"This industry is wrecked..."

[SaltyDog]

"This industry is wrecked, by an oversaturated market of talent who is willing to bend over backwards to work for
free or nothing... It's just more money for the ... execs and their private jets. But you can eat ramen noodles
and live in your sh_tty appartments and be happy you get to work for peanuts... The psychology and mental profile
of the execs is like a serial killer, they don't care about lives of others, they have no respect for anyone..."

That excerpt of a rant posted online a day ago follows layoffs. Not radio layoffs, layoffs at Disney studios. The anguished
screed struck me because it is so similar to those I read from some air personalities and others working in radio.

I sometimes get the feeling that people think this is just happening to them. The link to the full rant from (screen name)
V-Vendetta (occupy art industry) is here:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/b...imation-division-81043.html#comment-860228495

 

[MickeyD]

The industry is mature that's all. It is voicetracking that changed almost everything. Unless you work at a sports or news-talker there are no jobs.

TV stations today aren't doing that well either and they are still doing "ok" financially.

 

[KeithE4]

Nobody wants to pay any more human beings than they have to. It's not just Disney, it's not just radio or TV, it's all businesses. We are not "Human Resources;" we are "Human Liabilities," and have been since the 1980s.

Ever wonder why there are only two or three checkout lines open at any given time at your local Walmart or Target? Those checkout people cost money (and this is not an anti-union rant, non-union shops are the same way) in both salary and benefits, especially health insurance. Same goes for manufacturing, where companies like the one I work for are operating at 1/2 of a skeleton crew in order to maximize profit as much as possible and also pay down debt.

Besides, and I've said this a hundred times, the owners of many of these businesses are institutional investors (mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds, and the like - you know, "Wall Street") that mandate that they take the profits in cash for their clients - who, ironically enough, are us. Much less profit than in years past goes back into improving the business. But they, collectively, are the owners and owners get to tell the management how the business is to be run, not the employees or customers. If they screw it up, they take the ultimate financial risk, even though we, as employees, also do so indirectly (by getting laid off).

 

[TheBigA]

Add to it the fact that anyone can create content, and there are lots of platforms for them to present their stuff. Like this message board. Like YouTube. Like Facebook. As the quote said, people are willing to work for free. So why should anyone pay? Consumers want to listen to music for free. They want to watch TV for free. Everything we do costs money, but the consumers don't want to pay, and technology has made it possible for them to get around the paywalls. The problem isn't the companies or the executives. The problem is US. The executives just discovered that everyone needs someone to manage things. That's the line of work that still hasn't changed.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Some times we are so close to the "industry" where we are, or desire to be, that we cannot face the logic without sugar-coating it with emotional icing that hides donut, the cookie... whatever picture you want to use for the "job" you love.

When my oldest went off to college, she became an architect. It was the era of pencils, triangles, t-squares, tracing paper, velum and German made inking-nibs. When she left the campus and walked through the gates of "the real world" she landed a job with one of the big national companies. It wasn't long until corporate sent out the word: "There is this new technology called C.A.D. that we need to evaluate and see if it is going to work for us. Designate someone in your local office to be the contact point, the one who is our "token CAD". So that sweet little girl I knew got in on the ground floor. Such as it was, she was THE EXPERT in New York City for a national company, a name some of you would recognize if I put it in here.

Do you have any idea how many "performers" in the world of architecture eventually found their lives turned up-side-down over the next 10 to 15 years? (I still have my T-square and one of the triangles that was part of the draftsman set my parents gave me for Christmas in the 6th or 7th grade. I used that triangle a few minutes ago to design some "gaskets" to make my shock mount fit a microphone it wasn't designed for.)

What ever warm fuzzy feeling a radio person gets by walking into the room with a quality mic hanging there, the old time draftsmen who knew how to transmit the design of a new building into documents a construction crowd could understand get that same feeling when they walk up to a drawing table with a piece of velum taped down.

