iHeart is reducing news staff in many clusters.
Steve Hall on the list from Tampa so far; may be others.
Alan McBride from the FRN.
Posting from mobile, apologies for brevity.
Alan McBride been with FRN since forever.
Most likely reflects increased costs, aging demos in this format, and relatively small revenue growth.
Also likely involves a shift of content creation from on air to online.
he says he believes his show will be replaced with a syndicated one and that other adult contemporary shows throughout the iHeart system nationally will change as well.
Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/busines...UY8ClCaQlYQReWqzKHVxuhhAGJMNATg#storylink=cpy
In an almost supervillain-like showcase of the chronic greed and shortsightedness of the radio industry in the United States, iHeartMedia – the bankrupt remnants of the once-mighty Clear Channel empire – recently began laying off editorial staffers at their stations around the country.
The news of layoffs came just a week after iHeartMedia executives plan to take the company out of bankruptcy protection – reputedly the 30th largest bankruptcy in history – with a $100 million stock offering.
The largest broadcaster in the United States (and not coincidentally the people who are most responsible for making American radio an unlistenable mess), iHeartMedia had been crushed in a leveraged buyout that saddled it with $20 billion in debt.
More on the latest round of I HATE RADIO's layoffs.
Your posting, too, was opinion.
AC stations are hardly "aging demos," yet they're getting cut, too, by the I Hate Media braintrust.
Right, go fire the No. 1 radio team in the market on the market's top-rated station. Makes a lot of sense.
The station's coward general manager -- who lives nowhere near the market -- was too chicken to comment to the newspaper.
Something to hide?
How can a "station manager" not even live in the station's market?
You I-Heart yes-men please defend that.
Oh, that's right. Everything is centrally planned, like COMMUNISM, which the Mays thugs hate (such "conservatives" they are).
Radio stations are nothing but "profit centers."
Talent is a draw on the owners' profits.
We can program everything from somewhere else...
WFLA is this market's leading news-talk.
If the demos are such a "problem," then why stick with the same talk programming?
The thing some don't see is this isn't an iHeart problem or even a radio problem. This is an ad-based media problem. ESPN is letting people go. BuzzFeed let a lot of people go. I'm hearing there are a lot of changes about to hit some big streaming companies. Even healthy companies like Entercom are letting people go. No one is immune here.
Add to that point the trouble Nielsen is in and which has driven it to be looking for a merger or acquisition partner. There are huge changes in the whole marketing dynamic, from how purchases are made to distribution to the value of traditional brands.
Local radio depends on retail business. And the shrinkage of retail ad dollars, first due to big box stores and then due to online purchases, has made it very necessary to reduce costs at the local radio level.
It's usual here on these boards to blame radio companies themselves for billing declines and to use childish names to refer to them. But the real issue is that local retail dollars have been reduced and radio has to adapt to a more frugal future.
Add to that point the trouble Nielsen is in and which has driven it to be looking for a merger or acquisition partner. There are huge changes in the whole marketing dynamic, from how purchases are made to distribution to the value of traditional brands.
Local radio depends on retail business. And the shrinkage of retail ad dollars, first due to big box stores and then due to online purchases, has made it very necessary to reduce costs at the local radio level.
It's usual here on these boards to blame radio companies themselves for billing declines and to use childish names to refer to them. But the real issue is that local retail dollars have been reduced and radio has to adapt to a more frugal future.
More on the latest round of I HATE RADIO's layoffs.
https://5mag.net/news/iheartmedia-iheartradio-lay-offs-ipo/?fbclid=IwAR3StBCrdLaYOHW49hl9zGLU_RvFzULapqsnGxHcwBPXFJB0KyNPZ7VV2us
Among the reporters that ALL ACCESS hears have left their buildings were News-Talk WFLA-A/TAMPA anchor STEVE HALL and reporter SHARON PARKER, FLORIDA NEWS NETWORK anchor ALAN MCBRIDE and TALLAHASSEE Bureau Chief RICK FLAGG, News-Talk WRNO/NEW ORLEANS anchor LISAMARIE LUMINAIS, and News-Talk WTAM-A/CLEVELAND Assistant News Dir. TOM MOORE, JOHN COOPER, KATHY DAVIS and part-time news anchor JUDY THOMPSON. Also on the beach is ROBERT BUAN at WLAC and the TENNESSEE RADIO NETWORK.
The thing some don't see is this isn't an iHeart problem or even a radio problem. This is an ad-based media problem.
But....but..if it wasn't for iHeart, radio would be programmed exactly like it was in 1968! Everybody on this board would be a 60 year old rock jock!
....and there is a problem with that? I guarantee radio would sound better than it does today.
David, thank you for keeping this board in check. As someone working off-and-on in the radio business for over a decade now, I can honestly say that you have earned your radio wings. I might not always been the champion of consolidated radio clusters, or the free market on principle alone, but I feel like I do more listening than typing when you chime in. It's a pleasure to read about your experiences in this industry.
I wonder how long it took you to do that complete post with three quarters of a dozen quotes;