M
MikeShannon914
Guest
It was announced Wednesday that Traffic.com/NAVTEQ/Traffic Pulse/Nokia will be shuttering all of their local traffic offices and consolidating traffic operations in Chicago. That includes Dallas, which will close at the end of April, leaving countless more radio people out of work. I guess the writing was on the wall when NAVTEQ separated its broadcasting efforts from the rest of the company and sold it off as a unit last September or so. Individual NAVTEQ offices continued on with doing only the production side, plugging in incidents and roadwork for the sake of their contracts with Garmin (GPS units) and certain internet providers who published NAVTEQ's data for the public.
And with the recent sale of Westwood One's Metro Traffic division to Clear Channel's Total Traffic (Metro Traffic only, not their Metro Source news division--the "lease-a-news-anchor" service,) there's another blow to accuracy and any localism. At Total, you now have some shifts where one Dallas-based reporter does live or recorded reports for WBAP or KRLD, XM/Sirius, the new News92 in Houston, a station in Austin, along with KTRH/Houston and a station in Phoenix...ALL within the same 30-minute period. SO.....when does this one-person-doing-the-work-of-five have time to actually gather incident information, make police beat calls, input the information for each city, etc? Metro consolidated, what, 52 offices into 18 about three years ago, and recently shut down others, including their Houston office (yeah, Houston's not worthy of an office, since they have no traffic issues there, of course.) They took vets like Eric Grubbs, Joe Isham and many others and laid them all off. And it's been 2.5 years since all the local traffic helicopters were grounded. I think Metro is finally flying two Cessnas now instead of one...which, for the longest, one plane carried competitors KRLD, WBAP, KSCS and KPLX reporters together. Thank the good Lord, however, that Clear Channel is still allowing two sets of management to run the local Total offices--wouldn't dare want to see Wasserman, Pena, Haake or any others have to face the same fate as any of their employees.
What this comes down to is, who's minding the traffic in Dallas-Fort Worth? Metro's proven that doing traffic from afar does not work, and now NAVTEQ's going to discover the very same thing. The driver is the one who suffers, with dated or incorrect or incomplete or missing or MISPRONOUNCED information, etc, etc, etc, because the reporter, wheresoever situated, doesn't have time to do a thorough job for each market he services, nor does he even know the geography of 90% of the cities he reports for. Has the traffic situation nationwide IMPROVED so much in the last few years that we just don't need people dedicated to specific markets anymore? No, obviously, it's a case of greed and streamlining and "stockholder value" and dilution of the product, etc...much like the rest of the radio biz...and we the listeners just accept it with nary a fight or complaint. You all complain about "weak radio" in the area...well, we set the pace by accepting it on today's terms and continuing to tune in. But take a look at what the Hispanic audience does to their stations--I think it was KBOC-98.3 that tumbled way down the ratings list recently, and we've seen all the others do the same over time...and it's due to stations that *think* they've locked in their target audience, then they take away local talent and any regionalism to reduce costs, and expect the audience to stay along for the ride regardless. But Hispanics seem to thrive on the commonality and community aspects of radio, and when Liberman or whoever decides to go the cheap route, Hispanics simply tune out--IN DROVES. And it's enough to make those stations sit up and pay attention. The rest of us just let the Radio Gods dictate what they want us to hear, and in whatever form (i .e. voicetracking) they choose to deliver it to us.
As for NAVTEQ, thoughts go out to my many compadres from over the years there, who are still working there--for the moment--including longtime local radio folks like Nancy Johnson (KZEW/KDGE,) Alan Barnes (WBAP, KAND,) Denice "Necie Marie" Welch (WFAA-TV, Platinum 96.7,) Doyle King (KTCK, KDNT,) Jason Walker (KLUV, KLDD, USA Radio Network,) Bill Jackson (KLIF-570, ABCRN,) Jennifer Hart (WBAP,) Matt McCarty (current ops manager at NAVTEQ and the son of late broadcasting legend John McCarty,) Ben Martin (WBAP, WFAA-TV, KVIL,) Tom Corbett (KEWS) and several others will add to the 70%~ unemployment rate amongst radio people in DFW. This may affect WFAA's Alexa Conomos as well, but I'm sure her salary will be picked up by WFAA instead, if that's even still the case these days. Truly a sad day, and a poor reflection of the greediness and cut-rate efforts of today's broadcast ownership.
