The REAL story at Cumulus and The Wolf?!?!

[Jake Daniels]

Business is business. I've got no problem with that. Its all good. I've already landed another gig so I've got nothin to complain about. Actually I'm pretty happy and look forward to going to work.

And not only is it about Cumulus firing all of their country night jocks in one fell swoop, its about firing all of the receptionists company wide in one fell swoop as well. Its about a certain individual bragging about firing people because the comapny needs to save money when that certain individual is shooting revenue down left and right because he didnt come up with the ideas.

I could go on and on but I'm tired of slinging mud.

Peace out message board and Little1.... I used to like you. I thought you were nice.

 

[DFWRADIO]

Look. This isn't about what Jan wouldn't let Jake do locally vs what he will get from Cody's national show. It isn't about the bits and such at all. It's about Cumulus being able to fire every night guy at every country station they own. Wow, think of the payroll savings. Jan probably couldn't talk the Dickey's out this cost savings once it was presented to them if his life depended on it. They would probably play a 1K tone from 7-midnight if they thought it would save them a buck. Every mutt that is at Cumulus corporate is there because they never question the wisdom of Lew and John Dickey. Jan's not going to rock the boat. He'll collect some more paychecks and if it blows up he'll go to the next gig and blame the failure on "them not listening to him."

Don't take it personal Jake it just business. Business that is bad for the listener, bad for the advertiser, and bad for the industry but they can't think beyond making the payment on that huge note they have to pay.

I think it's a little premeture to think that this is a bad move for Cumulus. Regardless if you like Cody's style and delivery he was #1 in PM drive for a long time and has more equity with Wolf Cume's (especially the older) than Jake Does. I like Jake and his show but to think that this is all cost cutting Cumulus would have done this along time ago and brought in a Whitney Allen or Lia. Let's wait and see what happens with the numbers. Just my two cents.

 

[Bob LaBlah]

Jake - you were put in that spot as a cost saving move. Think you were making what Hollywood was ? What Amy B was when she did the shift - what Mel and Rebacca Pulled down when they did ?

You weren't all that, you were cheap and not too horrible.

In listening to your show I would guess the reason Jan or any programmer would've said no to your creative brilliance is not because it wasn't a great idea, just that your ability to execute may be more stunted than what you hear in your head. Find some of your airchecks online and listen - you may hear it - or the point being - not hear it.

Not being ugly or aggressive but having some honesty here on your ability.


Glad you got another gig - tough climate to be sitting out. Try to sound like you are interested and be careful on how you use the firewater.

 

[whodatdj]

Look. This isn't about what Jan wouldn't let Jake do locally vs what he will get from Cody's national show. It isn't about the bits and such at all. It's about Cumulus being able to fire every night guy at every country station they own. Wow, think of the payroll savings. Jan probably couldn't talk the Dickey's out this cost savings once it was presented to them if his life depended on it. They would probably play a 1K tone from 7-midnight if they thought it would save them a buck. Every mutt that is at Cumulus corporate is there because they never question the wisdom of Lew and John Dickey. Jan's not going to rock the boat. He'll collect some more paychecks and if it blows up he'll go to the next gig and blame the failure on "them not listening to him."

Don't take it personal Jake it just business. Business that is bad for the listener, bad for the advertiser, and bad for the industry but they can't think beyond making the payment on that huge note they have to pay.

I think it's a little premeture to think that this is a bad move for Cumulus. Regardless if you like Cody's style and delivery he was #1 in PM drive for a long time and has more equity with Wolf Cume's (especially the older) than Jake Does. I like Jake and his show but to think that this is all cost cutting Cumulus would have done this along time ago and brought in a Whitney Allen or Lia. Let's wait and see what happens with the numbers. Just my two cents.

Cody has talent and I have no doubt that he and Brian Philps will put out a good product. My point was more to illustrate that the move was less about one DJ in one market's ability and was more about saving money. People use to say "we'll it's just overnights, we can put a national show on over nights no one will notice." Now it's moving to nights (already has via Delilah on the AC side). Midday's next because the drivetimes are all that matters. But wait a minute in the Kradick, Lex & Terry, world I guess they are ahead of the game already. These shows have some great talent but the localness of radio is what the industry has been pushing for years as our defining point over XM and Sirus. Now it's slowly saying that it doesn't matter.

