Many people who read this blog are into the radio listening hobby, and although I report on the general trends in the radio business, where I worked for almost 20 years, I've tried to avoid reporting every single negative happening in the radio business -- mainly because I do try to keep the blog positive.
That said, over the past couple weeks there has been yet one more large radio company that has slashed staff at their stations in at least three US states -- including air-staff and some managerial staff.
The company, Alpha Media, has 207 radio stations across the US. As many know, radio in general has been suffering from decreased revenues, thanks to the general state of the US economy, as well as post-Pandemic affects. Decreases in overall advertising revenues in most media also has affected radio. As some of you may remember, when regional radio station KNPT, Newport, Oregon (1310 kHz) went off the air for good late last year, the owner had stated that KNPT had experienced a 50% drop in revenues post-Pandemic compared to their revenues before Covid hit. Not too many businesses can survive a 50% cut in revenues.
Also last year, Canadian company Bell Media pulled the plug on 6-7 AM stations, including one sports station in Edmonton that got decent ratings. Later in 2023, Bell Media then sold off a bunch more AM and FM radio stations, including several AM stations I hear most nights (CKOR Penticton 800 being one of them).
I wrote about those events in these two articles last year.:
These radio companies are getting rid of staff and stations because they apparently are losing money on them. Some companies are consolidating operations, using more syndicated, national programming instead of locally-based programming, and the like. Usually this means they get rid of air-staff, because air-staff cost money.
Even right after the Pandemic hit, US radio conglomerate IHeart got rid of somewhere near 10% of its radio staff, including DJ's and announcers that got good ratings. I wrote about that here.:
The goal of the company was to "streamline" their operations, something that presumably they still are trying to do -- IHeart has a large, online streaming platform, one that so far has been moderately successful, even if it's not pulling in the same listenership as YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon and Apple music.
Radio is in contraction. There are several reasons for this: Declining listeners since the 2000's, 60%+ lower revenues than 2005, post-Pandemic economics that still affect revenues, increased advertising competition from online websites, younger demographics preferring their audio to be all online streaming, and the like.
So, to stay alive, the radio companies do what a lot of companies do -- they try to adapt and change, i.e. develop a bigger online presence. And when the money gets tight, the radio companies do what a lot of companies also do: they lay off people.
And that is what recently happened over the past week with Alpha Media.
CAN'T BE 'LIVE AND LOCAL' WITHOUT STAFF.....
And in the case of these Alpha Media cuts, local communities in northern Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, and possibly elsewhere may feel the effects. The announcements of the staff cuts in the radio news media are sometimes heartwrenching -- people saying goodbye to their listeners online after they received their pink slips, some of whom had worked at the stations for more than a decade.
One morning DJ, Britt Bailey, who worked at Country music FM station KIAI 93.9 FM in Mason City, Iowa, was apparently involved in her community, and well followed by local FM listeners and country fans. She was living her dream, being on air and engaging with people over the airwaves, playing country music. Now she is unemployed -- a victim of the layoffs.
And the way that radio is contracting instead of expanding, whether she finds another radio gig is a good question. Since I was laid off from the business in December 2006 probably tens of thousands of radio jobs have been lost, and most of them permanently. It's just the nature of the business, and reflects the affect the internet and social media have had on traditional media like Radio.
Like I said in an earlier blog article on Radio, in 2005, I worked in a radio format service company in a building with maybe 35 other people. Today, all of them have been laid off, and I doubt that even four or five of them are still employed in the radio business.
In Northern Missouri, the loss of airstaff at Alpha Media's 5 radio stations there is being felt -- one local news reporter for a Moberly, Missouri news site complained about the potential loss of local football play by play on the local, Alpha Media owned stations. High School Football is a very big deal in the Midwest and South, and it's one way for radio stations to engage with listeners, and gain some advertisers.
As the Moberly reporter says in the linked article below, it's hard to do local sports without a staff. Alpha had laid off all the airstaff at the five Moberly stations it owns.
Here is another regional news article on the Alpha stations in Moberly losing their air staff.:
It's ironic that Alpha Media's logo includes the words "Live" and "Local". Right now, it looks as if Live and Local isn't working out too well.
The general complaint by listeners -- at least those who left comments under Britt Bailey's Facebook post, or other social media postings by other laid off, former Alpha staff -- is that they feel they won't be as served by radio stations that get rid of their local staff.
