Radio stocks

[SirRoxalot]

Re: Note to Corporate

Reduce costs at the CORPORATE level. What do THEY bring to the table?

The numbers are in the field, not at headquarters. But if you want to get rid of the accounts payable folks, I'm sure they can cut a few there.

What about all the VPs? They get paid very well, for WHAT? To press local management to "do better". I'm sure that local management is already aware of the current challenges.

How about the expensive corporate headquarters? Put the head honchos in a RADIO STATION. Maybe they'll get a clue as to what really happens there.

On top of it all, you've got high level executives getting bonuses while the product suffers, and revenues decline.

No one at the top is getting bonuses this year. Bonuses are based on stock performance, and we know the story there.

Yeah, we know the story. Bonuses are based on whatever top management has engineered into their contracts. The stock price was in serious decline last year, but top management STILL GOT BONUSES. And I'd be willing to bet that most of them will get a handsome monetary pat on the back in addition to their millions in salary, and millions in expense accounts.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Note to Corporate

... and millions in expense accounts.

More misconceptions of business....

Unsupported expense accounts are very much a thing of the distant past. Any reimbursement for non-business expense to any employee is considered income and taxable. Companies, then, budget for expenses, and any that an employee at any level incurs is reimbursed against receipts or other proof.

Even car use for private purposes is audited; the IRS will consider the personal use taxable income.

Your misunderstanding of compensation is only exceeded by you misunderstanding of what corporate home offices do (hint: it's mostly accounting / consolidation of operations, coordinated buying to get better prices, specialized engineering services, SEC compliance, Sarbanes Oxley compliance, legal/ FCC, etc., all of which reduce costs to the individual stations in a group )

 

[SirRoxalot]

Re: Note to Corporate

Your misunderstanding of compensation is only exceeded by you misunderstanding of what corporate home offices do (hint: it's mostly accounting / consolidation of operations, coordinated buying to get better prices, specialized engineering services, SEC compliance, Sarbanes Oxley compliance, legal/ FCC, etc., all of which reduce costs to the individual stations in a group )

My "misunderstanding of compensation" and "what corporate home offices do" is based on what I see in several companies with layers of management (regional and national) that suck money out of radio stations that are essentially local businesses. Ask any LOCAL GM about how "corporate" reduces their costs. HAH! The "savings" through "consolidation" have turned out to be a myth. The costs to local stations of unrealistic corporate mandates is significant.

Meanwhile, these "captains of broadcasting" lease luxury office space in major cities, make millions a year, add layers of "oversight" in sales, programming, HR, and all of the other "home office" departments to what is essentially a group of LOCAL businesses.

Perhaps corporate should be treated like local groups. Their costs must be balanced by the income that they bring in. Since national business is even deeper in the toilet than local, they should be working out of strip mall in Paramus, not a skyscraper in mid-town Manhattan. Their "business meetings" should be at Ponderosa, not Morton's, with free refills instead of $300 bottles of Cabernet.

 

[amfmxm]

At the risk of seeming like the voice of reason, the reality is no doubt somewhere in between, depending on the individual and the company. The CEO of our company (30-some stations in small & suburban markets) works from an office at one of the radio stations and dines most often at Taco Bell.

But are there top execs with lavish digs and private jets, digging bigger and bigger holes for their firms while preaching frugality and chopping staff? Sure.

The current issue of The New Yorker has a great article on psychopaths. I recognized some of our industry's biggest names in the diagnoses...

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

One Size Does NOT All

Flip through the topics here at R-I, read the letters to the editor in your local paper or metro paper, and read the Internet Blogs. There are a lot of people who build their logic on the assumption that every situation is alike.

Every radio listener wants to hear music and no jabber.

Every liberal is a communist.

Every airplane pilot is a dare-devil.

Every farmer wears overalls.

We read a story or two about some bad judgement by one or two executives of a corporate-owned radio group and we impose that report, that rumor, that caricature on EVERY company that owns more than a dozen stations.

If we are going to have conversation which allows us to learn something, we are probably going to have to take the steel bear-trap off our heads and get set to welcome some fresh, new information once in a while.

If you own three hundred radio stations, you don't need for three hundred general managers to stay up late every night trying to understand all the FCC rules. Designate one person at corporate to be the "Go To" person and you let the GMs figure out what GMs should do at the LOCAL level.

