Syndicated Mayhem

[SirRoxalot]

A few years back, Howard Stern defected from "terrestrial" radio and created a hole in mornings at a lot of stations that took years to fill. I know of at least one station that never recovered.

A few weeks ago, Rush Limbaugh's "poor choice of language" ignited a firestorm that's still sweeping through the entire genre of talk radio, has already cost station a LOT of money, and threatens to drive some advertisers with very deep pockets away from the format, if not from the medium.

What do these two events have in common? Both talents were/are widely syndicated, extending their reach in a large number of markets. In many, if not most of those markets, they replaced live, local talent in a particular time slot. Numbers varied from market to market. In some, they did very well, challenging the competition, sometimes winning. In most, they did well enough to make the stations happy enough to simply plug in the bird rather than deal with hiring, managing, and nurturing local talent. For Rush, dominant news/talk stations often plugged him to keep him away from the competition on the chance that he might challenge a local host - who may have been a PITA to deal with, or might have worked a little too close to the edge in an attempt to emulate Rush's success.

Ten years ago, this might have been a good idea. It does require you to put a lot of stock in one talent on a national basis, which can leave you with a BIG hole to fill nationally when they go awry or decide it's time to move on.

Now, the problem is even bigger. If you let a host build a national following, they have the opportunity to take their talents directly to the audience via the Internet. As on-line listening grows, you'll find yourself competing not only with other radio stations, but with personalities that you've built into winners in your market who are offering their content on-line for consumption whenever the listener chooses. Let's think about this - I can either choose a voice-tracked jock with no real sense of immediacy, or a national podcast with no reals sense of immediacy?

Maybe we need to rethink about the idea of creating syndicated hosts with so much reach. Maybe it's better for large radio companies to have a problem in ONE market because a host did something stupid instead of having a problem in HUNDREDS of markets because a host did something stupid. In the long run, is syndication REALLY making you more money than developing local talent? I'm not so sure.

 

[TomZ]

Excellent post Sir... I had a few days 'off' during this series of events and listened to the beginning as it pertained to the Catholic Church selling to FDR's Social Security take-over of the human condition. It was a burr in the EIB saddle when this little trouble maker decided to enter a Catholic college as a law student with a goal to force contraception onto the Catholics and when she showed up in the Pelosi camp as one of the many poor and decadent under protected lust ladies; I simply saw through the curtain and didn't buy the whole press conference that was presented as a CONgressional hearing.

I'm terribly disappointed with the main stream media... and even more-so with some simple blogs such as radiodailynews.com who seemed to want to take advantage of a bias against huge/small voices that shouldn't exist.

I do miss not being reminded of the wonderful bloggers that radiodailynews reminded me of; but they, too are only a small voice....

I'm sure Larry Shannon is a nice guy; but he bit at the second amendment.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I had a few days 'off' during this series of events and listened to the beginning as it pertained to the Catholic Church selling to FDR's Social Security take-over of the human condition. It was a burr in the EIB saddle when this little trouble maker decided to enter a Catholic college as a law student with a goal to force contraception onto the Catholics and when she showed up in the Pelosi camp as one of the many poor and decadent under protected lust ladies; I simply saw through the curtain and didn't buy the whole press conference that was presented as a CONgressional hearing.

You said: " and listened to the beginning as it pertained to the Catholic Church selling to FDR's Social Security take-over of the human condition." I guess I missed that part of the conversation. What is that all about?

Then you said: " when this little trouble maker decided to enter a Catholic college as a law student with a goal to force contraception onto the Catholics"

Can you explain to me how that fits into this topic of whether SYNDICATED talk is more vulnerable than is local talk in the scheme of radio broadcasting.

What I heard was an American citizen who is a college law student express her freedom of speech before American Citizens elected to Congress by American Citizens back in their home districts. Is that not what the founding fathers intended when they set up this form of government?