Radio, for all of its foibles, is a personal medium, and people still relate to a lot of their favorite announcers, DJ's, and talk hosts. In the digital world, it would be called "engagement". In the radio world, it's called "listenership". And this radio form of engagement can be a useful tool for advertising revenue, if used properly.
IT'S HITTING PUBLIC RADIO, TOO
On the other side of the coin, if a radio company goes all syndicated, their operating expenses are drastically cut. If a radio station or company is experiencing losses, sometimes letting go of staff helps keep them from going into the red. And this conundrum isn't just a problem for commercial radio: even public radio stations have been laying off staff. Local NPR affiliate, highly rated KUOW-FM, laid off some staff because their operating expenses increased more than their revenues.
Their revenues went up slightly. But their costs went up even higher. Here's a link to a news story on that situation.:
The negatives that can hit a radio company when they get rid of people is that sometimes when radio stations eliminate locally produced content, that also means their advertising revenues drop, because if your local station sounds just like a Pandora channel -- why not just 'tune' your smartphone to Pandora?
There are at least some rumors on the Radio forums that the sales staff remaining at these station "clusters" in Missouri and Iowa are worried about the loss of local air talent, and how it will reduce ad revenues. They see the loss of "engagement" -- i.e. the reduction of air staff, loss of local morning shows, afternoon shows, sports broadcasts -- as detrimental to ad sales on the stations.
One radio expert online mentioned that you can't expect local radio to work well without the help of local business -- and in a lot of cases, even in small town, rural America, local business isn't doing well right now.
So Radio seems to be between a rock and a hard place -- younger people are moving to streaming platforms; advertising revenues are dropping due to internet competition and the effects the Pandemic economy had on business -- both local and national -- and operating costs are going up for Over-The-Air radio. It's tough.
My guess is that we'll be seeing more staff cuts, more centralized operations, and increasing use of tech voices like AI at some stations, as the radio companies continue to face revenue crunches.
DX'ERS WON'T BE AFFECTED BY THESE SORTS OF CHANGES FOR A FEW YEARS
What effect will this contraction of the Radio industry have on AM and FM radio DX'ers? Eventually, more stations may go off the air. After all, Canada's Bell Media had no problem yanking the chain on 6-7 AM stations late last year. They didn't even offer the stations up for sale, including CFRN 1260, a sports station that got ratings.
In the short term, though, being that there are 15,000 AM and FM stations in the US right now (about 4000 of them on the MW/AM band), there still will be plenty left to hear on the airwaves over the years to come.
As I've said before on this blog, I don't agree with a lot of my fellow DX'ers that the AM band needs "culling". "Culling" means stations go off the air permanently. Although in some regions a station going off the air may open up a channel to other DX stations you normally wouldn't hear, it's still not a good thing for the AM band.
That said, I realise that the AM band is bound to decrease in the number of stations over the next decade. I understand the reality. I just don't welcome it.
And if you want to see the future of the MW band, take a listen to the SW bands. 20 years ago the 31 Meter Shortwave band was still quite populated at night. Now I'm lucky if I hear 8-9 stations on the 31 Meter Band on a good night. 20 years ago, the 49 Meter Band was literally packed at night. Now? It's maybe 8-9 stations on a decent night, with more stations heard when Asia comes in during the morning.
Am I glad I'm hearing something? Yes.
Do I miss the days when the SW bands were mostly full of signals? Yes.
But the reality is what we live with. You make the best with whatever you've got.
IN OTHER LIFE....
Basically, I've been sick. It slammed me Sunday (which the Catholic stations on AM radio told me was Pentecost).... Nausea, fatigue.... I'm still trying to recuperate. The weather has been mostly grey and moderate, with temperatures in the 60's F most days.
I've taken a few photos but right now I'm just going to post this and get some rest. Like I said, I'm still trying to recuperate. I may add some pics to this post later on. I also have a couple articles I still need to finish to post over the next week or two -- one on books I've been reading, and a couple on the radio DX'ing hobby.
Until then, my friends,
Peace.
C.C., May 25th, 2024.
ADDENDUM, May 28th, 2024.
I edited one of the paragraphs, because I forgot to mention that overall drops in advertising revenues across most media have been part of the reason radio is suffering economically.
No comments:
Post a Comment