I heard a reliable rumor of more airstaff layoffs that happened at CBS today. Does anyone know who got the axe?

Chonga and Dwyer

Steve Lloid was was let go yesterday.

Steve is an awesome talent...How do you let the pm drive guy go? Replaced by....???

Yet another sad day for radio in Portland. I had a bad feeling when I noticed Steve missing from the website last night. I have been a fan of Mr. Lloid for many years and I sincerely hope he finds a new home on the dial. According to OMI, 300 folks lost their jobs with CBS this week.

watch! The Govt will start taking over the radio signals in this country. First the Banks..next Radio stations. Who will pay the prices these days with revenues in the tank? Nobody. Smoke while ya gottem.

Yesterday on CNBC, a few of the talking heads were discussing the possibility that the next crisis(the third shoe to fall on this centipede of doom?) will be the private equity companies (formerly known as leveraged buyout firms) who have been taking companies (like Clear channel?) private using ridiculously leveraged money they really don't have. And that many of these P.E. companies may just disappear into insolvency over the coming year.

If Private Equity seizes up, as the banks have, there is virtually no one on earth who would be foolish enough to loan someone money to buy a radio company, group, or even station. It would be like loaning money in a worldwide crisis to buy a blacksmith shop. (I know, I overuse the analogy - but it works)

If there's a wave of margin calls on radio owners (look at Sumner Redstone!!) at a time when there is no way to unwind and sell the highly leveraged assets, the government may wind up with a bunch of radio signals back in their possession.

You may yet see the vastly cash-rich companies like Microsoft, Google, etc. buying radio groups at pennies on the dollar to use as value added freebies for their internet advertisers.

"I'm so glad I'm not young anymore." Gigi

It's sad to say the that the government could probably run the radio groups better than the radio groups run themselves.

TDanner says >>>If there's a wave of margin calls on radio owners (look at Sumner Redstone!!) at a time when there is no way to unwind and sell the highly leveraged assets, the government may wind up with a bunch of radio signals back in their possession<<

I think if you take a step back and put aside the banks bailout, what you get is the basic business fact that a company that can't pay its' bills, it goes bankrupt, its' assets are sold to others, creditors may get paid something and the business goes away.

Why would companies that own radio stations be bailed out ? Who would support that ? Who would pay for it ?

For a large number of people, terrestrial radio has become an irrelevancy. Who would really care if KHITS or the buzz went dead ? P1 listeners might "mourn" for a couple of days but would adapt their habits very quickly.

All this angst about radio stations having such a hard time is a crock. Traditionally radio stations are viewed as unsuccessful if they make less than 50% NET Profit. Many businesses struggle to make 10% NET.

And what other business gets a completely new supply of free, reliable, clean, raw material to sell (ie time) every time the clock strikes midnight?

The reason the radio station holding companies are in trouble is because they took on huge loans to buy the huge profit flows that radio stations have been able to generate in the past.

Now they find themselves with expensive "bricks and mortar" like studios, equipment, computers etc and loans, all of which require servicing and are cost centers.

The only cost center you can really quickly and easily reduce is personnel, hence all these layoffs. The very great risk in doing that is, of course, reduction in quality of product and content. But to the suits that risk must be confronted to maintain the expected high level of profits which in turn must be protected to pay for the loans.

BUT reduced ad income, reduced quality, less publicity and marketing, lifestyle changes.....GOODBYE RADIO AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT....and that ,like a forest fire, might be a good thing in the long term.

Who is replacing Loid?

Maybe we end up with something like the Beeb?

What a mess! Of all the moves, I thought going private was a good one. The thing with public companies is they end up being seriously constrained by Wall Street. Analyst expectations often do not align well with business realities.

Ever read the Innovaters Dilemma?

This is one of the reasons it occurs. When disruptive technology enters the marketplace, the target of the disruption is then forced to innovate or die a slow death as the more fluid and attractive disruptive technology consumes market share, year over year.

This is happening to radio.

The fix is either a serious redefinition of the business model to cut costs and marginalize the price difference between established technology and disruptive tech.

That stops or slows the market share bleeding, but it only buys time. The cost of that time is, of course, profitability and or ability to compete.

This too is happening to radio.

