Eric Thomas

Saga becoming Tisch-rific

That was the best headline I could come up with, sadly. Maybe I should have thought about it for more than three seconds. But the story is that the son of Larry Tisch, who gained fame for taking over CBS, is buying up shares of Saga Communications.

Saga Communications is a good company (even though they completely ignored me when they were hiring for a morning show last year which kind of hurt), so this is smart investing and probably where the future of the industry is going. In the end, it looks like the paradigm of consolidation as a business model was inherently flawed.  As it turns out large companies are less financially stable than small companies. Companies like Saga, Greater Media, and Cox appear to be in a FAR better position than the larger companies.

Worst Stock

Jim Gilles of the Motley Fool (I dont care if its successful. What a dumb name.) has picked a winner for worst stock of 2008. As if radio hasn't been kicked in the face enough....

For me, "worst" translates to "uncomfortably likely to go to zero." That's where I expect Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) to find itself in 2009 through one of two routes: Either its cash burn, and the impossibility of meeting its massive immediate debt obligations, pushes it into the embrace of bankruptcy. Or it dilutes existing shareholders into oblivion if, by some miracle, it persuades its creditors to accept increasingly worthless stock in lieu of actually paying them back.

Thanks. What the hell did he expect? The economy collapsed, sending millions of people to the bosom of unemployment checks, and Sirius XM is selling a luxury item. Of course they aren't doing so hot. People who are trying to decide between lights or cable are not reliable to purchase Satellite radio.

Proponents of Satellite radio will cite the quality of the service, and that is not even debatable. The absolute creme de la creme of the radio industry reside in Satrad. But that's not the point. It really doesn't matter if Howard Stern is hitting it out of the park every morning when people can't afford the extra expense.

Having said that, I know some of the people at Sirius. This news really sucks for them.

Jacobs Media Ready to Rock Page

Rock radio consulting firm JACOBS MEDIA has launched a new website geared for out-of-work Rock/Classic Rock/Alternative professionals.

Yes, I am on it. Its really scary how many people are on this site, tho...

This business is BRUTAL

Salem Cuts Pay

Salem has now told all of the people that work for them that all full and part time employees will be receiving a 5% pay cut.

ALL ACCESS has confirmed that SALEM COMMUNICATIONS is instituting a 5% pay cut for employees and a 10% cut for the company's top executives. 

Staffers were informed of the move on TUESDAY; the cuts go into effect SUNDAY (2/1) and affect base pay only, excluding bonuses and sales commissions.

This seems a little excessive. Obviously the economy sucks, but radio executives seem to have lost their damn minds. What is with all the hysteria? Button down and deal with it, but we have to understand that these times are not going to last forever. The reason why radio is in so much trouble is because it is in so much debt. When credit thaws out things will be the same as they were in 2007. Of course, the problem is that I highly doubt anyone will notice that the way the industry does programming has to radically change for the industry to make any gains again.

Latest Radio Dumb Idea: Over Reacting To Holiday PPMs

Radio as an industry has a lot of adjusting to do.

The shrieks of disbelief when the December PPMs came rolling in from Detroit were audible as far south as Port Au Prince. The All Christmas format had roundly spanked every station in the market, with a dramatic ten share. In most industries this would have been shrugged away but as with everything else in the radio industry, trades immediately starting buzzing.. "Wow! PEOPLE LOVE CHRISTMAS MUSIC!"

Now, San Francisco PPMs are in, AND....

After a 30-year reign, Citadel news/talk KGO/San Francisco has been surpassed as the No. 1 station in the market by Entercom AC KOIT in the Holiday 2008 PPM results released by Arbitron on Wednesday (Jan. 28). KOIT, which went all-Christmas from Nov. 21-Dec. 25, 2008, rose from a 6.1 in December 2008 to an 8.3 6+, while KGO slipped 6.1-5.4. The last station to overthrow KGO from the top slot was top 40 KFRC, in 1978.

Ugh. I am waiting for someone to actually suggest a 365 terrestrial radio station. Radio is amazingly herd-like, so I am afraid that might actually come up at a meeting this year.

What does it all mean? PPM panelists therefore cannot physically get enough of O Tennenbaum? No. It means that panelists and listeners in general are telling us they want something different. The stations that suddenly sprout a Cialis sized yule log simply sound different from everything else on the radio. So to answer the question of what does it all mean.. the listeners are finding us BORING, and they are right.

Tightly programmed formats are necessary to have a radio station, so I am not saying that we should we need to all go pirate radio, but the way we present things has become painfully predictable. Creativity must be returned to radio, or listeners will just keep searching for things to listen to. Want to be a succesful radio station in today's industry? Make them stick around for a while.

Trouble with your demo

Did you realize that your demo sucks shortly after you got canned? Now you have no studio to make a new one, and you have a crappy demo.

Have no fear, Audacity is here. A free editing program. Look, ProTools it is not, but if you are looking to get your demo spiffed up, this is the way to go.

Mike Bettelli makes me mad

This was posted a couple of weeks ago, and I swear I almost hit the roof when I saw it. This guy named Mike Bettelli decided to write a column in FMQB about how there is no "up and coming" talent in radio. As a guy that has been knocking on the door for about 7 years now, I was a little insulted.

Radio doesn’t have a minor league system anymore.  We’re not growing talent in the small markets of America.

What the hell is he talking about? There is plenty of talent being grown in small markets all over! The problem is that no one is taking any chances in radio anymore. The people who are currently failing in large markets are the same people who have been failing in large markets for decades now. I was a guy that was #1 in Men 18-49 for 7 straight years, and all I got was thrown out the door. Other companies in the market, rather than racing to pick me up, wiped their foreheads and thought it was good that I was finally gone!

Radio has not been serious about being a competitive media for almost a decade. We wallow in self loathing hiring TV people that have no idea how to manipulate a one dimensional format because we think they can do it better than radio pros, and then wonder why it doesn't work out.

First Post

I have created this website for three reasons.

1. I seem to have a lot of thoughts about the radio industry in general, because it is spiraling into the toilet. There are things to discuss, news to examine and rumors to address. I will do that on these posts.

2. I have been out of work since September 16, and I really need another option on how to put myself out there to get a job.

3. I sincerely like blogging and I needed another topic.

So let it begin!!