I get the idea that you have hostility to the form of government we use in this country. Some days I get the idea that talk-radio has decided it means more money in the bank if they will express very loudly their dislike of American citizens who choose to express their views. The view of much of talk-radio seems to be:

Yeah, we have freedom of speech... but you are not free to say all those things I don't want to hear!

 

[TheBigA]

If you let a host build a national following, they have the opportunity to take their talents directly to the audience via the Internet.

I think you're looking at a couple of isolated incidents and trying to extrapolate it into some kind of crime. I've worked with local talent who have become so big that they sucked all the air out of their local station, so that when they got a job offer from across town and took it, they killed their former employer. And yes, that's just killing one station instead of hundreds, but my point is that talent will do what serves them best, not their employer, not their market, nor their industry. And no one can constrain them. They're in it for themselves. No secret there. The problem isn't syndication, it's talent. They're unpredictable and selfish.

You're preaching "divide and conquor." If anyone gets too big, they become impossible to control. So let's keep them small. You want to create a permanent ceiling on people. You're only going to be as big as you are now. Force talent to stay within a geographical box, and not grow to their potential. Tell Buffalo Bob Smith he must stay in Buffalo, and can't go to NBC. Tell Dick Clark he must stay on WFIL and can't do American Bandstand. I don't think it's possible. Good talent knows that it's got something unique and marketable. Good talent is expensive. They will want to take it to a bigger platform. The only way radio can afford to keep quality talent is by spreading them out over more stations. If radio enforces some kind of limitation on its talent, they'll just leave and go to another platform. Or won't start their career there in the first place. Radio isn't the monopoly it once was. Quality talent can walk right into a higher paying TV job. What you're suggesting simply drives down the quality of talent available, allowing more mediocre people on the air, which is kind of where local radio is now. How's that good for the industry?

 

[TheBigA]

By the way, let me correct the erroneous idea that Rush saves anyone any money. Rush claims to make $38 million a year. His web page says he's on 600 stations. Do the math. How much is that per station? Plus a lot of those stations PAY him a huge fee in addition to the barter. So Rush isn't saving anyone any money. Let's clear up that myth. And the fact is that Stern didn't save his stations any money either. He got paid a fee from every one of his stations that exceeded the salary of a local talent. But local couldn't attract the attention Stern did. So even in markets where Stern was replaced by a local host, the station made more money, even allowing for the fee, by carrying Stern. Airing these big national hosts is NOT about saving stations any money.

 

[borderblaster]

Most of the 65 or so stations Rush started with were already on the bird, carrying ABC's Talkradio lineup. ABC was hemmoraging money mostly by making KABC talents national, but on mostly on small stations like WGL in Fort Wayne. ABC wanted out; Ed McLaughlin began the process of getting them out, by taking over Dr. Dean Edell's show and leasing the satellite space between 12n-2 eastern after Owen Spann retired.

Rush wasn't intended to be a permanent fixture on WLS when they flipped to fulltime talk, just a placeholder while they were in the process of staffing. The ratings were good enough for him to stay.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Let's keep it simple. If there's mediocre local talent on the air now, it's because owners aren't paying for better talent. There's a LOT of very good talent on the street, but the first guys fired in too many markets when the consolidators started cutting were the guys "earning too much money".

If somebody's "bigger than the market", they simply do what they've always done - move to a bigger market, or pursue a bigger audience via other media - like TV. That's easier than ever now with Internet video providing a stepping-stone to cable or satellite TV.

Most syndication IS about cost cutting, and it's short-sighted. Just a short-sighted as firing talent with great ratings, and losing more revenue than was "saved" be reducing salaries. And we've seen that over and over and over. If there's any dearth of talent in radio, it's on the management side, because too many people in management are hunkered down trying to protect their own positions by throwing anybody else available in front of the Corporate Beancounter Bus. GOOD management can explain what columns are missing on the corporate spreadsheet that's too often used to determine the fate of people at radio stations these days.