One big problem with radio is that it is free, and many of the new media forms are free too, or if they cost, their costs are minor league, and set the expectation that paying for media gets you stuff that you wouldn't otherwise get.

That is true, but it's not the end of the world, if...

The other solution is tried, and this is the innovators dilemma. Basically, the target of disruptive technology must then produce new technology innovation. To do this, they must take some of their profit and reinvest it in the business and also must end up either competing with themselves (knife the baby), or apply the innovation to lower costs and maintain the ability to compete.

Wall Street is a PITA because they NEVER, EVER allow for this dilemma. When profitability is down, they simply devalue the enterprise as a whole. That impacts credit and general market perception of worth.

All they ever want to see is growth, quarter after quarter, after quarter, with NO exceptions. If this is not seen, the default assumption is that the business is not executing properly and should be devauled.

Problem is that may or may not be true. If disruptive tech is part of the picture, it may actually be that new innovation forces some investment; otherwise, it probably is a business not executing well.

Several of these types that I have had conversations with actually say that it's all execution, because proper execution would not allow the innovation to take root and grow.

Bunk, but that's the position taken more often than not.

Radio needs to invest in content creation, infrastructure, and multi-media efforts. The subscription podcast is one successful effort. More is needed, and that takes dollars away from the quarterly statement to accomplish.

Going private then largely removes this constraint, leaving the enterprise free to take on this innovation and investment. There is risk with that, but then again, there is always risk, and dying the slow death is in the end too risky.

At some point, risk / reward needs to be evaluated to determine if innovation is needed, and if so, how best to go do the work, or buy people / other enterprises, to get it done.

If Tdanner is anywhere near the mark, and I've no reason to believe otherwise, then it's a real pressure cooker! Bad things are gonna happen.

KSKD,

Very well said!

Who would have thought Radio would come to this? I mean, we're at the level that it's not even fun to joke about it!

"..GOODBYE RADIO AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT.."
I've said that for a long time. The glory days of radio are gone.
And yet, they keep moving stations around so that they can cram more stations into the spectrum. Why would they keep doing that if the market can't support what they have now?

Same thing for the current financial crisis. It is not based on reality but phony paper deals.

I used to work in the industrial sector and as KSKD said, it was always about increasing sales each quarter. Sometimes, to make quotas, we had to convince customers to order early to make our sales goals for the quarter. Then, we had to convince them to sign off early in order to make our shipment goals for a quarter. Then we would load the systems onto a truck on the last day of the quarter, pull the truck away from the loading dock, and invoice the customer. You can't invoice until you ship. Then, the next week, we would back the truck up to the dock, unload it and then finish assembly/checkout and ship maybe a month later.

It was a vicious cycle. We needed to make sales goals and shipment goals. Earnings were based on shipments.

Eventually, that catches up with you when customers stop buying for whatever reason. If you don't invest in research and new products, you will die. Too many companies have found that out the hard way.

> watch! The Govt will start taking over the radio signals in this country. First the Banks..next
> Radio stations.

I don't know that the government necessarily has a desire to impound radio station licenses and broadcast facilities. However, this is happening with chunks of the radio frequency spectrum. Look at what is happening to the part of the spectrum formerly occupied by UHF television channels 52-69! The FCC figured that it could turn a profit by auctioning off the spectrum to other users. I will bet that most, if not all of the new uses for this spectrum are going to be ones that, if they are ones that the general public can use at all, there will be a subscription fee that must be paid (example: Qualcomm's Media-Flo subscription-based broadcasting to mobile phone handsets that uses what was formerly channel 55).

If actual radio stations do get taken over by the government, don't be surprised if you tune up and down the dial and hear military marching band music playing on most of the stations (in 1970s Latin America, this is what would happen when there was a military coup).

they'll be singing this actually:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtGrp5MbzAI&feature=related

Stoner you sure have a problem with government, but the problems started after the 1995 Congressional Bill supported by your GOP.

Quickly Jacor (Later Clear Channel), Entercom and Infinity in the Portland Market borrowed Billions of Dollars to buy out stations paying 10 times to 100 times what they sold for only a few years earlier. Where is the logic in that?