Anyway, </soapbox>.
And with the recent sale of Westwood One's Metro Traffic division to Clear Channel's Total Traffic (Metro Traffic only, not their Metro Source news division--the "lease-a-news-anchor" service,) there's another blow to accuracy and any localism. At Total, you now have some shifts where one Dallas-based reporter does live or recorded reports for WBAP or KRLD, XM/Sirius, the new News92 in Houston, a station in Austin, along with KTRH/Houston and a station in Phoenix...ALL within the same 30-minute period. SO.....when does this one-person-doing-the-work-of-five have time to actually gather incident information, make police beat calls, input the information for each city, etc? Metro consolidated, what, 52 offices into 18 about three years ago, and recently shut down others, including their Houston office (yeah, Houston's not worthy of an office, since they have no traffic issues there, of course.) They took vets like Eric Grubbs, Joe Isham and many others and laid them all off. And it's been 2.5 years since all the local traffic helicopters were grounded. I think Metro is finally flying two Cessnas now instead of one...which, for the longest, one plane carried competitors KRLD, WBAP, KSCS and KPLX reporters together. Thank the good Lord, however, that Clear Channel is still allowing two sets of management to run the local Total offices--wouldn't dare want to see Wasserman, Pena, Haake or any others have to face the same fate as any of their employees.
What this comes down to is, who's minding the traffic in Dallas-Fort Worth? Metro's proven that doing traffic from afar does not work, and now NAVTEQ's going to discover the very same thing. The driver is the one who suffers, with dated or incorrect or incomplete or missing or MISPRONOUNCED information, etc, etc, etc, because the reporter, wheresoever situated, doesn't have time to do a thorough job for each market he services, nor does he even know the geography of 90% of the cities he reports for. Has the traffic situation nationwide IMPROVED so much in the last few years that we just don't need people dedicated to specific markets anymore? No, obviously, it's a case of greed and streamlining and "stockholder value" and dilution of the product, etc...much like the rest of the radio biz...and we the listeners just accept it with nary a fight or complaint. You all complain about "weak radio" in the area...well, we set the pace by accepting it on today's terms and continuing to tune in. But take a look at what the Hispanic audience does to their stations--I think it was KBOC-98.3 that tumbled way down the ratings list recently, and we've seen all the others do the same over time...and it's due to stations that *think* they've locked in their target audience, then they take away local talent and any regionalism to reduce costs, and expect the audience to stay along for the ride regardless. But Hispanics seem to thrive on the commonality and community aspects of radio, and when Liberman or whoever decides to go the cheap route, Hispanics simply tune out--IN DROVES. And it's enough to make those stations sit up and pay attention. The rest of us just let the Radio Gods dictate what they want us to hear, and in whatever form (i .e. voicetracking) they choose to deliver it to us.
As for NAVTEQ, thoughts go out to my many compadres from over the years there, who are still working there--for the moment--including longtime local radio folks like Nancy Johnson (KZEW/KDGE,) Alan Barnes (WBAP, KAND,) Denice "Necie Marie" Welch (WFAA-TV, Platinum 96.7,) Doyle King (KTCK, KDNT,) Jason Walker (KLUV, KLDD, USA Radio Network,) Bill Jackson (KLIF-570, ABCRN,) Jennifer Hart (WBAP,) Matt McCarty (current ops manager at NAVTEQ and the son of late broadcasting legend John McCarty,) Ben Martin (WBAP, WFAA-TV, KVIL,) Tom Corbett (KEWS) and several others will add to the 70%~ unemployment rate amongst radio people in DFW. This may affect WFAA's Alexa Conomos as well, but I'm sure her salary will be picked up by WFAA instead, if that's even still the case these days. Truly a sad day, and a poor reflection of the greediness and cut-rate efforts of today's broadcast ownership.
Anyway, </soapbox>.
They are also really taking care of us. It's not like we are getting thrown out in the cold like a lot of people do. I've been there and done that and it is no fun.