Garrett said:
Bob, do you like anybody?
You can be a bad program director and I could still like you: I might not respect you, but I'd like you.
Let's face it G-man: radio is a business traditionally populated by people who got into it because it seemed like an easier scam than having real job. Heck, the idea of sitting on my butt playing records for a living seemed a whole lot more attractive than running a drill press for eight hours a day at some aerospace plant or sitting in a cubicle pushing paper. It's a business full of inflated egos: some famous DJ once said, "everyone in radio is either a Leo or acts like one" (read up on astrology if you don't understand that). It's a business where the top management jobs usually went to guys whose main skill was being able to con the most advertisers out of their money. It's a business where whole staffs routinely got fired because a new boss wants to hire all of his friends. It's a business where even the off-the-air bosses often use fake names. It's a business full of fakery, BS and slight of hand and even when a station fails there are a dozen ways to say it's a success, such as "Well, we are number 2 in left-handed males between 9PM and 11PM and our EBITDA metrics are in line with expectations."
Radio is a business that can - or could - be a lot of fun, what with the three or four hour airshifts, free concert tickets and the extremely minor celebrity that comes with being part of the lowest echelon of show biz. I had way too much fun in radio and that did compensate a lot for the dildos who had often gotten to the top of the manglement (thanks for that word Chris) heap by being especially ruthless and uncaring. A lot of non-radio people would say their bosses used the same means, but over the years, especially, I would say, during the 70's into the 90's as the number of radio stations vastly expanded with the growth of FM, radio was business for rebels who couldn't cut it elsewhere: tactics that would have gotten them fired in the real world, got them promoted to sales manager in radio.
I think the Clear Channelization of radio has squeezed out a lot of that simply because so many fewer people now have decision-making power in radio. There are a lot more VP's, but all they do is carry out orders from some regional SR. VP who in turn is simply passing along dictates from some EXEC. SR. VP at corporate HQ, who passes everything by the VP for legal affairs before sending it down the chain. There's probably not a major market PD today who has the authority to fire a single jock without extensive corporate review to say nothing of coming in and firing the whole staff to hire his buddies from his last station (a PD could only fire the whole staff now if it was the idea of the EXEC. SR. VP).
The good thing about these changes over the last seven years or so is that the influence of most of the bad Program Directors has been muted: the bad thing about it is that a small handful of bad programmers can now ruin dozens of radio stations at one time. The other bad thing is that the business is no longer as much fun: most on-air people work longer hours for less money and there's no room for the kind of risk taking that used to result in breakthrough innovative radio that was fun to do and fun to listen to.
Okay so let's bring this back on topic: Sophie.
I spent three years on the morning show of its predecessor at 103.7, The Planet. I made good money for working a fun four hour airshift and for most of my time there I broadcast from home so I got up at 4:55 AM in order to be on mike at 5:05 AM. I loved the PD who set that up for me, but I did not like at all the bad decisions which kept that station in the ratings basement. Since then we all have watched as 103.7 has stumbled and fumbled through bad management decision after bad management decision, but the only people who get fired as management comes up with one bad format after the other are the on-air people. I dislike those new breed corporate mangers with protected jobs even more than I did some of the old cowboy PD's who rode into town with both guns blazing and then turned out to be shooting blanks. With the gunslingers at least you knew where to assign blame (or give credit when they were on target).
Okay it's late and I'm rambling here, but I think you need to understand that it's easy to fine fan sites where we can all go and rave about how great it was back in the day to listen to WHIZ 1370 when Cap'n Billy ruled mornings, but I write about what it is or was like behind the scenes, warts and all because ultimately that will give a whole lot better perspective on why great radio stations are so far and few between and why we end up with such dreck as Free FM.