You don't need 300 GMs sitting through presentations on which brand of laser printers are the best combination of reliability and economy.

You don't need 300 GMs becoming experts on Workers Compensation Insurance to cover job-related injuries.

As a distant observer, I have to accept as being somewhat reliable, all the complaints and reports that Corporate has in some cases tried to take upon themselves that task which only "the boots on the ground" have the info to deal with: What is it going to take to sell advertising in MY town, which is a slightly different market than THAT town over there, and THIS town next to me.

If I owned a group of radio stations, I think I would devote some of my time studying WalMart. What do they do that is right. What do they do that is wrong. Can I steal some of their smarts.

If I owned ONE radio station, I would watch for locally owned businesses in markets around me that are successfully competing and thriving IN SPITE OF WalMart. What are these business doing that is right. And wrong.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Note to Corporate

My "misunderstanding of compensation" and "what corporate home offices do" is based on what I see in several companies with layers of management (regional and national) that suck money out of radio stations that are essentially local businesses.

The first broadcasting stock I ever owned, in about 1957 or 1958, was Storer Broadcasting. Under the 7/7/7 rule, they had what today would be called a small group. Yet they had nice corporate offices on one of the Bay Harbour Islands in North Miami Beach, where they did all the legal, accounting, audit and regulatory things on a shared cost basis, as well as giving corporate guidance to the individual stations in the group.

I see little difference today. If you own a group of stations in a variety of markets, you have to have a central office to consolidade the financials, regulatory issues, health insurance, EEO, HR, etc. There is no escaping this.

Ask any LOCAL GM about how "corporate" reduces their costs. HAH! The "savings" through "consolidation" have turned out to be a myth. The costs to local stations of unrealistic corporate mandates is significant.

This has zero to do with consolidation... where the savings are mostly in the local markets themselves (shared buildings, shared insurance, etc., etc.). The need for a "home office" began when the first groups of non-network owned stations were formed, mostly starting right after W.W. II.

I suggest you go to www.americanradiohistory.com and look at the "Group Ownership" sections of the Broadcasting Yearbook issues where you can trace from the 40's the growth of group ownershiip and the consequent opening of some form of group HQ.

One of the benefits of such operations was the ability to negotiate health insurance, which was only affordable with larger groups of people... which is why so few stand alones had such back in the earlier days. Employees benefitted from better benefits in the long run, and the company could have better legal advice, in house engineering help for all but the most complex filings and such...

Meanwhile, these "captains of broadcasting" lease luxury office space in major cities, make millions a year, add layers of "oversight" in sales, programming, HR, and all of the other "home office" departments to what is essentially a group of LOCAL businesses.

I see, outside of one or two people, nobody making "millions" as CEO or COO, but plenty of air talents making that level. And those corporate functions, such as HR, avoid putting thelicences in peril, and deal with the complex labor laws of today; the local station would have to hire and outside service to deal with much of what a coroprate office provides as an allocation and for less money.

Since national business is even deeper in the toilet than local, they should be working out of strip mall in Paramus, not a skyscraper in mid-town Manhattan.

In all the cases I know, national is handled by the local stations via a rep firm, not by the national HQ office (unless the company operates a network on its own). Or several stations in a single geographic region have one NSM they share... but corporate may supervise the rep, but they don't field a sales force themselves... most national is presenting rates, value added, etc., and that has to be done with the station's input via the rep firm.

And national is off, but still a significant part of larger market station's revenues.

Their "business meetings" should be at Ponderosa, not Morton's, with free refills instead of $300 bottles of Cabernet.

Most company expense policies limit this. On the other hand, if you are entertaining a client, you are not taking them to the Sizzler's all you can eat salad bar.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Keeping Score

Of course, my remarks don't address all the groups out there. Not all groups added layers of Regional VPs, "format generals", etc. to interface between local groups and corporate headquarters. There are savings to be realized from shared expenses, but expensive layers have also been added in some groups that insulate corporate from the real world of radio.

How about the concept of a local group having a local GM, who oversees the operation of several radio stations. If "headquarters" wants to know what's going on, they call the GM instead of having a Regional VP dropping in to "see what's going on", and report back to corporate. That Regional VP is probably knocking down in excess of $500K, plus expenses and benefits - or the cost of 7-8 live bodies at the average radio station. Is what they do worth the loss of 7-8 other people?