You think those folks don't have some harsh feeling about "corporate management" who jammed this new soul-lacking box filled with transistors and hard drives down their throat.

Welcome to the 21st Century, folks.

Chapter Two. Recent Conversation with my princess. You ever draw anything any more? Do you stay current on CAD? For a while at least the artists who did the colorful 3-D "renderings" (sketches) of what the building would look like were safe. Now the machine has replaced them also. The princess said: "No, CAD has become so complex today that I can't do both. I am dependent today on the teckies who do that stuff based on instructions they get from me and others who interface with the client, the customer.

So, it is like broadcasting. The folks who interface with the corporate office, and the people to interface with the clients still have jobs that are human. (for now!)

 

[SaltyDog]

Employees don't like to think of themselves as a cost line on a P&L but from an accounting point-of-view, they are. We can blame companies and consumers for paying as little as possible but do we behave any differently? Should we?

Walmart and others actually don't have fewer checkout lines, they just have fewer cashiers and more self-checkout stations. Technology made that possible. I know people who hate Walmart, say they don't pay people enough, or provide enough benefits and don't seem to care that their iPhones are made in China by people who are paid little and discarded when used up.

There are still people who seem to think that if it weren't for legislation in the 90's permitting consolidation, everything in radio would be fine today. Some of them even think it would help to undo that legislation! Now. In 2013! Wouldn't accomplish anything. It's technology.

There are industries and companies (Internet, Google) that have been growing for a long time and people inside probably think they live and work in some alternate universe where they don't face the same problems as other industries. One day, the music will stop, they will shrink and consolidate and today's 20-somethings will be 50-somethings lamenting "this industry is wrecked", longing for the good old days and pointing fingers at those they think are responsible for the fact that things aren't what they were.

 

[bturner]

I both agree and disagree with the posts I have read here. I see lots of anger on both sides amid the words. Maybe its frustration instead of anger because the issue continues to raise itself up fairly frequently.

We can complain about radio today. We can rave about radio in the past. We can bring up the facts regarding staffing a station, about technology and about how the consumer and our world have changed. We can all agree the world has changed and with that change many aspects of radio have as well.

Here are some facts: many have fond and very strong positive memories of radio at another point in time. Radio obviously did a fine job at that time because these memories are still vibrant. Those 'feelings', it seems are not being created by radio today. Or those good old days are being remembered as better than they were.

I contend the product offered by radio today is not as good as it could be overall. With radio attempting to be viable financially, the changes resulted in a less than stellar product. In this respect, the 'mobility' options had a foot in the door and tried to grab some of radio's stronghold. I contend radio is evolving as it has been all along. It is still trying to find its place and wotking hard at doing so. We can agrue all of this until we're blue in the face but for those who choose to look at both sides, I think we will find evidence radio in general was fairly half-hearted at defending its strengths.

Oh yes, radio stations still do well. People still listen. Stations still make money. In fact, it might be true stations overall are more successful financially today than they were 30 or 40 years ago.

Radio used to be #1 in news. Then came CNN. Radio used to be live and local in earlier times but then came automation and satellite deivered radio. Radio was once the heyday for personalities but then we took that away. In an attempt to get more and more listeners we homogenized playlists, removing the flavors until we became plain vanilla. Finally we began trimming staffs. Today we are like the pro baseball teams where only a fraction of the pro players can be on the team but the farm teams are gone and the players are getting old. Radio is still searching for its place, but it is a moving target. We ponder how we can embrace technology without becoming what we are not. Our investors don't like thinking outside the box and we feel driven to do so because thinking outside the box is change itself, and something we struggle to keep pace with. The debt (and even entry investment for new stations) is staggering. We feel squeezed on all sides not unlike every type of business.