Unfortunately, today's owners - who too often now are bankers - don't want to hear that radio is an entertainment business, and not everything can be quantified and stuffed into a formula. So, most managers - and especially those farther up the food chain - simply nod and agree with the bankers, and distance themselves from the mayhem that ensues by hiring people who are "on board with corporate". The result is a nadir of innovation in radio among the largest players out there. The world is moving, and radio is standing still. Maybe when the banks abandon it, if it survives the crash without the bandwidth being stolen, radio will reinvent itself yet again. Some of the smaller operators are already on that path.

 

[TheBigA]

Let's keep it simple. If there's mediocre local talent on the air now, it's because owners aren't paying for better talent.

You’re right…it’s very simple. The money has to come from somewhere. You can’t pay talent $50K if his show only attracts $30K. If the market has 30 radio stations all dividing a shrinking pie. So an owner can’t afford to pay good talent. That’s a simple reality. It’s not the 60s any more. Back then you had a small number of stations in a market, and everyone made money. Not any more.

If somebody's "bigger than the market", they simply do what they've always done - move to a bigger market,

That’s not really local talent, then is it? That’s importing talent from somewhere else. Just like voice-tracking.

or pursue a bigger audience via other media - like TV. That's easier than ever now with Internet video providing a stepping-stone to cable or satellite TV.

That’s what they’re doing, and leaving radio with the left-overs. But if you pooled your money with someone else, you could afford someone better. That’s simple. The talent gets what he’s worth, and the market gets better talent. Where’s the problem?

Most syndication IS about cost cutting,

No, most syndication is about keeping quality talent. Every year, the talent wants a raise. Ad rates haven’t gone up in years. Audience numbers are stagnant. So how do you give your boy a raise? Pool money with someone else. It’s been going on for years.

But the fact is that syndication doesn’t save money. It costs money. That’s why so many stations were opposed to it. They didn’t want to give up lucrative day parts like mid-days to syndication like Rush because they could make more money with a local guy. Syndication COSTS money. Repeat after me: Syndication COSTS money. Because the syndicator wants to make some, and he’s basically taking his share from the local guy. So once again: Syndication COSTS money.

Unfortunately, today's owners - who too often now are bankers - don't want to hear that radio is an entertainment business,

Here we go again. If that’s true, why are small local owners the biggest consumers of syndication? Why does Cumulus, which owns a syndication company, prefer to use local talent rather than its own syndication? Why does Clear Channel, which owns a syndication company, prefer to use local talent rather than its own syndication. Clear Channel prefers to make money from someone ELSE’S station, instead of their own. So they love it when Cumulus pays them for Rush.

radio will reinvent itself yet again. Some of the smaller operators are already on that path.

Yes, we see. And they’re putting the cheapest content they can find on the air. Take a look in your own market. You have a couple small local operators there. What are THEY doing?

 

[SirRoxalot]

It's certainly not the '60s. And there still aren't many markets with 30 stations. Or, more succinctly, 30 different programs. In another thread, you've as much as said that AM is irrelevant. Well, if you're right, half the stations in the market don't really count, so we've got about the same number of viable signals as we had in the '60s according to what you said there.

When people move to bigger markets, the show goes with them. Somebody else takes their place. Radio listeners, like newspaper readers, expect local content from local media. Voice tracking and syndication really don't provide that.

You make the mistake of thinking that everybody who's GOOD wants to move up to a bigger market, gain more visibility, make more money, have more expenses, expand their "lifestyle", then bitch about "having no privacy". Buffalo Bob Smith left Buffalo. He became a legend. Oddly, WBEN didn't fold, several morning guys made a very nice living there, the station continued to grow, and it's still a dynasty in its own right. People don't necessarily stay in a market because they're not good enough for a larger market. They stay where their family is, in a community they love, if they can make a comfortable living working for reasonable owners. Bigger ain't always better. We've all seen shooting stars who burned out once they got out of their element.

