More on why radio's in trouble

Posted (on Gateway radio's message board) by joe the listner on 10/18/2008, 7:19 am, in reply to

The state of radio was seriously damaged with the republican de-regulation that allowed more stations than the market can support and opened up the mass corporate ownership of multiple stations that resulted in diluted/bland programming and lost jobs for the folks working in the business. Also, removal of the Fairness Doctrine opened up the airwaves to the political pandering that has allowed radical hate talk and allday biased political pollution by Rush and his ilk that only serves to polorize the country and allow misinformation to run rampant on talk radio. I find it discusting that talkers can rant and rave and never let the facts get in the way, similar to the Nazi propaganda in pre WWII. Another example of how de-regulation is helping to allow america to sink to the gutter of greeed by a few at the expense of the country as a whole. In short, the state of radio is sad.

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Just this week Entercom radio, owner of local stations, The Rock, KMBZ, KUDL and others announced benefit and staff cutbacks across the country. Morale's pretty down for Entercommies though some of their competitors aren't quite as somber. But some of they too write they expect other companies will continue the trend of cutting expenses because of flat advertising sales.

Addendum -> Names...Some notable names leaving KMBZ...

Darla Jaye's producer Brian, leaving her short handed.

And more notably, longtime Kansas City news voice Bob Mead who read and wrote BZ newscasts for years, and of late worked the BZ Morning Business Report. I would have grabbed a pix of Bob who I worked with back in the early 70s at rocker WHB... but one thing about radio station websites. When somebody leaves, they both disappear from the AIR and disappear from their website on no notice. So Bob's picture is already gone from their site, though not yet from the internets. Let me note that Bob has one of the best voices in the business! And I heard from BZ folk, is very well liked over there. Unless he's tired of it after a kazillion years, he'll turn up.

The deal is, if you retire or move to another station in a bigger market, you get to say g'bye. But if you get laid off, you get DELETED. Welcome to the media, though lots of companies do that. It's as if when you leave, its superstitious or bad form to speak of the dead. Except those of us who are OUT of the media, or gone from most ANYPLACE do find afterlife... and so, so often, way better! It just takes a little while to get over it.

More on the cuts from media watcher Bottom Line