I-Heart Radio guts stations across the country with lay off's

[EstronHawkKing]

This is what happens when a company takes on $20 freaking BILLION dollars worth of debt. Complete and utter idiots. I feel for the good talent caught up in that. Hopefully they got decent severances.

All these local tv, radio & newspaper companies are all being bought up by companies like I Heart, Cumulus, Sinclair Broadcasting ect.....Then they gut all the stations when they buy them to save money. Theses corporations don't give two craps about the employees once they own a station, they are nothing but a number to them. KCRG-TV was bought by Gray Broadcasting in Atlanta, and once they owned them a few channel 9 employees were laid off. Gray also owns KWQC TV in the Davenport/Bettendorf area. Gray doesn't think much of local sports and they axed that stations 6pm sports.

 

[1hawkeye1]

Media is a rough business for sure. Nothing scarier than getting shit canned when you have a family to feed. I pray they land on their feet soon!

 

[HawkGold]

pretty much all I-Heart employees (thousands of them) who were let go were the on air hosts. All KXIC Radio employees let go were all on air. That station will now just be automated FOX News/Sports from now on. That is what I Heart is pretty much doing with all their stations in America, run automated satellite fed news, sports. You will hardly hear any local on air employees on I Heart stations.

Jim Doyne from WMT 600 AM was let go by I Heart the other day. That guy had been with WMT for decades!

You basically described the future. With automation and AI its hard to see how jobs will be created. I live outside Iowa and was traveling thru Des Moines and heard a radio personality I personally know talking as if she were in Des Moines though she for sure wasnt. Found out she does this across the country. Eventually a robot will take her place. Eventually ai will be able to display humor and emotions well besides awkward quips.

Let the Hunger Games begin....

 

[uihawk82]

I have noticed that TuneIn is getting a lot of programs that IHeart used to have.

 

[Fryowa]

The best thing anyone can do is to learn a trade when they’re younger. You don’t need to do it full time, but for F’s sake learn to do something that you’ll be able to fall back on at a moment’s notice.

Whether it’s truck driving, wiring, plumbing, roofing, drywall, heavy equipment...something...

I started taking college welding classes as a sophomore in high school, worked in a welding shop during high school, and did it full time all through college. If I got laid off right this minute, in NW Iowa I’d have a job with a very liveable wage in a half hour. I wouldn’t even have to drive home first. I could do that as long as I wanted or until I found something else.

I drive that into my son’s head all the time. You NEED to have a skill that will make you money right away if you lose your main profession. And not something that gets outdated fast enough that you lose proficiency after 20 years. For instance computer programming wouldn’t be something you just jump into easily after being out of it for a couple decades. Driving a truck will have small changes, but it will still be driving a truck. Wiring codes can change slightly, but you’ll still be proficient enough to get a job and be productive. If you have a CDL keep it current. Same with any other qualification. Short of a physical or mental disability there’s zero excuse for not being able to get a job that can tide you over while you look. If you can’t make your mortgage payment anymore because you have no job opportunities within your skill set, then you fucked up at being a human.

In other words, if you get laid off from a radio station and your only other possible option is being a sandwich artist, you did it to yourself. Believe me I feel bad for the guys who lost their jobs to the corporate scum bags...but they should also be able to go get a job at a manufacturing company or wherever until they get back somewhere on the radio. The jobs are there. Take ‘em.

 

[Robowe]

 

[okeefe4prez]

The best thing anyone can do is to learn a trade when they’re younger. You don’t need to do it full time, but for F’s sake learn to do something that you’ll be able to fall back on at a moment’s notice.

My family has been in the egg business for over 60 years. My granddad sold into a very niche market of companies that use egg shells for calcium. My granddad did really well, sold to a big outfit and got paid, and then my uncle worked for them and got axed once he made too much money and he went out on his own when his non-compete expired. My cousin, who is 30, wanted to be in that space as well, but my uncle said "you gotta go learn how to run an industrial farm because someday they'll figure out how to synthesize this calcium in a lab and you need to be able to run more than just an egg farm." So my cousin went to Clemson and got some double major ag degree and the kid knows a metric fuckton about plants, livestock and running a farm.