Translate that into half a dozen veeps. Add several more "format generals". Throw in a few "corporate chiefs". Each of them asking local groups for "status reports", which the locals spend time filling out instead of managing all the "legal, accounting, audit, and regulatory things" that they're used to be responsible for in the not-so-distant past. While you're at it, throw in a couple of rainmakers who figure out how to borrow even more money to overpay for more radio stations that they'll drive into the ground by "reducing costs" (firing good broadcasters and diluting the value of programming to LOCAL listeners).

Local stations or groups used to have an FCC attorney on retainer. Now, they've got corporate's FCC attorney available. Same difference, except that most local stations called their FCC attorney once in a blue moon, and the attorney collected fees once in a blue moon. The corporate FCC attorney collects serious 6-figure paycheck, and spends his time figuring out how to move a local station's COL to rimshot status in a nearby large market so the the station can stop serving the local populace and become a flanker for another station in a larger market. Now, there's some real savings there, huh?

Local stations (used to) have a lot of good people to handle "legal, accounting, audit, and regulatory things". One of their harder problems is fitting corporate's cookie-cutter solution into the variety of local and state laws and regulations that each local group has to deal with, and fighting with corporate to come up with a workable solution. One problem is that corporate tries to come up with "one size fits all" solutions. Does a station in East Nowhere, OK really need employees - who are there for an entry-level position - to have the same benefits as a station in NY, NY, where you've got a guy making 7 figures because he's got an audience that wants to hear him? Do they have the same HR, legal, and regulatory requirements?

Corporate is so much smarter, and has such a good handle on how to operate "efficiently" that broadcasting stocks are trading for pennies. Tell me again how consolidation, and big corporate management are going to save radio?

PS - Trust me, corporate has already looked at the Wal-Mart example. If they could figure out how to bring in cheap generic Chinese programming to replace what talent they have left, we'd be hearing it on the air already. How do you say "Seacrest" in Chinese?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Re: Keeping Score

PS - Trust me, corporate has already looked at the Wal-Mart example. If they could figure out how to bring in cheap generic Chinese programming to replace what talent they have left, we'd be hearing it on the air already. How do you say "Seacrest" in Chinese?

Take a deep breath. Step outside and smell the roses. Then look from horizon to horizon. Where ever you live there are some solid, well designed houses, and somewhere, maybe across town, there are slum lord shacks.

There have been some great Mom and Pop radio stations. I worked for some of them. But, at the same time there were, as far back as radio goes, some crappy, hell-hole stations. I worked for a couple of those also.

There are some group operations that look like they are mismanaged... more on that next paragraph, and there are some group operations that may have a chapter devoted to them in a college communications text book in a few years. (My daughter brought home from college here text book and told me to open to particular chapter. The entire chapter was devoted to the station where I was working when she was born. Jerrell Shepherd indeed "wrote the text book".

Ever been to WalMart headquarters? Ever looked at how frugal their facilities are? Ever talked to a WalMart store manager and have them tell you how they have to share hotel rooms when they go to meetings? Ever talk to a vendor who has worked with WalMart for several years? My wife has spent years trying to convince me to HATE WalMart because they put "The Square" out of business in our home town, but if the worst radio stations operated at the style, skills, and ethics of WalMart, the broadcast industry would be BETTER than what we see at this time. Next time you drive past a WalMart distribution center and see all the semis coming and going, tell me how many radio stations look as crisp and well maintained.

 

[LasVegasRadioJunky]

I must add....

"Welcome to Walmart!"

 

[TheBigA]

Re: Keeping Score

Corporate is so much smarter, and has such a good handle on how to operate "efficiently" that broadcasting stocks are trading for pennies. Tell me again how consolidation, and big corporate management are going to save radio?

Wow...you really need a vacation.

I think GRC's experience is a lot like mine. I've worked for a single station owner who paid me cash from his pants pocket with no benefits and no retirement. Each week it was a different amount, based on what he had in his pocket. I know what it's like to be told "Here's your paycheck, but don't cash it until Monday, because there's no money in the account." I've worked in studios in the middle of February that had no heat and in the middle of August with no AC. All of that was long before consolidation. I never want to go back to that. I'd rather take my chances.