I agree radio is not what it should be. I think it could be much more viable as far as the audience is concerned. We have passionate people in radio working on this if they can sell the investors. Some are positive thinkers. We think because somebody tried to grab the football so they could run through the goal posts, we shouldn't just hand them the ball. Obviously some of the posters here have given up...you handed them the ball. I'd rather look for ways to incorporate technology and make radio a part of that mix. I think the creativity of radio people can pull it off.

Radio is human. I have found humans frequently do the worst thing for themselves. A person tends to be so mired in a problem they make it worse for themselves. I taught myself a lesson when I was working sales. If you're in radio sales you can relate. Coming out of December, January is just depressing. I recall making a list of the most promising clients to visit. All turned me down by 11 am. I actually went to a small client, pulled in, parked and then drove away expecting a 'no'. I took an early lunch and told myself I had to let that little client tell me 'no'. They were the first call after lunch. The client was thrilled I stopped by and bought a huge amount of advertising (for them, anyway). You see, most of their contracts ended December 31 and January was for them what Christmas was to the retailer. I did the wrong thing for myself until I reasoned it out. I think this is where we find radio: searching for its comfort zone amid a rapidly changing world where the wolves are at the door.

I recall talking to a small market station owner I knew really well. He had run his station for years with minimum wage green jocks and had all the war stories to go with it. Once satellite radio happened, he jumped. He kept two high school employees that worked about 15 hours a week. He, his wife and son took care of the rest. After about a year the station was billing about 2/3rds of what it did when he was live. He was making a better profit and was happy. Listening to the station was horrible. You heard the owner's voice on every one of the 7 thirty second spots in the required 3.5 minute breaks he had to fill. He set up a timer to cut the satellite feed for the state network news feed at :55 (he said most of his jocks had difficulty backtiming to the news and frequently cut songs in the middle) but the timer would get off a bit and there might be a few seconds of dead air. He admitted he didn't care to listen to his station as much with the satellite feed but he made more money and had fewer headaches. He'd take 2/3rds the income and be happy. Did the guy 'give up'? I'd say no, but it marked a point where on air product took a back seat to profit. Profit is nice but the quality of the product is important too! Obviously the perfect formula is lower costs and better product in a perfect world.

I also think many of the complainers that have worked in radio may have been in my shoes. I loved being behind the microphone and it actually took being forced to learn more to move me from my thinking. Had I not had a boss that insisted I go into sales and eventually into management I would have likely been content with staying behind the microphone. I find so many in radio that either have the sales experience and know nothing about the programming side or they are on the air and have a fear not unlike a fear of death, about the sales end. To stay in the business expand your horizons and try to learn all you can.

As for the future of radio: radio needs the remembered thrill of the past. Are you, that complain that radio is not stuck in the 60s or 70s really saying that radio should and never can again create the fond memories of those who have so passionately expressed their views? If you think radio is done and over, why stay? If you think radio can still find a way to make impressions of folks as it seems to have done in decades past, then let's make it happen with a plan the investors in radio will clamor to stand behind. I recall when talk radio wasn't a player, then this guy, Rush Limbaugh came along. Love him or hate him, he revived talk radio and likely AM radio. Is there another 'Rush' type out there ready to revive radio again? I'm a positive thinker. I believe there is. Do you or are you waving the white flag?

 

[TheBigA]

As for the future of radio: radio needs the remembered thrill of the past. Are you, that complain that radio is not stuck in the 60s or 70s really saying that radio should and never can again create the fond memories of those who have so passionately expressed their views? If you think radio is done and over, why stay?

