What amazes me in conversations like this are the assumptions that a market the size of Dayton, Ohio, with around 35 signals, would have 35 independently owned radio stations with 5 full time jocks, 3 part time jocks and a 10 person news staff. Then, the assumption that everyone laid off in the late 90s would still be gainfully employed as 60-year-old rock jocks.
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Roger Christian
- Thread starter Radio-Bored-Op
- Start date
You came in late to the party, pal. This thread is about how a 43-year station veteran was unceremoniously shown the door last week. The drive-by posters (including yourself) took it off the tracks (as is usually the case with these local threads).
I think that the poster was referring to markets around the size of Buffalo... which would mean Dayton or Rochester or McAllen or Tucson.
And it is, today, unrealistic to think that all stations would have full staffing 24/7 in this era.
It's a valid point.
And 43-year-veteran or newcomer to radio, the role of talent in mid-days is being questioned everywhere.
What's being questioned is the way Entercom handled the situation. Shabby. But no surprise, given the local leadership such as it is. Forty three years and the guy gets sent packing like a schlepper.
It's as if Entercom had no communication between its HR department and its PR department.
I can't believe that at least some local clients don't find this disturbing while questioning whether they want to do business with such a company.
What PR dept.? The guy who writes the blogs for the corporate website about how compassionate and innovative the company is?
Now they have the hacking situation to deal with. Maybe some of the non-essential staff they let go were important after all...
The real issue here is that Entercom has become a top-down company instead of trusting local management. Roger Christian wasn't the only mid-day talent whacked. Mid-days have become a wasteland of syndication and VT in markets a lot bigger than Buffalo. The idea of "your at-work companion" is laughable these days.
A lot of the moves made by ETM are coming out of corporate headquarters at the behest of former CBS shareholders. David Field is no longer managing daddy's radio stations. David Field serves at the whim of the former CBS fat cats who are used to the "make it so" style of management. They do not subscribe to the concept that radio is mostly local and that different markets should be managed differently. It's the same strategy that sank Citadel/Cumulus an iHeart. With those companies that was the result of desperation thanks to vastly overpaying for properties. Entercom doesn't have the leverage issues that they did, but they sure have the penchant for "one size fits all" management that the others had. Cumulus has dialed that back. The book on iHeart is still out, but even they seem to have loosened the reins a bit.
Roger's just a victim of the times. He's had a heck of a run. He deserved a better exit.
A lot of the moves made by ETM are coming out of corporate headquarters at the behest of former CBS shareholders. David Field is no longer managing daddy's radio stations. David Field serves at the whim of the former CBS fat cats who are used to the "make it so" style of management. They do not subscribe to the concept that radio is mostly local and that different markets should be managed differently. It's the same strategy that sank Citadel/Cumulus an iHeart. With those companies that was the result of desperation thanks to vastly overpaying for properties. Entercom doesn't have the leverage issues that they did, but they sure have the penchant for "one size fits all" management that the others had. Cumulus has dialed that back. The book on iHeart is still out, but even they seem to have loosened the reins a bit.
Roger's just a victim of the times. He's had a heck of a run. He deserved a better exit.
Absolutely agree Roger deserved better. But VT mid days, unfortunately, is where the industry is going outside of the big markets. And honestly, if done right with good talent, most listeners would be hard pressed to tell the difference between VT and live and local. At the end of the day, it's all about the money.
That's an interesting comment. How are those CBS stockholders voicing their views? Why didn't they make those cuts when CBS owned those stations?
Entercom has always been a top-down company. Local management may have had more freedom at one time, but, even 20 years ago, the Entercom cluster in Kansas City turned its market manager over every two or three years. I was always told management was strictly by the numbers, and the market managers in that building had to constantly make sure that cluster had at least the numbers corporate wanted.
This is true. Cumulus whacked middays at most of its stations company-wide more than a decade ago. It has since brought some of that talent back, though my local Cumulus music stations are largely voicetracked in middays when they used to be live.
I agree with everything you said here.
On this same subject, Entercom's WCBS-FM recently dropped their mid-day guy Dan Taylor. He'd been a New York staple for 40 years. Here's how his departure went:
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/178732/dan-taylor-exits-wcbs-fm/
So it could be worse.
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/178732/dan-taylor-exits-wcbs-fm/
So it could be worse.
There is no record of any initiatives or pressure by the CBS shareholders who got Entercom shares or by those who have bought Entercom shares from those who received Entercom shares from the Reverse Morris Trust spin-off or the radio division.
CBS "fat cats" are not the shareholders of Entercom. The only "fat cat" at CBS is Shari Redstone, in fact.
The biggest outside investors in CBS are a bunch of investment banks (holding shares for private investors or things like state pension plans) and mutual funds like Vanguard. Of course, the biggest investor in CBS is National Amusement, the Redstone holding company, which controls the voting shares.
The biggest investors in Entercom are Vanguard, Fidelity, Joseph Field and other funds and investment banks.
This is a free site that shows much of the ownership data. https://www.marketscreener.com/ENTERCOM-COMMUNICATIONS-C-12508/company/
I agree. You don't grow the stock price by simply satisfying existing stockholders. The way to grow is attract NEW MONEY to the stock.
This is apples and oranges and you know it is. Roger Christian wasn't accused of the things Taylor was. But thanks for trying to get this thread back on track.
There is no indication that Taylor was fired for the things he was accused of. Just that he was a 40-year veteran who lost his job.
The other stuff was speculation. And there's a lot of speculation here.
Nope. That's why I didn't say or even imply that.
The point was that when you have more stations in fewer hands, it is far more likely that there will be decisions made that sweep more broadly than if there were more operators in the overall marketplace.
If ONE operator with 100 stations decides to syndicate or VT middays and nights, that's 200 positions lost.
If those same 100 stations are owned by 5 operators, while some may syndicate or VT or both, there's a chance some won't. Maybe then you only lose 50-100 jobs instead of 200 on those same 100 stations.
Odd you would use KC as an example, considering Bob Zuroweste was market manager at ETM/Kansas City from '97'-04.
Only if you deserved it, as Dan Taylor may have if the allegations are true.
The fact is that if you look at the stations that use satellite delivered 24/7 formats instead of local staffs, they are ALL owned by small local owners. The difference now is there are fewer syndication companies than there were 30 years ago.
But specifically to your point about centralized staffing decisions, the fact is that Entercom has not mandated eliminating live & local mid-day hosts. Dan Taylor was fired from WCBS in NYC, but he was replaced by Race Taylor, another local host. What talent has to do is demonstrate their value.
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