You rant about local people running local stations. You want to know where the people are that you want to fire? They're still at their local stations, but with bigger titles. The format captain for Clear Channel isn't in San Antonio or some other big city. He's at a local station. Same with CBS and Citadel. All the regional VPs are still in those regions. That's where the power is. They're not stupid!

But the reality is that you simply can't run a local station built on local money any more. It isn't there. Not when all of the local businesses aren't locally owned any more. You seem to want radio to operate like it's still the 50s. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is living in a different world. The ONLY way a radio station is going to survive is to take better advantage of the relationships it has beyond the local community.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Keeping Score

How about the concept of a local group having a local GM, who oversees the operation of several radio stations... That Regional VP is probably knocking down in excess of $500K, plus expenses and benefits - or the cost of 7-8 live bodies at the average radio station. Is what they do worth the loss of 7-8 other people?

If the regional manager is properly selected, they are worth every cent as they are likely to be so good that their options are to go to a market like LA or NY where they can make a good income, or do multiple markets where they can give additional input that should make more money and be better radio. Half a big one divided between a dozen stations starts to look like a consutant fee, with the advantage the "consultant" is in hous and can be made party to confidential data.

Does it always work out? No. But that happens in retail (Mervyn's is the latest) and airlines (which of the last 5 failures in 2008 do you want?) and banks...) and all other fields, too.

Each of them asking local groups for "status reports", which the locals spend time filling out instead of managing all the "legal, accounting, audit, and regulatory things" that they're used to be responsible for in the not-so-distant past.

We always farmed that stuff out, so why not, within legality, have high confidence level dedicated staff?

While you're at it, throw in a couple of rainmakers who figure out how to borrow even more money ....

A "rainmaker" is someone who brings in money or accounts, usually used in law, accounting and similar professional firms to denote a person who brings in new clients.

Local stations or groups used to have an FCC attorney on retainer. Now, they've got corporate's FCC attorney available. Same difference, except that most local stations called their FCC attorney once in a blue moon, and the attorney collected fees once in a blue moon.

Combine the infrequent calls of 30 stations or 50 stations, and you have a dedicated professional who is in synch with the company's interests and goals and who can set up programs to avoid problems, not just to fix the ones that local stations "didn't want to ask about" until too late.

The corporate FCC attorney collects serious 6-figure paycheck, and spends his time figuring out how to move a local station's COL to rimshot status in a nearby large market so the the station can stop serving the local populace and become a flanker for another station in a larger market.

Lawyers don't do the legwork here, engineers do. Lawyers just file the engineering papers.

Corporate is so much smarter, and has such a good handle on how to operate "efficiently" that broadcasting stocks are trading for pennies. Tell me again how consolidation, and big corporate management are going to save radio?

If you see all the stocks in a field in the dumpster, it's not the companies, it is the industries. How do you think military contractors look going into the new administration?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Corporate Mantra

Ah, so we're supposed to accept the status quo, which has turned out so well for broadcast as an industry. The fact is that greedy investors used the same tactics on radio that screwed up a number of other industries, which is why our economy is facing a bleak reckoning. You're right, radio is not alone. So, how do we recover from the current state of the industry? Apparently, we have your answer.

Repeat the Corporate Mantra:

CORPORATE IS GOOD. CONSOLIDATION IS GOOD. WE KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU.

Their "superior knowledge" has worked out so well so far. With any luck, the whole enterprise will collapse under its own weight, radio stations will become affordable again, and real broadcasters will regain control.

It's amazing that radio survived - actually thrived - for 80 years before "big corporate" gained control and led us down the current path.

 

[TheBigA]

Re: Corporate Mantra

It's amazing that radio survived - actually thrived - for 80 years before "big corporate" gained control and led us down the current path.

The reason it "thrived" is because "big corporate" INVENTED radio. And INVESTED IN radio.

You really need to spend time learning the history of this medium. If it was not for GE, Westinghouse, AT&T, RCA, and dozens of other huge companies, there never would have been radio in the first place.

And then, the huge corporate advertisers like Gillette and Sears, Procter & Gamble, Lucky Strike cigarettes (remember when cigarette companies could advertise?), and Coke and on and on who paid for the programs people listened to.

With any luck, the whole enterprise will collapse under its own weight, radio stations will become affordable again, and real broadcasters will regain control.