This isn't just a Cumulus problem, though they are a good example. This is an industry drowning in debt problem. When all of the sane people dropped out of the bidding wars on companies like ABC and Susquehanna it was because they knew the revenue these properties were capable of producing. Simply put they didn't want to take on a debt load they could not service.

Since Cumulus took over the local Susquehanna properties only Smokey Rivers and Chris Summer remain at the Wolf. KLIF has completly turned over their weekday hosts. The Bone has a total new staff. As Bob LaBlah, great name, said I'm sure none of these folks are making the same money that Cody, Justin, Tara, Amy b., Ankarlo, Knapp, Jeff K, etc were making. But it goes beyond the air staff. All the program directors and promotions directors (except Catlin at the KTCK) have turned over. The engineering department has turned over with the exception of one guy (thanks to a resignation this week) out of the 8 or 9 they had before. I'm sure none of these positions, if they were filled, were done so at the same or higher pay grade. That's not a dig on the people that now have those jobs. They, Jake included, took what they felt they were worth and probably work hard at their jobs. I'm sure they are happy to be working in the industry.

 

[BossJock1947]

Listen. I'm not saying that Jan is an idiot. He's actually a pretty smart guy. I just dont like him.

Yes. The station is doing well with the PPM. But we are in Dallas/ Fort Worth. What would you expect a country station to do in the ratings? Suck? No. When the October PPM results came back we were the highest cuming station in America. My night show was tied for 2nd. We were #1 12+ etc etc etc.....

Its just sad that the station reports an all time high in all dayparts and I get fired for a syndicated show.

The irony is, Jan never let me do anything. I would ask. He would say no. I would show personality and he would call me out on it. "Self Serving B.S." as he called it. Then he goes and replaces me with Cody Alan's show. Cody left the station because he couldnt be creative and do a fun show! So, he says no to all of my ideas to make the night show fun and interactive and replaces me with a show that goes against everything he told me I couldnt do. I love Cody and I have no hard feelings for him and his show. I'm sure its gonna be fantastic.

Its just when you dont have the balls to call one of your employees who works in a major market on a huge radio station, it shows what kind of person you really are. I'm not some Joe Schmoe in a small town somewhere working for Cumulus. At least have the respect to call or email or walk in the studio. Something and tell me that you are firing me. Dont leave it up to the GM to do your dirty work.

If you are gonna make jokes in meetings about how many people you have fired in your career and you are going to then sit there and tell us that Cumulus is the greatest company on the face of the Earth and then make creepy remarks about wanting to "Do it Straight Up" with Paula Abdul, show up and be the big bad ass that you claim to be.

Point being... I'm out of there. I am happy to be out of there. I will never work for him or Cumulus again. Actually, after posting that blog and this particular post, they will make sure that I never work for them again! HAAAA!!!

You dont have to be an ass to be successful. Your employees will be much happier and I bet they will perform so much more efficiently.

I'm just sayin.

Jake, perhaps that's why you got fired. You publicaly say you don't like Jan. I'm sure between the two of you in the halls it was obvious to Jan. What PD wants an employee on board that doesn't like him. Good Luck with your new gig!

 

[Jake Daniels]

Could be but if I knew each one of you in person, I'd tell you the same thing that I've written and I know I'm not the only one that feels the way that I do.

Point being, The Wolf has transformed massively over the last 2 years and I would get people asking me all the time what is going on over there or what happened to so and so..... I wrote blog for the people on my MySpace page to let them know and it miraculously ended up on here.

I have a right to express myself about someone that I dont agree with or have a problem with. I'm not saying that I want to fight the guy or anything like that. I just dont like the way he goes about conducting business. I realize that he has a job to do and he is under the same scrutiny from the Dickeys as I was from him. However, there is right and there is wrong. Thats all I am saying about the dude.

Is he a nice guy? Maybe but I would never know. All I have seen from him is massive ego and bad people skills.

Look, business is business and I understand that. I've been fired by Cumulus twice and CBS once. All three because the stations were going in different directions. But the CBS firing was handled very professionally. The Cumulus firings were not. Maybe youre all way more seasoned in the business than I am but in my 12 years, I've never dealt with such narcisistic behavior.

