Radio One Houston Slash Jobs!

[shezie]

Budget Cuts made their way to Radio One Houston. KBXX Midday Girl Carmen Contreras, Night DJ's Aggrivated and Def Jam Blaster, KROI Val Willson and KMJQ's PD Sam Choice all got their walking papers this week. I hope some of you see the BIG picture here! The world we know as radio is shrinking! :'(

 

[Mediafrog+]

Guess this also means RO is not going after either of the CC spinoffs?

 

[rocknrollisdead]

This is all Clear Channels fault! If they wouldn't have laid off their people, then Radio One wouldn't have ever gotten the idea in the first place! Stupid Clear Channel!

And if there's one thing we can all agree on is that it's not the economy.

And on a serious note, I am sorry to see good people out of work. I know the feeling. Happy landings, my friends.

 

[snoman]

Yeah, I have said it is pretty bad when I wished Clear Channel still owned Majic 102 and "The Box". Radio One is 100 times cheaper than Clear Channel ever thought about being. It seems to be par for the course these days... Radio One, Clear Channel, and CBS Radio, three of the biggest companies in Radio, have all slashed a significant amount of jobs over the past few months. Just another example on how the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was one of the biggest travesties to ever happen to the broadcast industry.

 

[saradio1]

Posted by: rocknrollisdead- This is all Clear Channels fault! If they wouldn't have laid off their people, then Radio One wouldn't have ever gotten the idea in the first place! Stupid Clear Channel!

And if there's one thing we can all agree on is that it's not the economy.

Yeah, let's blame Clear Channel for all the people that have lost their homes or are on the verge of doing so. I guess while we're added we can blame the recession on Clear Channel. We can also blame CC for Global Warming. SNAP OUT OF IT!!!!! Have you kept up with what's going on with the economy nationwide? Get your head out of radio and see the much larger picture. There's a lot companies cutting jobs everywhere.

 

[kendro]

Discretionary spending reduction is going to kill a lot if advert-based businesses.
The economy does hit radio harder than others.

Reducing seats is basic. Stupid in the long term but basic.

 

[Fo-Fo-Fo-Hye]

One thing I love about radio jobs going away... it always seems to be air staff. Have you ever heard of sales jobs getting cut? Nope. Unless it's a highly paid sales manager. Gotta love that. Let's cut the people who make the least amount of money. Yeah! That makes sense... but then what else in this industry does?

 

[gitch]

Just curious, do the folks in sales work on commission?

 

[adguy]

One thing I love about radio jobs going away... it always seems to be air staff. Have you ever heard of sales jobs getting cut? Nope. Unless it's a highly paid sales manager. Gotta love that. Let's cut the people who make the least amount of money. Yeah! That makes sense... but then what else in this industry does?

Well Fo Fo, you got it half right. Since 1997 Radio and TV have been slowly cutting commission rates and getting rid of the hyper paid sales execs that are bitching about the cuts. With only a few exceptions, sales commissions and salaries are probably an aggregate 30-50% lower than they were 10 years ago. Yes, you are correct that these companies are cutting the lower paying jobs, but they are cutting fixed costs (like salaries rather than commissions). Fixed costs are easier to justify to shareholders. Commissions are more of a relative cost and those are harder to justify and explain and we all know how basically lazy these top a-holes running the stations are. Eventually however, when a high paid sales AE is singled out as a high cost item on the expense sheet, he or she is cut out or cut down. That's been the reality of radio for the last 10 years.

 

[snoman]

