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The Grinch is Stealing Christmas

M

MattParker

And his name is Clear Channel. According to the main news page of this site, CCI's Premiere Radio Networks is handing out pink slips instead of Christmas cards (let alone bonuses). (1) Isn't it enough that this company has decimated the ranks of station employees; now they are going after people who do the actual work in the syndication arm? (2) Couldn't they have waited until after Christmas? The bean counters can read a ledger; can't they read a calendar?

Some might say Premiere and its employees helped put a lot of station employees out of work, so maybe turn-about is fair play. Still, it's another example of how radio treats people like Kleenex.
 
And here we go again.. Let's jump on the anti-Clear Channel bandwagon..

Look, many businesses make the tough decision to right-size their organizational costs by cutting head count in the fourth quarter. That practice has been going on since corporate America began. The idea being, your yearly earnings are, to say the least, important. If revenue is down past predictions in prior quarters, it's very common to make it up by cutting expenses year end.

Nobody owes you or I a job. You work X-hours per day with the possibility you may not be needed tomorrow, six months from now, or at the end of the year. It's harsh and competitive reality to be sure, but reality of business. Nobody can protect your welfare better that you.
 
TVradioguru said:
And here we go again.. Let's jump on the anti-Clear Channel bandwagon..

Look, many businesses make the tough decision to right-size their organizational costs by cutting head count in the fourth quarter. That practice has been going on since corporate America began. The idea being, your yearly earnings are, to say the least, important. If revenue is down past predictions in prior quarters, it's very common to make it up by cutting expenses year end.

Nobody owes you or I a job. You work X-hours per day with the possibility you may not be needed tomorrow, six months from now, or at the end of the year. It's harsh and competitive reality to be sure, but reality of business. Nobody can protect your welfare better that you.
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That's not the point. The point is being so damn insensitive they fire people right before Christmas. Would it kill them to wait until after New Year's?
 
MattParker said:
That's not the point. The point is being so damn insensitive they fire people right before Christmas. Would it kill them to wait until after New Year's?
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I don't know if you've ever been fired, but no one likes hanging around with an ax about to fall. Get it over with quickly. Then I can move on with my life. Christmas isn't any better knowing that you're going back to a potentially bad situation. Anyone who has worked at this company knows it's an annual affair.
 
So you've never heard of cost cutting before the end of the year? Really? The idea is to cut the costs BEFORE Jan 1, when the financial clock stops on your past year.

Other than the seasonal nuance aspects, is it really less humane to make the tough decision to cut expenses before the holidays, or right after when people are faced with paying for the gifts, travel, or holiday expenses? Making cuts is a tough decision to make. Nobody I've ever seen, let alone in broadcasting, enjoys having to do it.

Now if it makes you feel better by demonizing whatever organization in comparing them with a children story or cartoon, so be it. Until you've had to make those sort of hard decisions, you really don't have a frame of reference.
 
@Guru: Maybe you recall the rather eloquent comment Paul Harvey made any time he read a story about some company playing Scrooge and firing people right before Christmas. Maybe the suits don't actually enjoy doing the firing. That's why they have some body else do it. But they sure don't care about the people affected. All that matters are quarterly numbers and their own bonuses. Lop off a few heads and goose the numbers. Workers be damned. Customers be damned. Public be damned. It's why US business is on the skids (and deservedly so).
 
MattParker said:
Lop off a few heads and goose the numbers. Workers be damned. Customers be damned. Public be damned. It's why US business is on the skids (and deservedly so).
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OK...what's the option? Get rid of the corporates and have government funded broadcasting. Whoops! Can't do that either. Over 130 employees at NJ Public Broadcasting were just fired right before Thanksgiving because the governor wants to cut taxes for the rich. Where is the outcry?
 
MattParker said:
@Guru: Maybe you recall the rather eloquent comment Paul Harvey made any time he read a story about some company playing Scrooge and firing people right before Christmas. Maybe the suits don't actually enjoy doing the firing. That's why they have some body else do it. But they sure don't care about the people affected. All that matters are quarterly numbers and their own bonuses. Lop off a few heads and goose the numbers. Workers be damned. Customers be damned. Public be damned. It's why US business is on the skids (and deservedly so).
Click to expand...

Beyond the passionate hyperbole of the evil corporate entity throwing innocent employees to the wolves during the holiday season, I fail to understand your comment: "Customers be dammed. Public be dammed". How is a company cutting employees detrimental to customers (which I assume you mean listeners or advertisers) or the general public?

Years ago my position was cut to save money and it wasn't pleasant. Was it fair? Certainly! A company employes you to fulfill a role and you're paid accordingly. If your role becomes expendable, then you are on the bubble. It's the realities of business, as it has been for decades.

I argue that US industry is struggling for two reasons: The banks and lack of manufacturing. Banks aren't lending to business because the banks acted irresponsibly and took too many risks. Secondly, the US has gotten out of the manufacturing and hard-goods business. For whatever reason (possibly the dot-com days of the late nineties, early 2000 years), youth has been given the false impression that in the 'new economy' everything is software and service-industry. Manufacturing has been driven out of the country because of greedy unions and having to purchase materials from foreign countries. Now we're faced with a lack of trained blue collar and skilled trades workers because industry could do it cheaper overseas, coupled with the lack of trades-based education. Radio is pretty much the same radio as ten years ago, our economy is not because the US doesn't export anymore, nor is the US the world capital of innovation anymore.