When it comes to radio, syndication is almost always about saving money, or spreading out an investment made by the parent company over more markets. Small operators use syndication because they're over-leveraged and can get barter programming - which the big boys tell them will get them high-class programming for simply giving up some avails. A computer in a closet plugged into a satellite reciever costs a LOT less to run than a station with live personnel. There's less programming expense, less sales expense, less human resources expense, etc.

On the other side of the ledger, it's rare that a computer in a closet really gets meaningful ratings. Big operators use live and local talent because they bring in the numbers, and the revenue in the long run. But, even they want it both ways. They'll syndicate or voice-track the majority of their broadcast day NOT because they can get better programming, or earn more money, but because they can save money. The most short-sighted even VT or syndicate mid-days and weekends, when many stations have their highest cumes. Imagine, giving up avails during your highest-cuming dayparts. Madness.

And, on top of it, you have talent that has to reduce the number of issues or topics to only those of general interest. Real local content simply can't be done. And forget about what happens in case of a real emergency.

As I said, it's very short-sighted. But that's nothing new in business these days - in a lot of businesses other than radio as well.

 

[TheBigA]

You make the mistake of thinking that everybody who's GOOD wants to move up to a bigger market, gain more visibility, make more money, have more expenses, expand their "lifestyle",

You’re the one who brought up moving up to a bigger market. Not me. But every good talent I’ve ever known wanted to make more money.

People don't necessarily stay in a market because they're not good enough for a larger market. They stay where their family is, in a community they love, if they can make a comfortable living working for reasonable owners.

I understand that, and that’s why voice-tracking or syndication is the best solution for those people. They can make more money and stay in the same market. What’s the down side?

When it comes to radio, syndication is almost always about saving money, or spreading out an investment made by the parent company over more markets.

The “parent company” doesn’t run the local station. The GM runs the local station. His job is different from the people at the parent company. The GM deals with income and expense. He knows what’s coming in and what’s going out. You can’t spend more than you make. That’s his world. At the parent company, they have very different pressures. But they’re not the same as the station. So the local station wants to keep as much of the revenue as he can. If he uses syndication, that lowers his revenues, because it eats up some of his avails. At one time, he could just add more avails, but that way of working went away ten years ago. So he wants to keep 100% of his avails. If revenues kept increasing to keep up with expenses, he could keep everyone on staff, and give them regular raises. But all that stopped five years ago. So now he has to cut his expenses. But it’s not because of the parent company. It’s because of his own local revenue shortages.

They'll syndicate or voice-track the majority of their broadcast day NOT because they can get better programming, or earn more money, but because they can save money.

But there’s a COST involved when they do that. If they carry syndication, they have to split their revenues with the syndication company. If they run out of market VT, there’s also some costs, plus they can’t use that body to read spots, do remotes, or do production. So there’s always a cost involved.

And as for it being “better,” that depends. Is someone in a larger market with more experience “better” than someone with less experience in a smaller market? You tell me. I think most would say the answer is yes.

But once again, the basic reality is that any business that requires advertising dollars is hurting right now, and has been for five years. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. Spending more money for local talent isn’t going to change your revenues. So you do what you have to.

But back to your original point, there is only one Rush. When he goes away, he will not be replaced. He will just go away, and all of his fans and money will go with him. No one thinks that’s a good thing. All they hope to do is delay that day as long as they can. But sooner or later, even Johnny Carson and Jay Leno retire.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Voice-tracking from outside the market simply isn't as good a local talent in real time. One of radio's strengths is immediacy, and creating a sense of "right here, right now". You can't do that with voice-tracking. Another part is that people like to hear people talk the way that they talk. And we don't speak the same way around the country. It's easy to tell an "outsider" in most areas of the country, and it just sounds silly when they try to talk about something local - and too frequenty get pronunciations or details wrong.