I think you have to be a realist about it and know that radio doesn't have the monopoly it enjoyed for fifty years. That there now are millions of people who are empowered with the exact same desire to reach people through audio that radio employees have. But those other people are doing it for free. And the technology makes it possible. We saw that with the coverage of the Boston Marathon explosion. Thousands of amateur videos helped catch the terrorists. I go to cover an event, and sitting next to me is a fan with a cell phone, texting their friends, and sending photos and video. What's the difference between me and the fan? I'm getting paid. That's it. If I'm not reporting an event in real time, then I'm not covering news. So we need to understand our place, and we need to embrace new technologies, we need to understand that our role has changed, that we can't do what we once did and expect it to get the same impact or create the same memories it once did. It's not a function of how many people you have on staff, but what those people do. And if they're basically doing the same thing the amateurs are doing, then there's no point. If they're sitting in a studio waiting for a song to end so they can open their mic and speak, they're wasting their time. They need to find their place in the new media landscape, and do it very quickly, because the marketplace has already changed.

 

[bturner]

How am I not a realist? That I believe radio can be viable? Let's see, if there's competition, start digging thegrave and hop in? I don't understand. I'm not trying to be defensive but I really don't get how if there are millions out there that can do what radio does means radio is done. Would you not open an insurance agency in your town because there is already one? I get from what I interpret of your words that if someone threatens, don't try to compete. I'm saying embrace, evolve and bring it into the fold. I think there are many more millions that like the convenience of radio and mass media and that it can be viable and important to people. I prefer think radio can still make an impression, memories and such. Have you given up?

 

[TheBigA]

Have you given up?

I think I already answered that question. And I think we agree. It's not the 70s anymore. It's more challenging to "make an impression," as you say, because the marketplace is so diluted. I don't know if you've ever heard Ken Kragen speak, but he believed the way to make an impression was to say the same thing at least three times. That was 25 years ago. Now I think you need to say the same thing across five different platforms: Audio, video, mobile, social, and radio. If you're not doing all five, you're not going to make an impression.

 

[ProducerGuy]

Technology will always displace people from jobs. One way to adapt is to learn how to use (or build) that technology. If I were a music jock that lost his job to a computer back when this whole automation thing started, I would have created my own automation system. Or at least gotten a job with the company that makes the automation.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Yes, people should try and do creative thinking of the sort you just described.

Woulda' shoulda' coulda'.

Some of those early start-up companies developing automation hardware and software may have already been further down this same trail radio is now heading the day they opened up shop. Some where started by people who owned radio stations and they offered some less-than-spectacular jobs to some of their radio people... or stretched them out having them do both. Looking back in hindsite today, you advice is golden. Looking at that trail from the head-end back when it was happening, I couldn'tr afford to take the down-grade, take the risk.

The people who gambled and lost, we don't hear from. (The guy supervising the night shift at Burger King the other night may have been in the radio automation business back then for all I know.) The select few who made the switch you are suggesting and were able to grab the golden ring.... they get written up in the business journals and the write up makes then sound so smart, so visionary... but maybe if we could talk with an ex-spouse who bailed out while whiz-kid gambled the family grocery money on automation might tell another story.

 

[firepoint525]

I recall talking to a small market station owner I knew really well. He had run his station for years with minimum wage green jocks and had all the war stories to go with it. Once satellite radio happened, he jumped. He kept two high school employees that worked about 15 hours a week. He, his wife and son took care of the rest. After about a year the station was billing about 2/3rds of what it did when he was live. He was making a better profit and was happy. Listening to the station was horrible. You heard the owner's voice on every one of the 7 thirty second spots in the required 3.5 minute breaks he had to fill. He set up a timer to cut the satellite feed for the state network news feed at :55 (he said most of his jocks had difficulty backtiming to the news and frequently cut songs in the middle) but the timer would get off a bit and there might be a few seconds of dead air. He admitted he didn't care to listen to his station as much with the satellite feed but he made more money and had fewer headaches. He'd take 2/3rds the income and be happy. Did the guy 'give up'? I'd say no, but it marked a point where on air product took a back seat to profit. Profit is nice but the quality of the product is important too! Obviously the perfect formula is lower costs and better product in a perfect world.

Okay, I gotta blame station management for this one. The buck stops with them. If you don't like the product that your station is putting out, whose fault is that? The jock's? You hired him! If he isn't measuring up, then fire him! Too many station managers hire air talent, pay them minimum wage, and then expect them to perform like seasoned superstars!