In other news, look what you people have done to me! You've turned me into a Radio-Info.com junkie! HAAA!!! I dont think I've been to this site so much in the last 6 years! HAAA

Thanks a lot! ;D

 

[Slambang]

Jake, screw what alot of these people like bob, boss jock and the other old bitter farts say about how ya handled it, I think ya did the right thing. People need to know about the wrongs in a business, esp. with cumulus and their total lack of spine. Eveyone has noticed quality of product falling at their stations, why they bring this medium market mentality into large markets like Dallas is a question ive always asked (its always worked in Tampa, why not Dallas??)...The future is going to be still the internet and sat radio, as the "free" product has become too much of a joke...

 

[TheRover]

Jake, screw what alot of these people like bob, boss jock and the other old bitter farts say about how ya handled it, I think ya did the right thing. People need to know about the wrongs in a business, esp. with cumulus and their total lack of spine. Eveyone has noticed quality of product falling at their stations, why they bring this medium market mentality into large markets like Dallas is a question ive always asked (its always worked in Tampa, why not Dallas??)...The future is going to be still the internet and sat radio, as the "free" product has become too much of a joke...

Right .... "Free" TV has become a joke..... You have to go to subscription "cable" to get substance.....

But then..... the advertisers on "Free" TV know that there's a lot of empty heads still watching this stuff..... and those folks need to be hammered with adds for their products...

Free radio and Tv.... the pipeline for advertising sludge.... ad naseum.

 

[KERCAlum]

FCC Chairman Newton Minnow called television "a vast wasteland' back in 1961. Radio, at the time, was the class of broadcasting. People still went to radio for their news, sports, and much of their entertainment (although, sadly, the scripted shows had since departed to TV).

Today, it's all a vast wasteland. That's why iPods are so popular. That's why people listen to internet radio, satellite radio, CDs, etc., because local terrestrial radio is so bad.

It's not just the jocks that are hurting from this, it's the artists, too. Anyone not named Kanye West, Tim McGraw, Nelly, etc., has very little chance getting airplay these days.

Jake, I'm glad to hear you got a new gig, but you know what? Get out of radio while you're still young. Go find a job that'll pay your mortgage (or at least give you a sense of stability).

I started in radio in 1976 when it was still personality-driven, and KLIF/KNUS were still the kings of Top 40 (but starting their downward trend). I got out in 1981 to go into TV news. I got out of that in 1990 to go into video production. Why? Because there was no stability, no honor, no loyalty, and no guts in any of those other places. (Okay, there's no guts in corporate video production, either.)

 

[Surfer]

The fact is that like it or not, Cumulus did what they felt they needed to do with THEIR BUSINESS...not yours, THEIRS. If you owned the station you'd handle the situation the way YOU wanted. The fact is Cumulus is the owner and they make the rules. You may not like how you were treated but, unless you're fired wrongly (and that's rarely provable, right?), you were let go simply because Cumulus wanted to do something else for whatever reason they had.

Yes, corporate radio is killing the business we love but, the bottom line is, either embrace it and learn how to work with it and survive or do something else and be happy. That is your choice, not Cumulus, and in the end, we ALL have the choice to decide who we wish to work for. Nobody holds a gun to our heads.

Personally, I wouldn't like it much either but, I must accept forces that are beyond my control. I only hope that the job I do, for whomever I choose to work for, is done well enough to allow me to keep it for some small amount of time...until the next opportunity.

 

[Jake Daniels]

Surfer, youre right and I'm not arguing that what they did was a business decision. My points are, that its a poorly run business by people that remind me of Clark Griswolds boss in Christmas Vacation. HAAA!!

 

[Kent]

Jake, don't take it personally. A lot of really good people have been screwed by that company, and not just recently. That was the same thing I was told when I left Cumulus. However, my departure had nothing to do with Cumulus corporate; it was an issue at the local level with my operations manager. He would've screwed me over sooner had the previous local ownership not kept him off my back. I got out before he could fire me, though he reduced my hours and cut my airtime to practically nothing.

When it comes to how Cumulus is run, it's important to remember that Jan Jeffries didn't get where he got by being stupid. He has a long track record of success. However, I have to agree that Cumulus isn't necessarily a well run business. A few years ago, I was told that Cumulus only had two CHR's in the entire chain winning their head-to-head battles. If that statistic was true, it's clear the company's one size fits all approach just doesn't work. Cumulus also used to be a company that didn't practice blanket firings. While corporate may have stuck its nose into the programming more than the local staff would have liked, no one had to fear being fired in a format change if they did a good job. Obviously, that's something that went by the wayside about two months ago when good staff got fired simply for being in the wrong timeslot.