The brain children thought they could get rid of Radio Promotions, play Syndicated Programming, increase Advertising Card rates five times greater (You must have felt that one Stoner) and eliminate almost all local talent.

What happened, radio became crappy, DJ's went through the revolving door, On air Giveaways almost came to a complete stop.

Some Advertisers stopped using radio as a medium as the crappy radio with no give aways was not worth listening to.

So finally the cash flow in was to low to service the debt and the slow implosion begins. More cost cuts, leads to crappier radio, fewer listeners and the competion from other mediums leads to less advertising dollars.

Was anything done to correct this, nope. Those that sell air still get paid commissions. That sounds great to a stupid station manager (which almost all of them are) but there are alot of air time that could be sold by a dead man.

At certain times of the year certain advertisers (Car Toys for one) will run a blitz on more than ten stations, yet the account rep gets their fat commission check for an automatic add placement.

These advertising periods should be a house account and make the sales reps really earn their keep by finding new accounts at a real incredible commission rates. However every station that has threaten to go down this path the advertising reps fly the coup to work for another station cluster and the station manager gets lazy and just falls back and has the same old over paid sellers of air time run the station.

This is the key reason that the conglomeration of radio stations was not going to work.

This has lead the radio stations to be less effective than government, that's why when I hear people like Stoner say that government should be ran like a business, I have to say, "I hope not".

Stoner is a independent. You are 100% right, the GOP let everyone down, not to mention the Barney Franks of the world and Nancy Pelosis. They are all to blame. I feel a strong third party is going to emerge in four years. We all know the memories are very short when it comes to voters, Obama will be taking the heat in two years. (whoever wins will be stepping into a major mine field)
**Save it know......I agree with you! I will admit my mistakes, and voting ONCE for the idiot was be far my biggest. Go "O" man. We need a huge massive injection of OPTIMISM.

Oh-oh, that's it. McCain is finished!

Back on topic a bit, if the gov't did "take back" some of the frequencies that are being neglected by current owners, they'll be auctioning them off around 10 cents on the dollar -- valuable only to true radio people, not big profit minded corporations.

That would be Killer ! Just think of the actual "Quality" that these stations would have if Real Radio people were actually running these stations.
Im getting a boner just thinking about it!

Hey, I think Stoner said a mouthful there. It doesn't have anything to do with conservative or liberal. We need a massive optimism injection, and Obama can definitely deliver. You don't have to agree with his platform; the money won't be there during his first term anyway. The world will believe in America again and in time so will America and that's the way out.

About radio: hell, the party's been over for years. But there are and will continue to be survivors. For an air talent, here's how to tell where you fit. Answer honestly: are you a brand, or just a commodity?

Followup questions: Is there equity in your personal brand? Will your presence help a station make a profit, or will you just fill a shift? Can your personality brand motivate listeners? Do listeners know you, and trust what they'll get from you? Do people truly miss you when you're gone? Can you honestly say that you are bonded with a substantial target audience?

As long as there are branded personalities, there will always be radio, or something like it, although delivery platforms will change. NPR is investing heavily in on-line distribution, and they're the smartest radio broadcasters around. You might not even need a radio station, with a license and a stick. There are some who say a 30-minute daily podcast is the next essential basic radio product. Smart radio guys have already reserved domain names with that in mind.

The future of ownership is pure mud. Maybe TDanner is right, and Google will snap us all up for pennies on the buck. But if you're branded, can motivate listeners, and can help a company make a profit, you might not be done yet. You might be just beginning.

A salesman who won't be named here informed us a few days ago that several of the largest companies will soon merge into one mega-corporation, primarily to save money until the economy improves. They will then sell off many stations. Our question is: who would be a buyer?
Where would the corporate office be? Centrally located in Kansas?
Another question: when will programming improve? We don't care if a program is local or not but most of it isn't very good. There is much criticism of network programming on this site but not much criticism of NPR which is mostly originated in other places, right?
Several of us in the office have picked up satellite radios for the car because there are far fewer interruptions. They also play songs that are not played on regular stations. Quite frankly, it is refreshing.
There are some stations that used to be big "favs" that seem to have adjusted their playlists so that many stations basically sound the same. Lack of variety is driving us to bring cd's or satellite radio into the office.
Sorry about Steve Lloyd and others losing their jobs. Relatable voices seem to be in short supply if there are any voices at all.