Taking a good local jock and asking him or her to voice-track outside their market is usually done for two reasons. First, the local jock wants to make more money. Secondly, the company wants to cut costs in the other market. It's not that it's impossible to do voice-tracking well. It's that even good voice-tracking isn't as good as a decent live and local jock interacting with the audience. From a money standpoint, the people doing the tracking are paid a fraction of what it would cost for decent local talent. The amount the person doing the tracking gets is a fraction of what doing the job well is worth. The result? Somebody gets an extra $100 a week for doing largely generic content for a station in another market. Nobody is really served.

In the last five years, the cuts in radio talent in all areas of the business have been Draconian. Revenue is down, but profits aren't. Radio is STILL turning an average PROFIT of 35% of revenue. Reinvesting in the product instead of cutting programming, sales, and management positions would do more to improve revenue, which would grow profits in the long run. Why is radio in a defensive mode? Mostly because radio PEOPLE are in defensive mode. It's hard to get people excited about radio when the people responsible for creating it are constantly battered by demands for "more with less". And this goes back a lot more than five years.

Ask anybody in radio if radio is better now than it was 10 years ago. Most will tell you that the technology is better, but the support systems, programming, production and sales are in worse shape. Listeners will tell you that it sounds more generic, and that they're not as "into" radio as they were 10 years ago. That's got a LOT to do with programming, VT, and syndication. It's like having a conversation with somebody who only talks about general topics. You simply don't feel close to someone who speaks in generalities, especially if they don't apply to what you're experiencing now.

 

[TheBigA]

Voice-tracking from outside the market simply isn't as good a local talent in real time. One of radio's strengths is immediacy, and creating a sense of "right here, right now".

Everyone will tell you that store bought prepared food simply isn't as good as mama's home cooking. Yet today, store bought food is extremely popular, and mama ain't cooking any more.

My point about VT is it's good for talent, seeking more money, more visibility, and more audience. The talent doesn't have to move to a new location, and they can stay in where their family is established. When you get good talent, you want to KEEP good talent, and that involves offering them things they can't get elsewhere.

As you know, there’s a talent in Buffalo who does his show from Florida where he’s taking care of an aging father. He said that had he been required to do the show from Buffalo, he would have been forced to quit. But his employer made adjustments, and allows him to do his part from Florida. That’s good for the station, good for the talent, and good for his audience. It hasn’t hurt his ratings that he’s not based in Buffalo any more, and there are lots of other people who do the exact same thing.

The "real time" advantage only makes a difference when there's a shared experience that is meaningful. When a hurricane is happening, it's useful to have someone speaking in the present. But that is the exception rather than the rule. In music formats, unless Whitney Houston or Michael Jackson has just died, it doesn't matter. If you've ever scheduled talent, you know it's hard to get them to work Saturday nights, overnights, and on holidays. They want to be with their families and friends. They know that technology allows them to do that. If one employer allows them to work from home or voice-track at their convenience, it gives that employer an advantage in getting the best talent. And the goal of hiring should be to get the best person, not just a warm body.

Another part is that people like to hear people talk the way that they talk. And we don't speak the same way around the country.

If that’s true, it hasn’t hurt anyone on network TV. The Beatles weren’t American, yet Americans loved the way they talked. Most people aren’t gay, yet for some reason the most popular TV shows feature gay characters, quite often from big cities. Howard Stern sounds like what he is, and yet his voice translated well to lots of places where people don’t talk like him. I’m not Chinese, yet I love Chinese food. A lot of people feel the same way. This provincialism is quaint, but it’s not true, and hiring laws today make it illegal. You can’t hire someone because they sound or look like everyone else. That’s discrimination.

The amount the person doing the tracking gets is a fraction of what doing the job well is worth. The result? Somebody gets an extra $100 a week for doing largely generic content for a station in another market. Nobody is really served.

It depends, but it’s usually more than $100 a week. I don’t know about you, but I’d take that job, and I know a lot of people who do it every day. So you have lots of willing employees. And as for the stations, if they couldn’t operate this way, they’d carry a satellite-delivered format. The advantage of VT is you can get the talent to personalize the show to your market. That’s why it was developed, as an alternative to satellite. Hiring local talent only makes sense in markets where there’s enough advertising dollars to support it. You can’t get good talent for minimum wage, so you import it from another market. That’s good for everyone, and it’s done in every industry in this country.