 

[BossJock1947]

Jake, screw what alot of these people like bob, boss jock and the other old bitter farts say about how ya handled it, I think ya did the right thing. People need to know about the wrongs in a business, esp. with cumulus and their total lack of spine. Eveyone has noticed quality of product falling at their stations, why they bring this medium market mentality into large markets like Dallas is a question ive always asked (its always worked in Tampa, why not Dallas??)...The future is going to be still the internet and sat radio, as the "free" product has become too much of a joke...

Right .... "Free" TV has become a joke..... You have to go to subscription "cable" to get substance.....

But then..... the advertisers on "Free" TV know that there's a lot of empty heads still watching this stuff..... and those folks need to be hammered with adds for their products...

Free radio and Tv.... the pipeline for advertising sludge.... ad naseum.

Rover...what does my age have anything to do with? I'm just saying...you mouth off negatively about your boss in a public forum is stupid. But I understand his frustration and I also feel Outing Jan Jeffries is fine with me ;D

For the record...Jan did not program WLS the Big 89. He came in for a very short time and programmed/Screwed up wls-fm which was called something else at the time. It was an awful station and Jan was fired.

Another thing...I think (not sure) Jan married one of the Dickies brothers sister or daughter. That's why he's allowed to screw up alot without getting fired.

I remember about 20 years ago when Jan was out of radio and couldn't find a job... he had a business and we used him briefly for some consulting. I rememer him telling me how sorry he was for being such an asshole to people and he was going to change...apparently not according to Jake and others recently...

 

[Coronaextra]

One thing I wouldn't be doing is trashing my former employer on the net. This is a small incestuous business and it's amazing how comments on the web can come back to haunt you.

 

[TheRover]

Jake, screw what alot of these people like bob, boss jock and the other old bitter farts say about how ya handled it, I think ya did the right thing. People need to know about the wrongs in a business, esp. with cumulus and their total lack of spine. Eveyone has noticed quality of product falling at their stations, why they bring this medium market mentality into large markets like Dallas is a question ive always asked (its always worked in Tampa, why not Dallas??)...The future is going to be still the internet and sat radio, as the "free" product has become too much of a joke...

Right .... "Free" TV has become a joke..... You have to go to subscription "cable" to get substance.....

But then..... the advertisers on "Free" TV know that there's a lot of empty heads still watching this stuff..... and those folks need to be hammered with adds for their products...

Free radio and Tv.... the pipeline for advertising sludge.... ad naseum.

Rover...what does my age have anything to do with? I'm just saying...you mouth off negatively about your boss in a public forum is stupid. But I understand his frustration and I also feel Outing Jan Jeffries is fine with me ;D

For the record...Jan did not program WLS the Big 89. He came in for a very short time and programmed/Screwed up wls-fm which was called something else at the time. It was an awful station and Jan was fired.

Another thing...I think (not sure) Jan married one of the Dickies brothers sister or daughter. That's why he's allowed to screw up alot without getting fired.

I remember about 20 years ago when Jan was out of radio and couldn't find a job... he had a business and we used him briefly for some consulting. I rememer him telling me how sorry he was for being such an ------ to people and he was going to change...apparently not according to Jake and others recently...

I think you meant this for Slambang...

 

[Slambang]

hey, no skin off of my nose

What I was saying in that rant was the fact this business has lost its creative and inventive teeth, the old timers(mostly in managment) are hanging onto something just to suckle off the dried up teet that is commercial radio. In the process, they've delayed or shot down new technologies and products all due to the fact it doesnt protect their status quo, nor have they taken their beef up with NAB when it comes to pushing "free" radio into the future.

 

[TheRover]

What drew me as a loyal listener to FM Rock radio was the creativity in hte song selection....

Now, in FM Rock radio..... all of that has been co-opted by Mngt.

So, the fundamental creative draw for this listener is gone....

So, workers in the radio business, have their hand tied in this area, and they try to be creative in what little areas of freedom the poweres that be, have left for them.

Unfortunately, those other areas, minus the song selection area, is now why I ever became a loyal listener to FM Rock radio in the first place.

There is no "music" community for anything other than commerical rock, at it's basest level. A niche that way too over-served, if you ask me.

My standards remain the same.....

Song Selection

Song Selection

Song Selection