For me, it has absolutely nothing to do with not giving a new guy a chance. Brian Estridge as a broadcaster is not even part of the equation most on here speak of. It's the "apparent" nudging of a radio legend, Hal Jay, into forced retirement. Josh, you might be barking up the wrong tree as well...had Hal been left alone to do his schtick as he had ALWAYS had the latitude to do (until a few months ago,) and perhaps if Citadel had never bought ABC, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The "obvious" here, as I see it, is that Hal costs too much. It's nothing about ratings, nothing about the listeners, it's ALL about Citadel's ownership trying to protect their value-eroding properties and cutting costs everywhere they can, regardless of what, or who, is affected.
So no, this is not a case of "Hal's lost it, he's no good, he's old, he's _________ (fill in the blank)," because HE HASN'T. The "intended" perception of the situation may be all of those things, however. It's real easy to point the finger at the talent and say that, or to say, "Oh, he wanted to retire," etc, but we all know that won't be the truth when the time comes. Yeah, it saddens me, it pisses me off, it will be a horrible thing to do to a LEGEND. Yeah, you the listener can throw up your hands and act powerless, but those listeners and fans NEED to speak up now, even if it does fall on deaf ears. And if the time does come, well, there are other choices on the dial, on your iPod, on your satellite, etc.
And it's not just Hal. We've seen Ken Barnett treated the same way. Tempie Lindsey, too. And now Mark Watkins, Brad Barton and reportedly John Summers, and the rumors persist about Terry Dorsey. When station/cluster/corporate management scratches its head and asks why its audience has eroded, well, last time I checked, you still have to spend money to make money. Stripping your station of its talent is a great reason for listeners to tune away...and onto other media instead. Perhaps people sought out another media BECAUSE terrestrial radio quit giving them what they wanted. Some idiots out there refuse to see that as a possibility...they think iPods and satellite are the thieves and pulled the first punch. So how did radio survive 20 years ago when people were playing homemade cassettes in their cars? 10 years ago when people were playing homemade CDs in their cars? Radio didn't take a real hit until the Telecom Act came along. What you see now are the long-term ramifications. Listeners DID tune out the cookie-cutter, homogenized crap. And we're supposed to feel sorry for the industry for doing this to ITSELF??
Folks, terrestrial radio has committed suicide in the name of trying to save itself from 13 years of greed. The listener is not to blame.
Food for thought: How many times have you had to train your own replacement? (and how many times did you KNOW in advance that you were?)
Interesting piece in last week's Radio World: "The FCC said in its Report and Order that...the median age of AM listeners is 57 years old." (
www.radioworld.com)
Hal is.....56.
As I've suggested many times before...there's a lot of discretionary income in the 54+ age bracket, and if ad agencies are too stupid to capitalize on it, then the ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES AT THE RADIO STATIONS need to be retrained to go after appropriate potential advertisers. If they don't, then yes, you're going to have revenue problems trying to sell Limbaugh and Hannity to advertisers/agencies that aim only at 25-54. You can cry about the "bad economy" all day, but there's still plenty of "stupid" money being blown on pricey vacations, cruises, campers, boats, high-end cars, etc, and much of it's in the hands of 54+ folks who are done raising kids, are done paying for the kids' college, who banked their money and want to enjoy "the finer things in life." I'll take guaranteed 'stupid money' anyday over shot-in-the-dark 25-54 crap that everybody and their dog is clamoring for...and taking a bath over nowadays.