He still works in the egg business, but he had to move to Thailand because the market is completely global and margins are so low that you literally can't run that business in the US anymore due to regulations that specify how much space each bird needs and higher labor costs. The nature of capitalism is you gotta build scale and the operations in India and Thailand are way huger and more profitable than anything you could ever hope to run in the US. You gotta be flexible and able to adapt. What used to earn a good living in Iowa got regulated out business there and moved to the South and then it got disrupted further as supply chains improved and now you gotta do it in Asia. Along with egg production, my cousin is now working on developing a massive hydroponic farming operation to grow other crops for export throughout East Asia because they think they can undercut the Chinese on production costs. There prolly ain't a dozen people his age who know as much about livestock operations and growing plants in perpetually hot and humid environments, plus he speaks Thai and Japanese fluently, which is huge for placing product in their markets. You just absolutely gotta have a marketable skill in an industry that ain't gonna die.

 

[EstronHawkKing]

The best thing anyone can do is to learn a trade when they’re younger. You don’t need to do it full time, but for F’s sake learn to do something that you’ll be able to fall back on at a moment’s notice.

Whether it’s truck driving, wiring, plumbing, roofing, drywall, heavy equipment...something...

I started taking college welding classes as a sophomore in high school, worked in a welding shop during high school, and did it full time all through college. If I got laid off right this minute, in NW Iowa I’d have a job with a very liveable wage in a half hour. I wouldn’t even have to drive home first. I could do that as long as I wanted or until I found something else.

I drive that into my son’s head all the time. You NEED to have a skill that will make you money right away if you lose your main profession. And not something that gets outdated fast enough that you lose proficiency after 20 years. For instance computer programming wouldn’t be something you just jump into easily after being out of it for a couple decades. Driving a truck will have small changes, but it will still be driving a truck. Wiring codes can change slightly, but you’ll still be proficient enough to get a job and be productive. If you have a CDL keep it current. Same with any other qualification. Short of a physical or mental disability there’s zero excuse for not being able to get a job that can tide you over while you look. If you can’t make your mortgage payment anymore because you have no job opportunities within your skill set, then you fucked up at being a human.

In other words, if you get laid off from a radio station and your only other possible option is being a sandwich artist, you did it to yourself. Believe me I feel bad for the guys who lost their jobs to the corporate scum bags...but they should also be able to go get a job at a manufacturing company or wherever until they get back somewhere on the radio. The jobs are there. Take ‘em.

Agreed! Also, if you have teenage kids looking to be communications majors in college some day, tell them to stay away from working in the print, radio and the television industry. Low pay for most employees unless you are a main tv anchor, long hours, working weekends, working most holidays and the fear of lay off's.

If you work for a radio or television station with low ratings, it's even worse for employees.

 

[Fryowa]

You just absolutely gotta have a marketable skill in an industry that ain't gonna die.

And the skill doesn't necessarily even have to be all that specialized or complex. Welding jobs in my area and a huge radius around are starting at over $20 an hour with 50 hour weeks if you want it. That's $52,800 gross.

But if you go the unskilled route and sit at a machine all day you're only going to be about three fifths of that.

Any dork off the street can push a button on a machine with no training, but you like you said you have to have a skill that not everyone walking the earth can do.

 

[okeefe4prez]

And the skill doesn't necessarily even have to be all that specialized or complex. Welding jobs in my area and a huge radius around are starting at over $20 an hour with 50 hour weeks if you want it. That's $52,800 gross.

But if you go the unskilled route and sit at a machine all day you're only going to be about three fifths of that.

Any dork off the street can push a button on a machine with no training, but you like you said you have to have a skill that not everyone walking the earth can do.

That is a terrible wage for good welders. Welding is absolutely horrible for your lungs and unless you can get a job for a big company with a strong commitment to worker health and safety you shouldn't take a job like that for $20 an hour.