"There are some who say a 30-minute daily podcast is the next essential basic radio product. Smart radio guys have already reserved domain names with that in mind."

Absolutely true. Been saying that here for years. Release a show delayed for free, and or clipped for free. (give them most of it though)

Paying customers get it that day, as it airs, or right after it airs, if it's airing. They get the extra goodies too. Hit them for $20 - $80 per year and make it EASY. You will get listeners, you will build your brand.

And being a brand is KING right now. Given the mess, it's the only real, sane alternative.

Yeah, Stoner said it all right! That's probably my biggest reason for supporting Obama. Optimism is in very short supply, and that's never, ever good, particularly in these economic times.

Love the sales comment too. Our business is sales related. Probably half our revenue comes from sales, and we have one very interesting internal quota we use: New Logos!

That's new business that didn't exist before. Comp on that is really decent. One thing we do, that might be worth considering for the radio cost of sales dilemma, is a base salary. Take the known good forecast, do some math, and hand out the base salary.

That's assurance for work already done. Set the level of it to be livable, but not by much. That reflects the current economic times.

Put the comp on new logos and make it seriously good comp and the sales people will go get after it. This is what they love to do.

I still think the HD streams are being WAY under used too. Why aren't we seeing AM simulcasts of HD2 signals, so people can sample, get hooked and motivated to buy better radios?

How come we are not seeing new pilot content efforts on those things more than we are? At this point, given the small listener pool, it's damn near risk free.

One other thing we do, when trying to grow the business, is that we work equity deals. Some of us have dollars, some of us have skill and time and still others know people and can make deals.

We combine all of that, assign costs to it, then divvy up the potential profit by percentage of contribution. It's an absolutely great way to build new income sources on the cheap.

Again, give people a reason to work for it. I'm in the skills and time category. I can put those out there for $125 / hour or so, and that's my dollar contribution to a project where I'm otherwise broke ass.

It's already worked once, and I'm not so broke ass now. I've got a decent equity chunk in a venture that I worked to help make possible. Given the chance to do this again, I'm gonna absolutely do it.

Paying people outright for innovation efforts is EXPENSIVE. In this economy, it's too expensive and that's part of why it's not happening. What I just outlined is another alternative that can motivate people to do stuff, and the cost is right. Share the risk man.

With Radio, this model seems to be a near perfect fit. The HD2 has to run anyway, so that's a sunk cost. Studios are empty more than usual, so those are sunk costs too. That leaves people, and whatever investment they have to offer. All of that has value and can be leveraged into new business.

Think about it this way too. Most all startup enterprises borrow money from VC's right? What happens in that scenario? They own a big chunk of it, limiting the reward for everybody involved. Why? Because they put innovation on credit, that's why. If you put the innovation on the sweat equity path, the reward is bigger because all of those really doing the innovation share ownership of the product! Something to think about no?

Anyway, you end up with a nice focus group on the HD2, content that can be re-purposed onto the Internet as a subscription podcast, and each one of those efforts is potentially a revenue stream, depending on it's success overall.

I guess what I am saying in that last post is that, if the big companies are not gonna do it, for whatever reason, do it (with it being content innovation) anyway, and own the result!

Interesting. But please do not charge us for it.
Distribution must be free.

Yeah, ok.

Seriously, if I were king, you would get it for free, but only after the paying customers got theirs!

Free is archive, delayed, incomplete, with ad spots, lower quality, etc...

Paying customers get first access, complete, no ads, or really well done ones, highest quality, etc...

That's just how it's going to go down. The reason it's going to go down that way is the number of productions is going to go up. When that happens, AD revenue becomes diluted, and cannot support the productions on that basis alone.

There is a reason Google is getting into this, and that's the reason. Google can help deliver targeting to the bunch of productions that are arriving.

Without that AD revenue, the productions are gonna need some sustaining level of income to be viable. Doesn't need to be much, but it does need to be there.

An alternative is to leverage the income from a supporting broadcast, or other efforts like books and speaking.

In that vein, the podcast ends up being a long teaser for the daily programming.

BTW: Distribution IS essentially free. What the dollars are for is ACCESS to said distribution. Just FYI.