They're affordable NOW. I can sell you a station for less money than you paid for your house.

Regarding "real broadcasters," are you talking about yourself? Are YOU a real broadcaster? Does that mean YOU will buy radio stations and become an owner, with your own personal money invested in the success or failure of that station?

Because if not you, then WHO? Tell me exactly who would be acceptable to you as an owner. Not that you get to vote on these things, but if you could...who would it be? Tell me. I'd really like to know.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Corporate Mantra

CORPORATE IS GOOD. CONSOLIDATION IS GOOD. WE KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU.

Their "superior knowledge" has worked out so well so far.

I went into a market of just under a million, starting with one AM. In an uncolsolidated market, over a period of years grew the cluster to 4 AMs and 5 FMs; we drove market rates and in the first 5 years, the market's top rates quadrupled, and on air salaries more than doubled.

Like any other business, in radio there are good and bad operators.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Tick, Tick, Tick

Ah, tag-teamed by the corporate apologists...

First of all, how has corporate done SINCE consolidation? What's happened to the industry?

1. TSL is dropping.

2. 12-34 - the next generation of listeners - don't find radio interesting, let alone compelling.

3. Syndication and voice tracking have grown. The local, relatable talent pool has shrunk. BTW, see 1 and 2 above.

4. The revenue growth predicted by consolidators due to the creation of "synergies" and being able to force rates up are a myth. Once again, lack of compelling content means that both listeners and advertisers use radio as a background medium. That, and long commercial clusters, lead them to the conclusion that radio is not as effective as it once was as an advertising medium.

Who are real broadcasters? How about managers who understand that radio is a local medium, and realize that relationships are more important to selling airtime than numbers. Numbers don't demonstrate the effectiveness of a radio station. A background station may have better numbers, but poorer results than a station that is a front-of-mind listening experience, where people tune in to hear what a talent who is allowed to entertain has to say. Why do you think that talk radio works? Why do several syndicated shows work? They're front-of-mind.

Is John Tesh - who does well in many markets - a great talent? Hell, no. He's a smart broadcaster. Give a decent local jock the same opportunity to entertain (i.e. unrestricted airtime) and he'll crush Tesh like a grape because he or she can focus on what's important to that local audience. As it is now, if a local jock did a 60 second bit on ANYTHING, they'd be on the carpet in the PD's office the next day. Tesh does :60 without really saying anything. And let's not even begin to talk about Delilah.

Hire sales managers who know how to train sales people instead of rotating "sales fodder" through the cubicle farm. Corporate spends more time having new sales people fill out forms, reports, and completing HR requirements than they do training them to sell. Geniuses like Farid & Judy issue statements like "all we need are order takers". I've seen long-time, talented sales people let go because "they make too much, and we can hire two new sales people for what we pay them". Yeah, except the long-time, talented sales people have relationships with advertisers than the newbies don't, and probably never will, so the advertiser goes with another station, or another media sales person that they trust and gets them results.

While we're at it, how about letting programmers program? Not only that, but stop making them "program" (i.e. run Selector, Music Master, etc.) for multiple radio stations and let them concentrate on building one good radio station. That means not only programming music, wading through research, doing LOCAL research, and DEVELOPING LOCAL TALENT. There's virtually no local talent development going on these days. Why? Because the PD is now "programming" multiple stations, pulling an airshift, and "interfacing" with "format generals" and consultants and filling out reports and working on budgets and all the other task required - but doing it now for MULTIPLE stations, not one or two.

Woe to programmers if they do something outside the corporate cookie-cutter template laid down by corporate. They'd better have some juice to do it in the first place, and they'd better be right if they do. In fact, even if they are right, they're still likely to be told by corporate to "cut somebody - we don't pay talent in that daypart. Track it." The numbers for that talent don't matter. Being dominant in your demo in your daypart does bring you a reward for success. It doesn't even buy you job security.

I wish that I could say that I only see this at one company, but I see it at every major corporate group in town. Now, the cuts are coming down by edict from corporate, without regard to what it will do to the bottom line locally. Next, corporate will be sending VPs out to hatchet even more people because "revenues are not responding". It's like cutting off somebody at the knees, then complaining because they don't run as fast as they used to.