I know a guy who just got a high-paying morning job in a major market, and he still VTs shows elsewhere because he used to work full time in those markets, and he still has an audience there. He doesn’t do it for the money, because he’s making 6 figures doing the morning show. He does it because he wants to stay in touch with his fans in his other markets, and his employer approved it. It’s not always about big corporate owners looking to save money and screw the little guy.

In the last five years, the cuts in radio talent in all areas of the business have been Draconian.

Blah blah blah. Welcome to the 21st century. That could be said about every line of work in this country, from manufacturing to education. All the tax cutting that’s going on is making government work very unstable. Used to be that if you got a job working for the state or city, it was a job for life, and you’d retire with a full pension. Not any more. Even in the world of non-profit broadcasting, where you don’t have 35% profit margins, you have people being cut, and talent is among them. Local shows are replaced by network shows from Washington DC, and people still listen. All your theories about people wanting to hear announcers with local accents hasn’t hurt the numbers for NPR.

But you can’t argue with the fact that for the last 5 years, we have been in an advertising depression in this country. All ad-supported media is hurting, not just radio, and yet costs have not stopped rising. That includes talent costs. So when a station gives its morning team a raise, that money has to come from somewhere. Usually it comes from a weaker day part. You can’t force employers to lose money. And there aren’t any smaller local owners coming in with millions of dollars looking to hire lots of people.

Ask anybody in radio if radio is better now than it was 10 years ago.

Oh come on now. Radio people have been complaining since the 1930s. There is no industry I know of where you can work in an air conditioned office with no heavy lifting and no bullets coming at you, where the employees complain so much. It’s impossible to make radio people happy. That’s not the point. You don’t get into radio to be happy. Ask a plumber what he’d prefer doing: Cleaning out poop from a sewer, or talking on the radio. In my family, everyone is jealous of my job and my life. They don’t know all the compromises I’ve had to make to enjoy this great life. They don’t know all the terrible airshifts I worked, all the minimum wage jobs I took, and all multiple jobs I took to pay the bills. And that was before deregulation. Anyone who complains about radio now is a whiner. All the people who say “it’s not as good as it used to be” are all boomers who aren’t in the demo anyway. And when I started in radio, I remember hearing from other radio people in their 50s and 60s who told me that radio then wasn’t as good as it was in their day. So it’s all relative. It’s NEVER as good as it was when you were younger. But we don’t live then. We live now. And we have to play the cards we’ve been dealt.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The guy you're talking about in Buffalo lived here for 50 years, and has a live morning crew in Buffalo to feed him info and keep him up to date with what's going on. It's not VT - it's live. Yes, he's in Florida, but the SHOW isn't. Without local support, the show would suffer. And, there has been a loss of quality. Technology-created delay plays hell with comedic timing, and there's no way to avoid latency in a digital world.

National stories have plenty of national press with much better connections than a local station. BUT, national shows have little connection to local content, and most of the reason people tune into radio is that they want to what's going on locally. If they want national content, the turn on morning TV, cable news, infotainment TV, or go to the web. Radio and newspapers have become the source for local information when you want to know if what you heard on Facebook or Twitter is true.

Are there national shows that do well on radio? Yup. Are there national networks - like NPR - that do well on radio? Yes again, but mostly because the national content is bolstered by good local content. There are plenty of box-in-the-closet stations that have poor numbers as well, mostly because they don't have any local content.

You as much as admit that VT is more about saving money than providing better talent. You're right, you can do better paying an out-of-town tracker than you can paying anybody willing to work for minimum wage. That doesn't mean that you can't afford better talent, who will provide better content, increase revenue enough to pay for themselves, and prevent you from getting stung when a syndicated talent utters words that echo throughout the national media and set off alarm bells with advertisers on dozens or hundreds of your stations, not just one. Overall, you lose more than local talent cost you in the first place.

