Radio Jobs are being slashed daily

[pocket-radio]

“so one of radio's issues may be not paying enough at the CEO or COO level.”

mmmm...
Radio has bigger problems. It all sounds the same. There’s nothing worth listening too. Before the economy tanked, revenues have been flat and declining for years, as ad dollars shift to new media. Talent? Radio hasn’t been investing in talent. What talent..
Uninformed presenters with verbal diarrhea and bland music formats composed from shallow over researched playlists. Most listeners today treat it as background noise. What a way to cheat advertisers and don't get me started on 8 to 10 commercials (interruptions) back to back. Nobody I know is really listening to all those commercials.

Radio has become a jukebox…. Listeners have more and more options for free music.. Expect wireless to become ubiquitous, radio will lose it’s hold on in car listeners. Even now 70% of cars come equipped with ipod jacks..

We’re now see the effects of consolidation Wall Street ruined radio, thanks.

 

[dgendvil]

Hey, look at Canada. It has a much smaller population than here & the ratings are good there, compared to American radio. They play their own content, & plus has more talented people that won't be played on the big markets in New York & Los Angeles like 54/40, Tragically Hip, Sam Roberts, Cowboy Junkies, Sarah McLauchlan (also being played in the US, Blue Rodeo, April Wine, The Payolas, Alanis Morrisette (also played in US), Matthew Good Band, Sloan, Barenaked Ladies (has also played in the US), K.D. Lang (sometimes played on US radio), April Wine, Chilliwack, Arcade Fire, Long John Baldry, Swollen Members, Sum 41 & Finger Eleven (plays some of their hits on US radio), DOA, Econoline Crush, Ian Thornley, Colin James, Bruce Cockburn, Big Sugar, Treble Charger, Fefe Dobson, Heavy Blinkers, Fembots, The Unicorns, Adam Cotton, Broken Social Scene, The Phenomes, Remy Shand, Stills, The Weakerthans, Hot Hot Heat, Hawksley Workman, The Constantines, Metric, Stars, The Dears, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Limblifter. Need I say more? Let me know.

 

[Tibbs4]

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.

GE is a disgrace, David. It's going to go down as one of those hidden fiascos that will tarnish what was a prestigious and fairly straight up
company that got fragmented in to many directions. None were positive. Greed, short-sightedness, you name it. What ever happened to
normal, steady growth instead of dog-eat-dog?

 

[pocket-radio]

And Am radio is again, nothing but conservative self-serving trash. I used to enjoy talk radio, because I enjoyed the challenged of debating, if nothing else in my mind. And I felt as if I was learning too.

Rush, Hannity, Ingram, Bortz… All sell their own agenda everyday. It’s trash radio. I’ll listen then turn my radio off because it makes me so sick. The idiots are destroying AM radio.. and there is nothing else on the Am band.

The lessons from the election are so clear, saying the same things over and over hoping you can fool enough people, NO LONGER WORKS!
And media consumers have so many more options and choices than ever before.

Radio needs big CHANGES. While the economy is far from being on track radio has yet to hit bottom. Too many koo-aid drinking, arrogant self-serving minded people are still running radio, and the only way this will change, is when radio burns to the ground. Stations will have go dark, and Wall Street serving groups will have to come apart at the seams.

Burn, baby, burn!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

..... The idiots are destroying AM radio.. and there is nothing else on the Am band.

The lessons from the election are so clear, saying the same things over and over hoping you can fool enough people, NO LONGER WORKS!
And media consumers have so many more options and choices than ever before.

Radio needs big CHANGES. While the economy is far from being on track radio has yet to hit bottom. Too many koo-aid drinking, arrogant self-serving minded people are still running radio, and the only way this will change, is when radio burns to the ground. Stations will have go dark, and Wall Street serving groups will have to come apart at the seams.

This conversation is central to several threads at this time. Some people are convinced that Talk Radio is the salvation of AM radio. Others argue that Talk Radio is toxic and will burn the industry to the ground.

So, where do we go from here, and who do we trust as we search for "Truth".

I take issue with your message in one area: I would argue that radio as practiced by "Wall Street serving groups" is a separate issue from the health of AM radio and Talk Radio. Some of us see the Wall Street model as being incompatible with the long term good health of music radio, sports radio, house-of-worship related radio.... and Talk Radio. Radio has something in common with Broadway stage productions, making movies, publishing books and other enterprises that really need "some genius from a creative free spirit". I have never found a financial-plan spread-sheet that had a place and a formula to deal with "some genius from a creative free spirit".