Are there bright spots? A few. There are some solid radio stations out there, trying to hang on in the face of more cuts and more "corporate deals" that take local talent off in favor of syndicated talent who insisted on make a particular station part of a "package deal". Overall, however, everybody is being hurt - including cash cows who are losing quality people in management, sales, and programming, but are expected to increase revenue anyway.

You want bottom line? Most listeners don't find most radio compelling. It's now a convenience, and other technologies are quickly catching up on the convenience meter. If radio continues in the same practices of ignoring what listeners AND advertisers want, presenting bland, sterile over-researched pap, and failing to create relationships with both listeners and advertisers, the enterprise will continue toward failure.

Then, people who love the medium, and not just the profits, will inherit the crumbs. Either that, or they'll take a few dollars, and a few fellow broadcasters, to the Internet and create content that IS entertaining and compelling, and compete with what's left of corporate radio - without the cost of transmitters, licenses, content censorship, and corporate overhead.

 

[1Letterman]

Of course corporations have ruined radio.

They are not broadcasters. They are holding companies whose #1 interest is profit. They do not understand the notion that quality content breeds listeners which breed sales.

Accountants have decided that if they cut overhead to the bone, it will be easier to make a profit. But, that guts the content thing. So no one listens. However, since the corporations have snatched up all the signals (Thanks, US government!) they are moving to a defacto monopoly.

Anyone with an ounce of common can look back at history. See how many local people were involved discussing local issues, real time. Then look at today. Not only is there no voice for listeners locally, there is no COMPETITION. Stations are not required to compete AGAINST other stations because they're part of the same cluster. It's a big milquetoast offering. "Hey, we have all the signals in town (in smaller markets) so bulk buy with us! We'll be troweling out a very mediocre product on all stations, but what choice do you have, really?"

There's no need for them to outdo each other in terms of programming or anything else.

Deregulation allowed corporate sleeze to buy up the radio world. Corporations have taken talent completely out of the picture. We need to go back to regulating the number of stations owned per market. 1 AM, 1FM, 1 TV.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Re: Tick, Tick, Tick

Ah, tag-teamed by the corporate apologists...

Take a deep breath my friend. I am NOT a fan of today's version of corporate radio. I am an observer of business trends and economic trends world-wide. I read books like Thomas Friedman's "The Earth is Flat". On my list to read is someone's rebuttal pointing out what the author believes are errors in Friedman's thinking. The book has a title like "The curvature of the Earth" or something like that.

Radio in general..... corporate groups, family groups and other small groups, dynamic people who own a handful of stations that don't fit the picture of "group", and finally the beloved home-owned mom'n-pop stations...all of them are doing some very short-sighted dumb things... things that seem expedient.... things that seem necessary to meet the payroll this week.... but things that stunt the future of radio. At the same time, all of these kinds of station owners are trying to be what they see as creative and are doing some things that should be copied, emulated by other broadcasters.

I don't think David Eduardo is all that far away from what I am trying to say in these posts: You are blaming the short comings of large corporate radio on some visible symptoms displayed by some of the large groups. David and I are trying to get you to focus on curing the disease and to not go nutso over the symptoms.

I took a leave of absence from radio so my kids could quit moving, moving, moving. I worked for people in the nursing home business, hospitals, corporate farming, coal mines, a chain of auto dealerships, retail computers for a big box chain, and wholesale computers to corporate America. This same argument of local ownership of a single operation (kind of hard to have a mom and pop hospital today) versus large corporate ownership goes on in every one of those venues. The debates are almost identical. How to properly pay people at all levels is an issue in every one of those "industries". Does centralized buying really save money? Do resident experts on taxes, insurance and regulation make sense?

From time to time I load up and drive 800 miles or so to attend a high school class reunion, a funeral, or a wedding. I try listening to the radio as I drive. In some markets I can get a station I once worked for... in the next market a station I though was worth emulating back in that era.

When I travel I really have trouble telling the mom n pops from the corporates. They (almost) all sound like crap. Probably every form of ownership I have mentioned could function well and they could all co-exist IF the rules of the game as implemented by the Federal government were reasonable, fair and equitable. And everybody, including the listeners, would be a lot happier.