The Govt will start taking over the radio signals in this country. First the Banks..next Radio stations.

Those damn SOCIALIST Republicans!

Im honestly surprised that KINK hasn't let anyone go from their airstaff.

so now that K-hits just fired Steve Lloid, they are down to 2 jocks Jeff Thomas and Brad Dolbier??? WOW!!!!!!!!!!! is all I can say.

That station is really going down the toilet quick! what a sad ending to such a promising station. Who is going to be in the afternoon now that Steve Lloid is gone?

VTing is coming soon 24/7....

be listening....

KINK has made cuts....lets see Inessa moved off mid-days, Les off mornings....Rebecca off mornings....

Likely some good cost savings with replacement folks being paid less.

I am somewhat surprised and disappointed that during the much-criticized large conglomerate "cookie cutter radio" revolution of the late 1990s, the conglomerates didn't go all-out and make these broadcasts into truly national network operations. Ironically, commercial network radio back then was found mainly on underperforming, low-budget stations with limited resources for promotion (think, "Solid Gold Soul," "Z-Rock," "Smooth FM," and many others that have come and gone). Because these radio networks were carried only in relatively few markets, they never developed the brand-name identity of NPR, which actually has been working too well because many people think of non-NPR produced programs that play on NPR affiliates, such as those produced and distributed by APR and Public Radio International, as NPR. What if Clear Channel had used that same model and worked hard to promote their brand names in the various markets where they operate?

Well, the difference between NPR and "Z-Rock", for example, is NPR stands for a style of programming and has considerable depth, compared to "Z-Rock", which is just a set of tunes.

There are lots of sets of tunes.

Maybe it could have worked. I could see a blend of programming working. Some music sets, some themed shows, lifestyle programming, etc... all mixed together NPR style.

Of course, that wouldn't be "Z-Rock" then. It would have been something else with brand potential similar to the NPR brand. We didn't see that something, but for a few stations that did it and were successful.

IMHO, Clear Channel did do a fairly good job of getting the Clear Channel brand out there. Problem was the formula didn't have any depth. It literally was just those formats. To me, that's not really programming in the sense that NPR is programming. And the results more or less prove that out!

CC ended up "branded" as Cookie Cutter, literally! Or maybe Corporate Channel, both of which I've heard mentioned in casual conversation about radio, from non-radio types. Lots of people know who Clear Channel is.

That was good.

Also lots of people felt the change in radio, and new Internet media reset expectations at the same time, leaving them under impressed.

Bad combo. Because when the growing feel is "radio sucks", and you only know of one major radio name, then that major radio name sucks!

...and that's true, even if it doesn't actually suck, and I'm not saying that it does, or slamming CC people here. Not my intent at all.

Don't take the comparisons between the radio "brands" too literally. I just cited 1990s radio station names as examples of what was available back then but didn't stick very well because it wasn't universally available. Perhaps, I should have mentioned the MTV brand because at one time, a lot of people considered that to be the place to go for popular music (on cable television).

Yeah, that's true. And I wasn't taking it all that serious. Your comment just sparked the realization on CC branding, so I posted it.

And talk about a change! I think it's a stretch to call it Music Television these days. Whatever it is works though! Kids are plugged in huge, then spend some down time on MTV2 where they actually do the videos.

Kkb: You got it wrong on Les

He had a sleeping disorder that ended up in a hung jury. Next thing you know Les didn't need to worry about waking up early as he was placed into the afternoon.

However KUPL has eliminated Earthquake Jake and Danny Dwyer.

They could have kept both and hired more staff if they just dumped Lee Rogers.

"You got it wrong on Les...He had a sleeping disorder that ended up in a hung jury"

Since when are you pulled into court for "having a sleeping disorder"?

It's been covered here before. He chose to take an Ambien and then (attempt to) drive. What a dipstick. He could've killed someone.

Umm. Save It Now, Earthquake Jake is still there. Jim E Chonga and Dwyer were cut.

Yes I did, I heard Dwyer's name so I assumed the other was Earthquake.

As for Jim he has been a fixture in Portland Radio for more than 15 years, but he must have been taking to much money compared to Jake.

This is getting bad.