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Is Radio "Detroit Junior" ?

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.

Where did you come up with "the most productive workers in the world?" The biggest issue in competing with Toyota and Honda and the Korean companies has been the vastly higher porductivity of the auto workers from Asia and even the German ones. Less restrictive work rules, flexible job assignments, more automation on the factory floor, etc. have made even the American plants of the foriegn car companies much more productive... their systems are better and America did not adopt them.

 

[TheBigA]

Radio has something in common with Broadway stage productions, making movies, publishing books and other enterprises that really need "some genius from a creative free spirit". I have never found a financial-plan spread-sheet that had a place and a formula to deal with "some genius from a creative free spirit".

Your view is contrary to the entire history of American radio. You consider that Bill Paley took CBS public in the middle of the Great Depression, and somehow managed to stay in business.

The money has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, while the "creative free spirit" is a wonderful ideal, it doesn't always lead to great art. And there are a lot of great geniuses, like Mozart and Van Gogh, who died broke.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Your view is contrary to the entire history of American radio. You consider that Bill Paley took CBS public in the middle of the Great Depression, and somehow managed to stay in business.

The money has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, while the "creative free spirit" is a wonderful ideal, it doesn't always lead to great art. And there are a lot of great geniuses, like Mozart and Van Gogh, who died broke.

At your insistence, we find ourselves in an apples vs. oranges conversation.

Mr. Paley created a network.... something analogous to today's program syndicators. The fact that he may have had seven or so actual stations within his corporate basket is a pimple on the elephants behind. The networks made it in that era not so much because they were Wall Street Wizards, but because to selected, groomed and promoted creative genius. We had Bob Hope, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Robert R Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Don McNeal, Fibber McGhee and Molly, Orson Wells, and on and on and on. Maybe on a different plane than Mozart and VanGough, but entertainment geniuses never the less.

The critical foundation Paley built on was less the result of Wall Street, and much more the result of radio stations across America which were founded by funeral homes, churches, hardware retailers, home town newspapers, grocers, and guys with First Phone tickets who didn't even know where Wall Street was.

I worked for 15 different radio stations. Two were owned by people who also had founded publicly held companies, but to the best of my knowledge those two stations were not publicly owned. I'm not sure I ever competed with a station that was publicly owned but two were owned by families that owned news papers that at some point became publicly owned.... maybe later.

The stations I worked for took feeds from Mr. Paley and other networks to utilize the talent and genius they provided to our programming, but NO WALL STREET FINANCING for our stations. We also had locally generated programming created by announcers and newsmen and sports guys who had little tiny nodules of genius in their souls. A couple of them that I worked with went on to big time radio.

I read posts by employees of the Wall Street based broadcasting operations and there are some GOOD THINGS they brought to radio. Apparently Clear Channel took some stations with shabby, shabby facilities and installed top-drawer technical plants.

Unfortunately, though the transmitter may be pristine and rest room clean, if the programming lacks genius, the audience is not served. The audience may measure well in the surveys but that does not mean the audience is served. As Bob and Tom in Indianpolis proclaimed about the competition: "We suck less."

And Talk Radio, the thread upon which this particular discussion is based, is today having to do some self inspection. Talk Radio and the Republican Party and the Evangelical Church had this strange bed-sharing arrangement and all three parties will spend the next few months trying to figure out why their relationship failed. Maybe Wall Street didn't see their three way relationship as having an evaluation that could be placed in the financial plan spread sheet.

 

[dgendvil]

Also Canada's CBC was created by the government, but it's sort of a commercial operation just like the BBC has.

 

[TheBigA]

The critical foundation Paley built on was less the result of Wall Street, and much more the result of radio stations across America which were founded by funeral homes, churches, hardware retailers, home town newspapers, grocers, and guys with First Phone tickets who didn't even know where Wall Street was.

Some of those radio stations were also owned by Westinghouse, General Electric, RCA, and other huge corporate giants that were also funded by Wall Street. Some of those hometown newspapers, like the Louisville Courier, were every bit as big and powerful as today's radio companies.

The point is that as the 80s ended, a large number of those radio stations originally owned by the founders of radio changed hands. When they did, a certain amount of debt was created. A place for artists and non-artists alike to get financing for their art and their commerce is Wall Street.