Good Local Jocks are just as valuable as some sales people. Look at what Stevens & Pruett did for years on KLOL. The same can be said for Hudson & Harrigan and Rowdy Yates on KILT-FM amongst others. Their presentation is the main reason for the ratings and revenue for the station. The fact that a lot of these stations are replacing good local talent, with voicetracking, syndication, and even in some instances "Jockless Radio", is a reason for declining shares. It is extremely rare these days to see double-digit shares. Now, I am not that naive to say, that is the only reason. There is a lot of competition from other mediums of listening to music/talk (i.e. Satellite Radio, I-Pods, Mp3's, etc). However, a lot of holes that these companies have put themselves in financially, has to do with decisions that they have made in their homogenization of their stations. Go back and look at the Gordon McLendon/Bill Drake/Ron Jacobs handbooks on how they built powerhouse radio stations. They were based around great talent that sold their radio station. It made the sales guy's job a lot easier. Do you think KHJ in Los Angeles or KLIF in the Metroplex would have been near as popular without their stable of great radio personalities... no. All corporations see is the bottom line. They don't know heads or tails about what goes with programming. They are always looking for ways to cut. Fo-Fo is right. They are NEVER going to cut any sales people. They are the ones bringing in the revenue. : No, they look at the personalities, first and foremost, and here lately it has been despite ratings. As an on-air personality, you used to be able to count on good numbers as job security. Nowadays, there is no such thing in radio. You could be doing anything and everything for the company, but because of their poor decision making, they may look at your salary and all the sudden the light bulb above their head comes on. They have found their budget cut, and it is you. This is exactly way I just hate listening to local radio. It is hard for me to support these a-holes, when they are making these kind of decisions.

 

[SEMPERFIRADIO]

well what can we SAY IT IS A LOVE & HATE AFFAIR WITH MY CAREER
here is the drill have your midday day jock be the asst pd
afternoon dj does production
the pd is the ops mnger do we get picture .....we get Dick clarked
ONE QUESTION CAN THE SALES TEAM SALE THE SPOTS WITHOUT ON AIR PERSONALITY
NOOOOOOO
I FELL IN LOVE WITH MY CAREER IN 96.
THE ART/CRAFT IS AWESOME. THE SHAREHOLDERS DO NOT KNOW RADIO
WE NEED TO BE INVOLVED IN POLITICS SO WE CAN TAKE OF EACH OTHER
REMEMBER UWSDWF BECOME AN ON AIR PERSONALITY/INVOLVED IN POLITICS

IF WE DONT HAVE A VOICE AS JOCKS UNITED NATION WIDE IN THE USA....THEN WE CANT SAY $#!T
THEY WILL PLAY US LIKE WE PLAY THE MUSIC
WE NEED TO UNITE CREATE A LEADERSHIP A VOICE

 

[soloflyr1]

Somebody that has the radio companies ears should tell these jokers, when you trim a tree you take the dead weight from the top not the roots.

This promotes healthy new growth in the tree. If all you ever do is cut the roots then sooner or later the tree will topple over.

Of course as dense as the upper echelon in radio is it would have to be explained to them that this is an analogy of the current status in radio.

Otherwise they would walk away from the meeting talking to each other about the crazy person that is talking about forestry in a radio meeting.

 

[adguy]

Fo-Fo is right. They are NEVER going to cut any sales people. They are the ones bringing in the revenue. : No, they look at the personalities, first and foremost, and here lately it has been despite ratings. As an on-air personality, you used to be able to count on good numbers as job security. Nowadays, there is no such thing in radio. You could be doing anything and everything for the company, but because of their poor decision making, they may look at your salary and all the sudden the light bulb above their head comes on. They have found their budget cut, and it is you. This is exactly way I just hate listening to local radio. It is hard for me to support these a-holes, when they are making these kind of decisions.

You still have to remember that high paid salespeople are targets the same as on-air and production hands. Technically both you and Fo-Fo are correct, but if you are a talented, high paid salesperson you should look out if you haven't already been chopped. The new look for these companies is to flood the street with low paid, commission only salespeople who canabalize each other for business. Then they face the sad truth that this thread is focused on. Lack of quality talent brings down the ratings making even a tougher sale for the mostly inexperienced sales teams, and that includes the largely inexperienced sales management. So what you have is the lower quality and lower paid sale forces and the high paid sales pros are out of the business. Hence, lower salaries on the sales end accomplishing the end goal of lowering expenses for the bean counters. So when you say they'll never cut sales positions, you are correct, but you don't have the same quality and talent that has the ability to interpret the numbers and trends and has the ability to shmooz the average client.

 

[johnqdoe]

I thought it was SUCH a great gesture for the Mays clan to take those pay cuts when they announced the hiring and spending freeze. Same for all those RVPP, SRVP., brand managers, etc. etc. that are making 6 figures and not doin a whole helluva lot. But forget that. It is always better to cut the air talent and promotions folks.

 

[kendro]

I know Texas is a right-to-work state but why hasn't the industry gone union?
The power of 20 to 30 disgruntled workers carrying large magnets and small wire cutters is amazing!