WHAT'S GOING ON IN RADIO IN COLUMBIA-JEFF CITY-FULTON??????

[bskpd]

Just checking in to get some lowdown on the area. A good friend of mine is considering moving to the market. Who are the good guys? Who aren't? I hear Cumulus is in the market. Also Zimmer. Heard decent things about Zimmer. And hear all the bad about Cumulus that makes the daily trades and Jerry D's daily blog. Any other companies serving central Missouri? Looks like this particular part of the board is very very slow, nobody seems to write much. Maybe that's indicative of nothing going on, a boring area, a quiet area, or maybe all of the above. I had several friends who went to school at Mizzou and absolutely loved the area...Somebody please chime in.

 

[Kent]

I live in the market. I like living there and have worked for pretty much every cluster in the market except for KXEO/KWWR, KWRT/KWJK and KMFC. I'm not sure anyone's hiring right now. I know Cumulus has been riffing people left and right. A lot of my old friends from when I worked there were caught up in those mass firings. I left right after Cumulus took over, and it wasn't a terrible place to work at the time. I just had the misfortune of working for an OM who felt insecure with new owners coming in and felt like I was in his way.

Zimmer, as far as I know, isn't firing in massive quantities, but they're not really hiring either. Even for the daily airshifts, you're probably just going to be part-time at Zimmer. All in all, a decent group of people, but low pay, even by radio standards, and a group that had trouble getting the most out of its talent. The ratings make me think that's still the case. After all, Cumulus CHR's are winning their battles in about as many markets as you can count on one hand, and Columbia/Jeff City is one of them.

I most recently worked at Benne's cluster, which is KQUL/KLOZ in the Lake of the Ozarks area and KDRO/KPOW-FM in Sedalia. It wasn't a terrible place to work, but it, too, is cutting left and right. I know three of their biggest clients at the Lake went out of business in the last year and probably cut more than $100,000 out of the company's cash flow. I was replaced by the "Today's Best Hits" satellite programming from ABC a little over 6 months ago. I think they had a position for a PD in Sedalia, and I don't know if they've filled it or not. However, the studios are in Sedalia. So, don't move to Columbia and think you're going to commute; it's about 60 miles one way between the two. While Benne gets a bad reputation on the boards and was never my favorite person, I can't say he was terrible to work for. He did do a lot of grandstanding, like most bosses do, and had problems with mouthing off, but he also provided better benefits than most employers and more flexible scheduling than other stations. He also paid fairly well compared to most radio jobs. I know several people there made north of $30,000, and that was more than even most PD's at Cumulus and Zimmer made. I made enough money doing weekends that I turned down Zimmer when they called and offered me my old job back because they decided that replacing all the part-timers with automation and board-ops wasn't such a smart idea after all. Benne also had AFLAC and a decent health plan among other things for the full-timers.

 

[Leafygreen]

I know several folks at Zimmer in JC, all nice people, and all as whiny as any I've ever heard in radio. Typical disgruntled, overworked, under appreciated, and feeling no love local radio operation.

 

[Kent]

I guess we don't know the same people at Zimmer in Columbia/Jeff City. I'll be the first to admit I don't know everyone in that building these days, but I don't know any whiners who work there (or at the Cumulus cluster in the market for that matter).

Now, if you were talking the Joplin cluster, I'd probably have a different answer for you. There are plenty of people from that cluster, probably on the lowest rung of the ladder, who hide behind aliases and spend lots of time trashing everyone else in the market!