 

[gr8oldies]

So what "real broadcasters" are going to buy them, and in this day and age who is going to finance the "real broadcasters"? You reallythink a handful of DJs are going to go to a non-corporate bank and this bank is not going to care if any profit is being made? Many on-air people have gotten into ownership and they discovered the pot of money for DJ salaries is far from unlimited, and many if not most have opted for the bird and hard drive.

In "the good old days", radio stations were owned by insurance and tire "corporations", or car salesmen. Very few owned by DJs.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In "the good old days", radio stations were owned by insurance and tire "corporations", or car salesmen. Very few owned by DJs.

One of the problems of discussing "the good old days" of radio is coming to an agreement on when they were.

For an era that radio tried to reach out and meet the expectations of the listeners, and for an era when real radio people could own the station... not just DJs but engineers as well as radio sales people, try the period from the end of WWII... say 1948 to maybe 1958... may 1962. A lot of really good and really established radio people had left the building to become television, and the radio loyalists who stayed behind had a field day as they experimented and "re-founded" the industry. And the taxation and regulatory climate, though burdensome, was as it has turned out.... their friend.

 

[TheBigA]

Ah, tag-teamed by the corporate apologists...

First of all, how has corporate done SINCE consolidation? What's happened to the industry?

1. TSL is dropping.

2. 12-34 - the next generation of listeners - don't find radio interesting, let alone compelling.

You make these statements as though ALL of radio is owned by corporate radio, and it's not true. The majority of radio stations are NOT owned by big corporations. Perhaps THEY are the reason for things you list.

The fact is that TSL has been dropping since BEFORE consolidation. The fact is that radio listenership has been dropping since 1988. The fact is that the next generation (according to Arbitron) listens to radio, but integrates it with other forms of media. Nothing wrong with that. Back in the 50s, people started watching TV rather than listen to the radio. Was it because radio wasn't compelling?

You're applying broad general national statistics to a medium you say is local. There are lots of exceptions to what you're talking about, and you'd be shocked at who owns the exceptions and how they're achieving their results.

Who are real broadcasters? How about managers who understand that radio is a local medium, and realize that relationships are more important to selling airtime than numbers. Numbers don't demonstrate the effectiveness of a radio station.

So then you don't know any. Certainly you're not going to invest any of your own personal money in radio. You just want to tell those who do how to spend their money. Which makes you no better than a consultant.

Give a decent local jock the same opportunity to entertain (i.e. unrestricted airtime) and he'll crush Tesh like a grape because he or she can focus on what's important to that local audience.

You're speaking in generalities. Let me speak in specifics. Steve Harvey is a syndicated radio host for the urban format. Washington DC is dominated by urban radio. One of the biggest and best known names in Washington urban radio is Donnie Simpson. And yet when Steve Harvey came in, he crushed Donnie, even though Donnie talks about local things, goes to the local church, and even personally knows the people who now tune in to his competition. And the most amazing part of the story is that Steve Harvey's show is NOT on the corporate-owned station. But rather a commercial radio station owned by Howard University, WHUR. So here we have non-corporate radio using syndication to make it #1. How does that fit in with your generalizations and assumptions?

While we're at it, how about letting programmers program? Not only that, but stop making them "program" (i.e. run Selector, Music Master, etc.) for multiple radio stations and let them concentrate on building one good radio station.

OK. I have a friend who does things the old fashioned way. He is the Program Director of a single radio station owned by a guy (not a corporation) who owns 3 radio stations. All three are run indepdently, exactly the way you suggest. Full staffs for each. No consolidation. They have a great signal, which can be heard everywhere. They do lots of local promotion. No syndication. And they get a 1.8 share. So much for your winning strategy.

You want bottom line? Most listeners don't find most radio compelling. It's now a convenience, and other technologies are quickly catching up on the convenience meter. If radio continues in the same practices of ignoring what listeners AND advertisers want, presenting bland, sterile over-researched pap, and failing to create relationships with both listeners and advertisers, the enterprise will continue toward failure.

So many contraditions with that paragraph, I don't know where to begin. You want radio to stop ignoring listeners, but you don't like research? Most listeners don't find it compelling, yet 230 million people listen. The programming that IS the most compelling is not always the programming that gets the biggest audience. People say they want one thing, and then listen to something else. That's human nature. It's like a friend of mine who owns a restaurant. She used her own personal money, cooks the food herself, spends time with the customers, and yet the McDonalds across the street gets more bsuiness. What is she doing wrong?