Yes, I know that many stations operate on a shoestring budget and must trim expenses whenever and wherever possible. But hiring some kid and then expecting him to sound like Dick Clark or Casey Kasem is not being fair to him. It also isn't fair to the other jocks who are really trying to do their best, but yet must pull up the slack for some underperformer that you keep around. I actually had to lobby my last station's management to get some deadbeats out of there!

If you are a station manager and you see your jocks as a liability rather than as an asset, then you (not them) are the problem. If you pay them minimum wage, then the grass will be greener (or at least just as green) anywhere else! Pay them at least a little over minimum wage, just to keep the riff-raff out.

And by all means, DON'T demand more from your airstaff than you are willing to pay them for! It has always been my experience that if you don't put enough gas in the car, it won't run!

And just as a side note, I was NOT one of those jocks who just sat by there, "waiting for the song to end" as someone here said. I actually earned my pay. I even took on additional responsibilities (some voluntarily) because station management was willing to pay me a couple of extra hours a week to do so.

I would actually rather that stations go on satellite, rather than hire local kids, only to treat them like crap! If you can't afford to pay staffers for all that you want them to do, then you would actually be better off going on satellite. You will have fewer headaches overall, and you will NOT have an exasperated staff!

 

[bturner]

I have to agree that the 'waiting for the song to end' was never at one of the stations I worked and not the way it was where many of my radio friends worked. There was so much to do and such precision in the execution of the format, I am amazed I did all I had to do and pulled it off. After the shift your mind was a blur. I always had other duties aside from the airshift and 2 hours for production. There were station promotions, live remotes and other assignments that made sure you put in 50+ hours a week. And the light for the phones constantly was blinking. I felt the need to answer as many calls as I could while on the air.

In fact, in my earliest days behind the microphone I figured out how to rip and read the news on the teletype, reading ahead as I read the news live to make sure if the teletype decided a line of gibberish would replace the story I could connect the two parts of the story without missing a beat. I don't have a clue how I did that. Things like the hour long all live swap shop was amazing. Live callers on all lines, writing down what they say, repeating it and all live over the phone commercials to squeeze in without any support meaning you phoned the client and got them on the phone while the microphone was live and play by play high school sports where you are reading live spots as the feed runs their spots. Listening to a spot and reading a spot live is enough to make your brain feel like it would explode. The strain not to say what you heard while trying to pace youself for a seamless fit was amazingly tough. It was moments like that where you really wish you knew how you pulled it off.

I'm in radio for the long haul, whatever path it takes. As a news director at one station once said when he was asked when he was retiring: I'll retire when I read my own obituary on the air.

 

[KFodor]

Me, too...B.

I tell my broadcasting students today there will always be a business called "broadcasting". Whether it's on AM, FM or some new band (which includes "broad-band") remains to be seen.
And there will always be jobs for people who want to create the content.

It's just never going to be like it was when we started out...

 

[amfmxm]

Yeah, there will be jobs for people who want to create content--and have the talent to create good/great/compelling content. And who are flexible.

I've noticed recently seeing more guys/gals setting themselves up to do voice-tracking for multile radio stations. Not necessarily thousands of stations, but several. That's being flexible.

Jason, that "new band" you mention might be a re-tooled AM band. Saw the headline in this morning's "Inside Radio" email about testing some sort of IBOC technology. Don't know if anything will come of it. But I also noticed them quoting Arbitron that 85.4 percent of radio listening is on FM.

Leaving 14.6 percent of Americans listening to AM.

Better do something. Quick.

BTW, firepoint, 20 or 30 years ago radio management wasn't so focused on profit because it was much easier to generate a profit back then. And that meant that management could focus on the art & science of broadcasting. When money's no object, life is a lot more fun!

