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Vermont WDEV general manager Steve Cormier out as station prepares to change hands

The article implies the new ownership is running things prior to the FCC sale. If anybody has left the building, it is not the new owners that caused that but rather the employee that decided to leave.

Everybody wants to make this about politics. It is business and if the station is successful there will be no changes. Politics is not involved.
 
bturner1 said:
Everybody wants to make this about politics. It is business and if the station is successful there will be no changes. Politics is not involved.
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Who is 'everybody'? I read the whole article and there is nothing about politics in it apart from identifying the new owners as two business leaders and former Republican candidates, which appears to be part of their factual biographical profile.

It's possible the outgoing GM couldn't reach an agreement with the incoming new owners. That's the implication I get from this. If so, was it due to money, changes to his responsibilities, or political differences? There's no suggestion in the article that it was the latter.
 
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When stations are in transition, unless the station buyers have negotiated a lease, they cannot interfere with staff of the selling party. That means you simply cannot communicate with them about the station and it's future, if their job is secure and so forth until the FCC approves the sale. They can say publicly they will not be making any personnel or format changes but they can't talk to the existing employees about it until the sale closes with FCC approval.

Theater of the Mind points out factually the new owners will be former Republican candidates. I fail to see how that is essential to the story if it is not to imply 'politics' as an issue. The inclusion of that demonstrates how media tries to politicize us. It has been mentioned in every article I have read about the station sale. Since the station programming is left of most Republican viewpoints, the mention of this is certainly intended to make this political in this respect.

Normally ownership changes in radio result in some employees leaving and new ones coming in. Perhaps the GM just decided it was time to move on and sure, changing of ownership likely would spur the timing.
 
bturner1 said:
Theater of the Mind points out factually the new owners will be former Republican candidates. I fail to see how that is essential to the story if it is not to imply 'politics' as an issue. The inclusion of that demonstrates how media tries to politicize us. It has been mentioned in every article I have read about the station sale. Since the station programming is left of most Republican viewpoints, the mention of this is certainly intended to make this political in this respect.
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The audience would want to know who the new owners are whether they were politicians. rocket scientists, restauranteurs or construction workers. I would expect the media to report on it whatever the case. In fact, if they omitted the fact that they were former Republican candidates it could be seen as an attempt to downplay their background since its such a high profile public role.

The way it's summarized here looks fair and factual. There's no inflammatory language at all. Readers can draw their own conclusions but I see no evidence that the author has engaged in any politicization, or done anything that would not be expected of a report made with due diligence.
 
This could simply be a case of the new owners wanting their own person in charge. Part of this that hasn't been mentioned is that Steve Cormier tried to buy the stations years ago from Ken Squier and has been running the stations for 10 years pretty much hands-off from the Squier family due to Ken's health. Perhaps the new owners just feel more comfortable having someone who they chose as opposed to a carry-over from the old ownership.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
The audience would want to know who the new owners are whether they were politicians. rocket scientists, restauranteurs or construction workers.
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In my sixty-some years in radio, I've almost never witnessed "the audience" caring at all who owned any station. The only... and rare... instances of interest in ownership came from sectors like politicians and special interest groups who were not "in the audience" and likely had never even listened to the stations in question.

In one case where I recall having seen considerable interest in a new owner involved the sale of WAQI in Miami to a group associated with George Soros; the station was ultra-conservative and the staff wound up the listeners by talking about a "person who was supportive of the Cuban communist government" financing the sale. In that case, the station's own staff lit the fire.

There have been, in the distant past, listener objections when a classical music station was about to be sold to a company that would not maintain the format; they FCC long ago quit protecting that format or any other format. And, in any case, the objection here was to the format, not the ownership.

My point is that listener concern about station ownership is minimal. And, except in rare cases, inconsequential.
 
exdjted said:
This could simply be a case of the new owners wanting their own person in charge. Part of this that hasn't been mentioned is that Steve Cormier tried to buy the stations years ago from Ken Squier and has been running the stations for 10 years pretty much hands-off from the Squier family due to Ken's health. Perhaps the new owners just feel more comfortable having someone who they chose as opposed to a carry-over from the old ownership.
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Good point. And if the current manager had inquired about his future with the company and not been satisfied, he might have decided to move on. That does not violate FCC rules about the new owner getting involved in actual day to day station operations.
 
DavidEduardo said:
In my sixty-some years in radio, I've almost never witnessed "the audience" caring at all who owned any station. The only... and rare... instances of interest in ownership came from sectors like politicians and special interest groups who were not "in the audience" and likely had never even listened to the stations in question.

In one case where I recall having seen considerable interest in a new owner involved the sale of WAQI in Miami to a group associated with George Soros; the station was ultra-conservative and the staff wound up the listeners by talking about a "person who was supportive of the Cuban communist government" financing the sale. In that case, the station's own staff lit the fire.

There have been, in the distant past, listener objections when a classical music station was about to be sold to a company that would not maintain the format; they FCC long ago quit protecting that format or any other format. And, in any case, the objection here was to the format, not the ownership.

My point is that listener concern about station ownership is minimal. And, except in rare cases, inconsequential.
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I meant the audience of the news outlet. That audience, which would include those interested in business reports, would expect that type of detail in the reporting.

And to be fair, it's a small market. Having grown up for at least a few years in a small town, the local gossip is of utmost concern. People are interested in everyone else's business regardless of what it is.
 
exdjted said:
This could simply be a case of the new owners wanting their own person in charge. Part of this that hasn't been mentioned is that Steve Cormier tried to buy the stations years ago from Ken Squier and has been running the stations for 10 years pretty much hands-off from the Squier family due to Ken's health. Perhaps the new owners just feel more comfortable having someone who they chose as opposed to a carry-over from the old ownership.
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Something that hasn't been mentioned is that for quite a few years now WDEV has been a money-losing operation. I would imagine the new owners would like to change that, and to keep on doing things the old way isn't likely to achieve that result. That generally translates into staff and/or programming changes.
 
WDEV is a throw-back radio station. It simulcasts both on 550 AM and 96.1 FM. The station has a hodge-podge schedule. Sometimes it's Full Service AC with hourly CBS News and Local News. Sometimes it's Talk. Sometimes it's a specialty music format. Sometimes it's Sports. Sometimes it's Agriculture.

It's great that it tries to be very community involved. That shouldn't change. But there are some ways to make the station more modern-sounding without losing it's commitment to news and information.
 
I don't envy the new owners in that regard. No matter what they do to try and modernize/focus the station there are some old timers who won't like it and will raise a fuss. The alternative is to leave things alone and continue to lose money. I'm gonna guess that the lion's share of their audience is 65+ and we all know how appealing that demo is to advertisers.

If I'm not mistaken, they have a bunch of translators, there at least used to be one in Island Pond, think there's one in Montpelier too.
 
We are assuming WDEV is losing money. That may be correct but I suspect we don't know for sure. If it indeed is losing money, it may be because the owner had not had as much presence in the community. There are lots of small markets where businesses buy advertising because they want to support the owner.

I recall one town where the owner sold to the sales manager just prior to the owner's death. It seems about $5,000 or 20% of the monthly business was because the business owner liked the radio station owner and wanted to support him. It seems the sales manager, new owner, was not so well liked.
 


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