Why John Hogan needs to resign….
I remember reading an essay John Hogan wrote some time ago. In it he spoke
about radio with the analogy of a boat. It was quite trite, and ended up with
(I’m paraphrasing). And if the wind dies-ROW! John, it’s time you got
into that boat and rowed away!
Under your direction, Clear Channel radio has done dismally. Ratings are down,
profits are down, despite your cutting away everything expenses are up, and CC
stock is in the tank. Your “less is more” plan is an utter failure. You
singlehandedly have done more to ruin broadcast radio then anyone else in
history! I saw yesterday that you have found the ultimate way to cut station
expenses to zero-shut them down and turn in their licenses! Great idea, John!
You wasted millions of dollars on IBOC, now proven to be a joke. Any Engineer
worth his salt could have told you that IBOC is fatally flawed. Of course,
yours didn’t-but maybe that has something to do with his being on the Board
of Directors of Ibiquity! But I’m sure that’s just a small conflict of interest though.
Besides, you can always lay off more employees to pay for all that useless IBOC hardware.
Right??
Let me clue you into something John, Instead of putting scads of money filling
secondary IBOC channels with automated drivel, why not put that money into
making your PRIMARY stations better? After all, those are where 99.99% of your
listeners are. Plug the boat’s leaks before you worry about its back up
engine. That way the boat won’t sink. And buy a few pumps while you’re at
it-many of your boats are already flooded well above the water line.
But wait-I just figured your whole philosophy out. LESS IS MORE! It doesn’t
just apply to spots-it applies to everything you do! Less live shows. Less
Program Directors. Less Managers. Less Engineers. Less promotion. Less
research. And the more: More voicetracking. More commercials. More
unemployment in the broadcasting field. All courtesy of Clear Channel.
John, somehow you’ve missed a fundamental tenet of life: Excellence begets
excellence. On the other hand, you seem to believe that excellence is too
expensive. Being mediocre is much more profitable. There’s only one problem,
John-your stations are LESS profitable then when they strived to be the best!
Perhaps I’m being unfair to single you out. After all, under Farid
Suleman’s rule, Citadel is just about bankrupt. CBS and Cumulus aren’t
doing much better. But I don’t believe I am being unfair. As the head of the
largest radio group in the world, you set the tone for the entire industry.
It’s you that they look to for leadership, and frankly it isn’t there. All
I hear you talk about is how “perception” is hurting radio. Well, the
hundreds of employees you laid off just before Christmas aren’t a
perception, they are a reality! Those hard working people deserved better from
Clear Channel then to be unceremoniously showed the door! So John, it’s time
to lay yourself off, and re-hire ten of them back with your salary. That way
they’ll be a few more people to plug the leaks in the boat. Because the boat
is sinking John and as its Captain you must go down with the ship.
I remember reading an essay John Hogan wrote some time ago. In it he spoke
about radio with the analogy of a boat. It was quite trite, and ended up with
(I’m paraphrasing). And if the wind dies-ROW! John, it’s time you got
into that boat and rowed away!
Under your direction, Clear Channel radio has done dismally. Ratings are down,
profits are down, despite your cutting away everything expenses are up, and CC
stock is in the tank. Your “less is more” plan is an utter failure. You
singlehandedly have done more to ruin broadcast radio then anyone else in
history! I saw yesterday that you have found the ultimate way to cut station
expenses to zero-shut them down and turn in their licenses! Great idea, John!
You wasted millions of dollars on IBOC, now proven to be a joke. Any Engineer
worth his salt could have told you that IBOC is fatally flawed. Of course,
yours didn’t-but maybe that has something to do with his being on the Board
of Directors of Ibiquity! But I’m sure that’s just a small conflict of interest though.
Besides, you can always lay off more employees to pay for all that useless IBOC hardware.
Right??
Let me clue you into something John, Instead of putting scads of money filling
secondary IBOC channels with automated drivel, why not put that money into
making your PRIMARY stations better? After all, those are where 99.99% of your
listeners are. Plug the boat’s leaks before you worry about its back up
engine. That way the boat won’t sink. And buy a few pumps while you’re at
it-many of your boats are already flooded well above the water line.
But wait-I just figured your whole philosophy out. LESS IS MORE! It doesn’t
just apply to spots-it applies to everything you do! Less live shows. Less
Program Directors. Less Managers. Less Engineers. Less promotion. Less
research. And the more: More voicetracking. More commercials. More
unemployment in the broadcasting field. All courtesy of Clear Channel.
John, somehow you’ve missed a fundamental tenet of life: Excellence begets
excellence. On the other hand, you seem to believe that excellence is too
expensive. Being mediocre is much more profitable. There’s only one problem,
John-your stations are LESS profitable then when they strived to be the best!
Perhaps I’m being unfair to single you out. After all, under Farid
Suleman’s rule, Citadel is just about bankrupt. CBS and Cumulus aren’t
doing much better. But I don’t believe I am being unfair. As the head of the
largest radio group in the world, you set the tone for the entire industry.
It’s you that they look to for leadership, and frankly it isn’t there. All
I hear you talk about is how “perception” is hurting radio. Well, the
hundreds of employees you laid off just before Christmas aren’t a
perception, they are a reality! Those hard working people deserved better from
Clear Channel then to be unceremoniously showed the door! So John, it’s time
to lay yourself off, and re-hire ten of them back with your salary. That way
they’ll be a few more people to plug the leaks in the boat. Because the boat
is sinking John and as its Captain you must go down with the ship.