There are not many places to get funding today. You can go to the bank, but you need collateral. Most people don't have that. You can go to the government, but the small business administration won't give you a loan for a radio station. You can go to an investment bank, but that's a deal with the devil. So you go to Wall Street and do an IPO. If things go well, you create your art, and everyone is happy. That describes radio between 1993 and 2003. If things don't go well, as they've been for the past 4 years, there is a lot of unhappiness.

But the key thing still is that you need money to make it happen. If you've ever asked anyone for money, from your parents to a bank to an investor, it's not easy. And you know it's THEIR money that funds YOUR art. Even if you're talking Broadway plays.

It seems to me that we as a country are struggling with the money thing. Everyone wants to go to the government for funding, as though there aren't any strings. I worked in non-commercial radio, and I can tell you from experience that government funding isn't much cleaner than Wall Street. If you think Wall Street or corporate owners are built on spread sheets, spend a few hours begging a government agency for funding. It ain't easy.

American broadcasting was built on business because the goal was to keep it independent from government interference and the potential for propaganda. Is the audience better served by government propaganda than by corporate spread sheets? I hope I don't have to make that decision.

 

[TheBigA]

Also Canada's CBC was created by the government, but it's sort of a commercial operation just like the BBC has.

The BBC is funded by taxes on radios and TVs. There is independent radio and TV which are commercial. Rupert Murdoch is an independent broadcaster in England. Same in Canada, which is based on the British system.

The US gov't created public broadcasting in 1967 in answer to a view that commercial broadcasting was a "vast wasteland." That was long before deregulation. Commercial broadcasters supported the decision because it would absolve them of certain educational and public interest responsibilities. And because it would use a portion of the spectrum that commercial broadcasters felt had no value.

 

[davideduardo]

The US gov't created public broadcasting in 1967 in answer to a view that commercial broadcasting was a "vast wasteland." That was long before deregulation. Commercial broadcasters supported the decision because it would absolve them of certain educational and public interest responsibilities. And because it would use a portion of the spectrum that commercial broadcasters felt had no value.

Public broadcasting (as opposed to PBS) existed long before 1967...

http://www.davidgleason.com/Broadcasting 1956 Yearbook/Broadcasting Yearbook 1956.pdf

That's the public or non-commercial listing of US stations from 1956... a lot of stations when there were only around 700 total FMs in the US. And note that the non-coms were all below 92.1, just as they are today. That part of the band has great value, and commercial breoadcasters would have loved being "first on the dial."

WHat happened in 1967 is the prohibition of simulcasting in larger markets, the move that made FM viable within a few years.

 

[TheBigA]

WHat happened in 1967 is the prohibition of simulcasting in larger markets, the move that made FM viable within a few years.

No. What happened in 1967 was the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which apportioned federal money for the creation of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, PBS, and NPR.

Educational broadcasting has its foundations in 1920 with WHA-AM Madison WI.

 

[davideduardo]

No. What happened in 1967 was the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which apportioned federal money for the creation of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, PBS, and NPR.

Educational broadcasting has its foundations in 1920 with WHA-AM Madison WI.

But the educational and non commercial part of the FM band, far from being undesirable or unwanted, was in existence far before 1967... all PBS is is a subsidised network that provides, in turn programming and subsidies for public stations... many of which already existed when the CPB was created.

Quite a few stations, like WHA and WKAR, WOI, WILL, WOSU and WRUF existed long before that time, as well. I just don't see the formation of PBS as being such a benchmark and there is no relationship between authorizing the CPB and the use of the FM band below 92.1 for non-coms.

 

[TheBigA]

But the educational and non commercial part of the FM band, far from being undesirable or unwanted, was in existence far before 1967.

Not questioning the existence of educational or non-coms below 92.1 before 1967. But the FM band was obviously less valuable to commercial broadcasters than AM. Which is why some even donated their commercial FM licenses to educational enterprises, as the Washington Post did with WTOP-FM.

The lower part of the dial was more prone to interference. The middle portion of the dial was more desirable.

I just don't see the formation of PBS as being such a benchmark and there is no relationship between authorizing the CPB and the use of the FM band below 92.1 for non-coms.

I'm not questioning that those frequencies had been used for non-commercial purposes prior to 1967.

The formation of CPB was a benchmark because until that time, broadcasting was mainly the realm of commercial enterprise. Sure there were exceptions. But they didn't have the funding or the organization that CPB gave them.