Borrowing against thin air, coupled with encouraging consumer over-consumption has gotten the economy where it is today, not RIFing some radio station employees.
 
The non-radio place where I work laid off a significant number of people the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The people knew it was coming so no surprises. But it was just after Thanksgiving and just before Christmas, same lousy timing as with Premiere.

It happens.

The good thing about getting let go is that it also means the company can no longer mess with your life.
 
Do they have the security guards watch you clean out your desk? I watch it happen to the guy that hired me (at another company not CC). I was lucky in that I knew I was not going to sing the contract extension offered. I had all my stuff out before the axe fell.
 
Choice, that kind of thing happens in all kinds of industries.

Let's take a look at what really happens here. By Thanksgiving, most of the Christmas buys are over, and the bulk of the production is done. Schedules are in the computer, and things start slowing down as we approach the Jan-Feb doldrums.

People that were hired last spring are either competent by now, or never gonna be. If they're competent, the people that trained them are expendable. If they aren't, they're expendable. So, it's either a "last in, first out" scenario, or a "reorganization" that "eliminates" the position occupied by the person with greater seniority and a bigger paycheck.

Next March, the next crop of new hires will come through the door - at lower wages - and the cycle will begin again. Quality doesn't factor into the equation. Welcome to corporate America.
 
secondchoice said:
Do they have the security guards watch you clean out your desk? I watch it happen to the guy that hired me (at another company not CC). I was lucky in that I knew I was not going to sign the contract extension offered. I had all my stuff out before the axe fell.
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There I fixed it. Sorry fingers were faster than brain. The pay cuts might be good for the company's shareholders, this quarter. Long run I doubt it.
 
secondchoice said:
The pay cuts might be good for the company's shareholders, this quarter. Long run I doubt it.
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No shareholders per se at CC any more.

The economies of radio have changed dramatically in the last five years. And along with it, everything else.

I wish I could have heard Bob Pittman's plan for CC's digital future. He will shape how that company goes in the next few years.
 
SirRoxalot said:
Choice, that kind of thing happens in all kinds of industries.

Let's take a look at what really happens here. By Thanksgiving, most of the Christmas buys are over, and the bulk of the production is done. Schedules are in the computer, and things start slowing down as we approach the Jan-Feb doldrums.

People that were hired last spring are either competent by now, or never gonna be. If they're competent, the people that trained them are expendable. If they aren't, they're expendable. So, it's either a "last in, first out" scenario, or a "reorganization" that "eliminates" the position occupied by the person with greater seniority and a bigger paycheck.

Next March, the next crop of new hires will come through the door - at lower wages - and the cycle will begin again. Quality doesn't factor into the equation. Welcome to corporate America.
Click to expand...

I have to agree,they dump the dead wood and replace with cheaper hires.Yes thats corporate america.
 
You are correct. I forgot that CC went “private”. But sooner or later cost cutting will put you in a position that you can not take advantage of opportunities or get thru screw ups. An example is the botched Toyota recalls. The typical Japanese Auto company has less “middle” management than a US company. Toyota did not have the experienced people to detect the problem: (not noticing the complaints), or to verify the fix (blaming floor mats instead of mechanical fix shimming the gas pedals). This has cost them market share and major $$$. Of course this helped GM out of bankruptcy a lot faster. I know this is an “apples to oranges” but if you do not have adequate support people, sooner or later it will cost you. I realize some positions will be lost because better technology, but there has not been any giant leaps in software lately. There was a reason a position existed and somehow its function has to be covered, unless your business is contracting. Retraining people every year to save a couple of bucks is a waste of time and talent
 
A mistake on the radio can't cause death or injury like a consumer product can.

I'm not sure Toyota ever figured out what happened. In fact, I think toward the end of the news coverage, prior to the Gulf oil spill replacing it, at least two of the folks claiming their Prius careened out of control were found to be frauds. I'd never seen anything claiming that the safety concerns over Toyota vehicles were because of cutbacks.
 
secondchoice said:
I know this is an “apples to oranges” but if you do not have adequate support people, sooner or later it will cost you.
Click to expand...

That would be true, but the fact is that on air radio is no longer a growth area. NBC realized that in 1988. Metromedia agreed a few years later. Disney discovered the same thing five years ago. Radio can drive people to other media. All the big companies are basically transitioning staffing towards new technologies.
 
TVradioguru said:
A mistake on the radio can't cause death or injury like a consumer product can.

I'm not sure Toyota ever figured out what happened. In fact, I think toward the end of the news coverage, prior to the Gulf oil spill replacing it, at least two of the folks claiming their Prius careened out of control were found to be frauds. I'd never seen anything claiming that the safety concerns over Toyota vehicles were because of cutbacks.
Click to expand...

They did not have the staff to cut in the first place. They saw no need. They have now hire a bunch of people to handle the this. Radio can be a life or death issue. That is why there is an EAS system.
 
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