 

[KeithE4]

Jason, that "new band" you mention might be a re-tooled AM band. Saw the headline in this morning's "Inside Radio" email about testing some sort of IBOC technology.

When are they just going to give this train-wreck up? Digital just doesn't work on those lower frequencies. Between static and phasing issues, I just can't see anyone making this work at all.

Don't know if anything will come of it. But I also noticed them quoting Arbitron that 85.4 percent of radio listening is on FM.

Leaving 14.6 percent of Americans listening to AM.

And those ranks are thinning fast. Who listens to AM, other than for sports, that is younger than 60? That horse left the barn 40 years ago, even with the big-city blowtorches that are still doing well...for now.

 

[KFodor]

Yeah, there will be jobs for people who want to create content--and have the talent to create good/great/compelling content. And who are flexible.

I've noticed recently seeing more guys/gals setting themselves up to do voice-tracking for multile radio stations. Not necessarily thousands of stations, but several. That's being flexible.

Jason, that "new band" you mention might be a re-tooled AM band. Saw the headline in this morning's "Inside Radio" email about testing some sort of IBOC technology. Don't know if anything will come of it. But I also noticed them quoting Arbitron that 85.4 percent of radio listening is on FM.

Leaving 14.6 percent of Americans listening to AM.

Better do something. Quick.

BTW, firepoint, 20 or 30 years ago radio management wasn't so focused on profit because it was much easier to generate a profit back then. And that meant that management could focus on the art & science of broadcasting. When money's no object, life is a lot more fun!

I think you have some good points there. But...only if the FCC aggressively retools AM to sound at least reasonably comparable to FM, and reduces the static and interference can AM possibly have a chance to rebound. It makes far more sense, based on your profit logic to put the money into content that might exist on the FM side than the AM side as FM has the far bigger audience.

The future of the DJ might see them becoming independent businesspeople who create content for multiple stations via voice track. The best will do well, operating not out of a radio station, but out of their home studios. I've said this now for a couple of years.

Still, I have less confidence about the smaller, pea shooter AM's, except in very small towns and cities where they can still be the center of the town's universe.

 

[TheBigA]

Leaving 14.6 percent of Americans listening to AM.

And that 14.6 percent is concentrated on a handful of very powerful AMs in big markets with lots of heritage. Like WGN and WINS. The vast majority of AMs are in the dumpster.

BTW, firepoint, 20 or 30 years ago radio management wasn't so focused on profit because it was much easier to generate a profit back then. And that meant that management could focus on the art & science of broadcasting. When money's no object, life is a lot more fun!

Hmmm, I've worked with a lot of management, and have been in it myself, and it never mattered how easy it was to generate a profit...money was always management's primary interest. The minute someone gets VP stripes, all they care about is profit, regardless of the department they're in. And no one on the programming side wanted to hear management's opinions on the art & science of broadcasting. The goal was to keep them out of the control room. But they stayed out when the money was flowing because they had more time for golf.

The future of the DJ might see them becoming independent businesspeople who create content for multiple stations via voice track. The best will do well, operating not out of a radio station, but out of their home studios. I've said this now for a couple of years.

That's what I'm seeing. The hardest thing to get now is a full time job that pays benefits. The benefits are the biggest expense, and the obligation of supporting an employee. Companies LOVE the idea of hiring outside contractors as content providers. They will leave you alone to do your job.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

14.6% of listening being on AM seems extremely high to me. Maybe a number from a few years ago.

Today,the average of total AM share in the top 5 markets, including those blowtorches Keith cites, is 14.2 percent. In the next 5 markets, it is only 7.1%.

Worse: This data credits all listening to several single-line reported stations such as WBBM-AM & WCFS-FM/Chicago, WIP-AM/FM/Philadelphia, and WSB-AM & WSBB-FM/Atlanta to the AM band, an assumption that isn't realistic.

Cut that 14.6% number down to 10% or 11% and I might believe it today.