that high-level execs are treating radio stations as "widget makers", with music as the "widget", and talent as those who hand-package the widgets. Obviously, it would be more efficient and cost-effective to replace "hand-packaging" with "robot-packaging".

Except radio stations aren't widget makers, and music ain't widgets. Good radio has soul, karma, immediacy, The Force - whatever you call it - that evaporates when you replace talent with robots. Radio is in the ENTERTAINMENT business, not manufacturing.

One of the BIG problems with many groups is that the upper management is so out of touch with what actually goes on in a real radio station. They work in a vacuum.

It's time for them to shut down the executive offices, and put these guys back into a radio facility where they have some contact with what really goes on in a radio station. Maybe reality will seep into their sealed-off wing through osmosis.

 

[johnbasalla]

The most stable jobs in radio may be at Radio Reading Service sub-carrier stations. They are, for the most part, run by social service agencies and aren't effected by the ups-and-downs of ad revenue, nor other costly things that befall commercial over-the-air broadcasters.

Would non-comm's and Public radio stations be a better job fit?

 

[Carmine5]

Speaking of radio jobs being slashed daily, I was just reading in Gary Lycan's OC Register radio column for Sunday that CBS is planning to exclusively voice track most of their music stations. The formats being targeted are: AC, adult hits, smooth jazz and urban AC.

I guess this also means no live morning shows for any of these formats. This is management mediocrity at its finest.

C5

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Is Radio "Detroit Junior" ?

GRC, one of the problems I see in radio is that high-level execs are treating radio stations as "widget makers", with music as the "widget", and talent as those who hand-package the widgets. Obviously, it would be more efficient and cost-effective to replace "hand-packaging" with "robot-packaging".

You express logic that I share. The way you expressed it caused me to realize that:

Radio management is doing to radio about the same thing automotive management has done to Detroit.

As long as we could push cars out the door, we really didn't care whether the product satisfied the end users.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Re: Is Radio "Detroit Junior" ?

GRC, one of the problems I see in radio is that high-level execs are treating radio stations as "widget makers", with music as the "widget", and talent as those who hand-package the widgets. Obviously, it would be more efficient and cost-effective to replace "hand-packaging" with "robot-packaging".

You express logic that I share. The way you expressed it caused me to realize that:

Radio management is doing to radio about the same thing automotive management has done to Detroit.

As long as we could push cars out the door, we really didn't care whether the product satisfied the end users.

Exactly. And look what's happened to Detroit's market share. Despite the most productive workers in the world, Detroit is turning out inferior product, and customers are looking elsewhere for better value.