Contrary to the implications from an unknown inside employee ("Don Johnson"), this move had more to do with differing opinions between investors and management (also shareholders/investors in the company) than it did mis-management. Atlantic Broadcasting has been alive and well and was on track for an amazing long term turnaround. The management team includes competent radio professionals who live and work in the local community. Their children attend many of the same schools as their clients, they worship in many of the same churches, eat in the same restaurants, and socialize in the same circles. Their hearts are in the business and they understand the seasonality of the local market. It's hard for people from the NY or Philadelphia market to adapt to the seasonal highs and lows of this region.
More important is the concept of "six degrees of separation". Being local, the management team either knows their clients or knows someone who knows them. People buy from others they trust and that is something that investors will unfortunately learn the hard way.
In GREAT times, a turnaround of this magnitude can take years. To expect miracles in just 18 months during an economic depression is a bit overzealous. In this case, venture capital partners are truly impeding their own success. It's not that an owner was fired from his own company. It has more to do with "suits" in NY who fail to understand the local economy or perhaps they don't acknowledge the current economic crisis this country is facing. The partner who was relieved of his duties is still a shareholder in the company. He has been under the gun to make many difficult choices this past year. Budgets had to be met. He achieved those budgets by reducing monthly expenses by more than 1/3, in many cases, making very difficult choices against his better judgement. There is a fine line between meeting budgets and hurting productivity and in some instances, budget cuts can save pennies and cost dollars. There is also morale at stake in every hard decision and sometimes cuts cost more in morale than the actual pennies saved. It is amazing that investors don't always grasp that concept and my feeling is that they should step into management's shoes and get on the battlefield themselves before making rash judgements or decisions.
For the record, the individual who was let go did increase sales from previous ytd periods while national sales trends were tanking as much as 25% and more in some regions. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that sales were up 5%. If national trends were down 25%, that is pretty impressive to be 30% ahead of the pack in these difficult times. Sure, there is always room for improvement, in good times and in bad, but there are also right and wrong ways to deal with business decisions. The GM in question was qualified, put his heart and soul into his job and succeeded if you saw the results in black and white, talked to his employees, business associates and clients or read the industry publications.
"Don's" post was a debut post and on this forum before news left the building. Obviously an uninformed hourly worker, on the boards (hint), looking to leak the "news". I wish the venture capital group luck in their choice of new management. While I applaud them for their efforts, I find their methods deplorable and I believe they are going to find, like Access One (predecessor to Atlantic), that it is very difficult to sit at a desk in NY and look down at NJ as simply a vehicle to generate dollars. You need to know your clients in this market or you'll never gain their trust.
In South Jersey, it has more to do with customer service and loyalty than any arbitron stats that a suit can read from a cheat sheet. I truly wish them the best, but I think they will find in the long run that they had a great management team in place and they will someday be kicking themselves for not treating that team with the respect that they deserved.