As far as the rest is concerned, let me quote you - "Blah, blah, blah." It's territory that's been debated before, and you're such a shill for corporate broadcasters that we all know what your take will be. Several bankruptcies have shown the wisdom of the practices that you support.

 

[TheBigA]

It's not VT - it's live.

My point wasn’t that it was VT, but that he wasn’t local. His employer accommodated him. He didn’t have to find a job in Florida. Lots of employers do the same thing to keep their staff. Also a lot of VT announcers get research and information to help them do their show. Some don’t, but most do. The original point of VT was to be better than satellite. Otherwise, the satellite is cheaper.

Are there national shows that do well on radio? Yup. Are there national networks - like NPR - that do well on radio? Yes again, but mostly because the national content is bolstered by good local content. There are plenty of box-in-the-closet stations that have poor numbers as well, mostly because they don't have any local content.

But the big corporate companies, the one you attack, generally don't do 100% syndicated stations. As I said, they own syndication companies, and usually don’t use their own syndicated satellite formats. The 100% satellite stations are owned by small local owners. And you're right, they don't get big numbers because no one promotes those stations. People aren't going to listen unless you ask them to. Then again, I know live & local stations that never promote themselves, never allow their staff to go outside the studio, and they might as well be in New York or Dallas. Because it's not local even though the staff is local. On the other hand, Bob & Tom do a syndicated morning show from Indianapolis. They promote the show in local markets with billboards and newspaper ads as though they're local. They have a local presence, and they do well in the ratings. That's what a station has to do to make it work, and quite often stations don't. But as I said it's not about where you are, but making a connection somehow. And you can do that from anywhere if you know what you're doing.

That doesn't mean that you can't afford better talent, who will provide better content, increase revenue enough to pay for themselves,

If they can pay for themselves, why don’t they? That was the pitch Tom Donohue made in 1966 when he went to a station owner running KMPX in San Francisco. He told the owner “I can increase revenues.” The owner said, “Prove it.” He did. He was just a DJ who was tired of playing the same small playlist over and over. But he took a chance. All these out of work talent, the ones fired because they make too much money, just need to find a station that’s struggling, and make the owner an offer he can’t refuse. It’s up to the talent to do that. Not an owner. The owner can make his money using brokered radio. But out of work talent, looking to revive their careers, are too scared to take a chance on themselves. So they blame everyone else, and go into another line of work. But all they had to do is have the confidence in themselves to take a risk, and prove that better content will increase revenue. Someone has to be the first. Who will take that risk?

I think most DJs don’t want to take the risk because they feel they can’t increase revenues. They’ve never sold anything, and don’t know how to sell themselves. The sad truth is that in most places, local shows don’t attract advertising because the local advertisers don’t have the money, and don’t think radio works. Or if they buy any time, it’s only in drive time, not the fringes. So the majority of advertising in those other dayparts is coming from national companies. As I often say, if most of the spots in your shift are coming from national advertisers, they’re not buying YOU. That makes you expendable. If a talent wants to do something about job security, they need to prove the relationship between their show and revenue. If they can’t, they probably won’t be there for long. Talk is cheap.

 

[SirRoxalot]

So, since management has cut the sales department so much, or burdened them with so much reporting on their activities, it's now up to jocks to sell airtime - along with doing production, promotions, public service, appearances, and working clubs and/or mobile sound systems to earn enough to provide a decent standard of living and promote their shows (since the station promotions department was cut)?

Next you'll tell them to skip radio altogether and go right to podcast. Unfortunately, most radio guys don't have a year or two of salary in the bank to support them while things take off. Maybe a few married well, but I'm pretty sure that wears thin with their better half while they're "building their career".

 

[TheBigA]

So, since management has cut the sales department so much, or burdened them with so much reporting on their activities, it's now up to jocks to sell airtime

Did I ever say "it's up to" anyone?