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WBUR initiates employee buyouts to avert layoffs
- Thread starter DavidZ
- Start date
No, but you asked whether the NY and LA -ist sites would follow the fate of DCist, and it's important in that context to note that the three sites and stations are each completely independent operations these days.
Given the way KPCC has adopted the LAist branding for its overall operation, there doesn't appear to be any reason to think it or Gothamist are going anywhere anytime soon.
Never has a more truthful thing been said. Even as soon as 10 years ago you could find similar separation options in commercial radio, now this looks like the best deal possible.
Compared to outside industries, what a rip-off
"Almost 80 grand" isn't what I'd call a princely sum in Boston, which is one of the most expensive cities in the US.
WBUR probably wants to bring in seasoned pros who have done good work in smaller markets like Jacksonville or Des Moines, and that means offering better pay than a smaller market after accounting for local & state tax and rent.
Adjusted for inflation, "almost 80 grand" is actually less than I was making as a newswriter across town at WBZ almost 30 years ago. And the cost of living in Boston has shot up much faster than the national rate of inflation.
If you want to produce a quality product, you need quality staff, and you need to compensate them well to get them and keep them, especially in a market like Boston. The same skills that make a good producer, editor, reporter or host are ones that also make for good PR or marketing people, and those jobs tend to pay much better, which leads to a talent drain out of broadcasting.
If public media doesn't do something to stop that drain, who will? It's certainly not going to happen at commercial radio these days.
If you want to produce a quality product, you need quality staff, and you need to compensate them well to get them and keep them, especially in a market like Boston. The same skills that make a good producer, editor, reporter or host are ones that also make for good PR or marketing people, and those jobs tend to pay much better, which leads to a talent drain out of broadcasting.
If public media doesn't do something to stop that drain, who will? It's certainly not going to happen at commercial radio these days.
This seems to be another intractable problem: the money has to come from somewhere, but where are public media going to get the money? Either the funding models are broken, or the distribution model is broken, or public media need to be more attuned to what their audiences are interested in, or better fundraising expertise and execution are required, or some combination of all of these. Possibly some ambitions need to be trimmed back. Even so, I want to avoid back-seat driving here; instead, this is an acknowledgement that these are not easy problems to solve. Public media in other countries have different models of funding and distribution but some of the same problems.
WBUR has near-record share, according to RadioInsight. So they have an audience -- a healthy one -- in Boston.
radioinsight.com
But if you listen to WBUR CEO Margaret Low tell it, their advertising revenue has fallen dramatically since 2019: WBUR weighs hiring freeze, job cuts as advertising revenue plummets - The Boston Globe
There may be a few more details there, but I'm not a subscriber to the Globe.
November 2023 (10/12 – 11/9) Nielsen Audio PPM Ratings Day 2: WBUR Records Record High - RadioInsight
Nielsen Audio has released Day 2 of its monthly four day sweep of ratings in PPM markets. Today’s releases include Washington DC, Boston, Seattle, Miami, Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Denver, San Diego, Baltimore, and St. Louis. All the numbers can be found at...
radioinsight.com
But if you listen to WBUR CEO Margaret Low tell it, their advertising revenue has fallen dramatically since 2019: WBUR weighs hiring freeze, job cuts as advertising revenue plummets - The Boston Globe
There may be a few more details there, but I'm not a subscriber to the Globe.
Because their revenue isn't directly based on ratings in the way it is at commercial stations.
Yes, you're right. Mea culpa.
It is easy to confuse the two names. (As I demonstrated yesterday.)
That's necessarily true. I've worked in the field of architecture (building construction) for 20+ years and the standard severance package is however much vacation time you've accrued with a company. For example, having been with the same company for 15 years I became eligible for four weeks of vk a year, if I were laid off tomorrow I'd receive a check for four weeks salary plus whatever unused vacation/ holiday time I had.
IMO the financial world is on a bit of an island in terms of much, much more generous severance packages.
WBUR Announces Buyouts & Layoffs As Part Of Cost Cuts - RadioInsight
After initiating contractual buyout offers last month in an attempt to prevent layoffs, Boston University Public News/Talk 90.9 WBUR-FM Boston has stated that despite 24 employees volunteering, they will also lay off four full-time staffers, three part-timers, and eliminate nine vacant...
radioinsight.com
Cost cutting measures include cutting off local news after 8 pm, turning The Connection podcast from daily to weekly, and staff reductions
Boston University was founded by Methodists. You are thinking of Boston College which is actually in Newton and is the Jesuit institution. Two separate schools.
Never worked in financial services, but can speak from experience both personal and from friends and families in various industries, a month per year was not at all a standard. A week or two, and two was an exception, was par for the course. No COBRA help; only unused vacation was paid as a lump sum. And the base was typically two weeks, not four, before the added weeks for service. And the non disclosure was to even get the limited payout described; no “bonus” for that.
And both are universities, by the way. They both grant doctorates, the definition of a university. So the secular institution in Boston is Boston University, the Jesuit one Newton is Boston College.
As they say in the NPR show Marketplace, "let's do the numbers."
WBUR has two dozen employees who will take voluntary retirement buyouts. The station also plans to lay off seven employees. 31 people is 14% of its staff. So WBUR will go from around 220 employees to 189. (With 189 people on staff, the station will have to stop doing local news updates at 8pm? Too few people to go to midnight?)
And let's remember that Boston is unique in having two News/Talk NPR stations. I would assume WGBH-FM has a similar number of employees doing radio. That would total around 400 radio employees at WBUR and WGBH-FM.
Once again, when times were good and the cash was rolling in, public radio stations in large markets kept adding employees. After all, they can't give shareholders higher dividends since there are no shareholders. They're non-profit organizations. The money had to go somewhere. So they kept adding staff.
I hate as much as anyone to see people lose their radio jobs. It happened to me several times. But many folks were hired during unusually generous times. Now that fewer listeners are relying as much on radio to get their news and information, the donations are not as strong.
Meanwhile, if you combined the current staff of every FM music station up and down the dial in the Boston market, both full and part time you wouldn't even come close to 400 total people... throw in the sports stations? Still no. Add BZ... Mmm still no.
Two questions for you:
If those stations didn't have to report earnings and make profits for stockholders, would they staff differerently?
If they didn't have to deliver demographics for advertisers, would they program differently?
Those are questions we all need to ask...before we wonder how EMF has so much cash to buy stations.
The business model we know is broken. We know it's broken, Maybe it's time for a new model.
Yep. Time for commercial stations to claim that they're churches.
They don't have to be churches...just non-profits. That's not a big stretch considering.
I mean, those are all rhetorical questions...
The correct number of staff for a successful station in 2024 is probably right in the middle of the skeleton crew of most for-profit and the over bloated number of non-for-profit.