 

[RobHowe]

 

[spliff45]

https://whotv.com/2020/01/16/iheart...-re-hires-fired-kxno-sports-talk-radio-hosts/

 

[pythagoras]

Wow. Did Joel McCrea actually think there wouldn't be major backlash over this? Feel like someone is far from the pulse of his station.

 

[SteveGarvey1]

Power to the people. Power to the people right on.

 

[Fryowa]

That is a terrible wage for good welders.

Not here it isn't. There are very nice, 2,000 sq ft homes with attached double garages for $100K all day long. Mine was $69,000 for the house, double lot, and an additional detached garage when I bought it 11 years ago. My gas/electric bill has never been over $100, and my water/sewer/garbage is $78 a month. Property taxes are $1,089 this year.

$20-25 an hour for a trade that costs almost nothing to learn is ridiculously good.

 

[EstronHawkKing]

Wow! That is great news. But, I-Heart less has still laid off a lot of people across the country still. I love listening to local sports shows, can't stand national sports guys at all. I don't want to hear about the Cowboys and NBA basketball all the time.

 

[cincyhawk]

Wow. Did Joel McCrea actually think there wouldn't be major backlash over this? Feel like someone is far from the pulse of his station.

I'm amazed that they reversed their decision. I used to work for Clear Channel - I survived the largest layoff in the company's history in 2009. Bain Capital (Romney's company) loaned them the money so that the company could buy enough of its stock back to go private again after an antitrust lawsuit broke up its Outdoor (billboard), Live (concert venue), and Communications (TV and Radio broadcast) divisions. The company strategy, back then, was "local is king." However, things were increasingly automated. Stations in Louisville had personalities that lived and worked out of Cincinnati, OH, for example. There is less and less of a need for stations to be run by manned personnel in small markets. You need local ad guys, but content can be programmed out of large, metropolitan areas, and shipped over the wire to local stations. This, of course, saves money.

The latest cutbacks have hit every market from Las Vegas in size down. The cut seems to be about ten percent of Iheart's employees. There smaller stations in smaller markets just don't produce enough revenue to be sustainable. KXNO's personalities may be back today, but someday, soon, the last local DJ will have to turn out the lights. There days of local radio are numbered. Sports and talk stations especially - music stations are already largely automated. Someday soon, WHO will not have a single local show. WMT as well. I don't know what life will be like for us when no station covers the Hawks and Clowns, and no station covers Iowa politics, and no newspaper or tv station is run out of the market it serves. There FCC made a decision last year to allow radio stations to be unmanned in the markets they serve. TV will follow soon.
Websites like this one send local internet podcasts may soon be the only bastion of local content. Do guys like Rob a favor - click on some ads once in awhile. The margins are slim for local communications businesses. They need or help as consumers.

 

[earlkoppelman]

Thank you for the kind words. We really appreciate it.

Rob Keep an Iron in the "fire" always!

 

[EstronHawkKing]

I'd rather listen to John Walters call an Iowa State game than listen to Stephen A Smith scream at me on the radio.

 

[okeefe4prez]

Someday soon, WHO will not have a single local show. WMT as well. I don't know what life will be like for us when no station covers the Hawks and Clowns, and no station covers Iowa politics, and no newspaper or tv station is run out of the market it serves. There FCC made a decision last year to allow radio stations to be unmanned in the markets they serve. TV will follow soon.
Websites like this one send local internet podcasts may soon be the only bastion of local content. Do guys like Rob a favor - click on some ads once in awhile. The margins are slim for local communications businesses. They need or help as consumers.

It's not just a local radio issue. It is all local media. TV and print are hit just as hard because the internet has created the ability of everyone to procure hyper specialized content for whatever they want. And the market for that is global. A guy on active duty in Korea can get Rob's podcast, on demand, whenever he wants it. The delivery medium of radio, newspaper and terrestrial TV are dying incredibly fast. But there are alternatives for folks to make money through alternative mediums. It's sad, but the value just isn't really there for most local advertising anymore.