Welcome to the end of the week. Hopefully, you managed to avoid getting turfed, RIF’d, blown out, terminated or forced into retirement…at least for now.
You need only open Facebook to get a sense of just how much turmoil, angst, pain, and damage is being done internally and externally to the fast-shrinking broadcast radio business. I’ve been doing this for more than a minute and I’ve never seen a time this devastating to radio’s rank and file.
This has never been a particularly stable business as its veterans know all too well. In fact, over the years, there’s always been a sense of gallows humor about the instability of radio as a profession. But the reductions, down-sizing, and all-out decimation of companies, stations, and brands has been breathtaking, to say the least.
Even for radio.
In the past, there’s been some semblance of logic behind the cuts. Rampant debt, economic downtowns, and even disasters like recessions and pandemics. But for many everyday workers inside radio companies big and small, this round of belt-tightening is both inexplicable and strangulating.
These days, when a company schedules deep reductions in force, there is rarely an accompanying letter of explanation or even rationalization. And even when companies attempt to position its cost-savings pivot, most radio people don’t seem especially convinced of the rationale, the reasoning, or the reality.
Another window into the executive soul is during those quarterly calls publicly held companies are required to do to explain themselves, their strategies, and their results. And right now, we’re hearing from several companies whose C-suiters are deeply engaged at tap dancing their way through telling the story of their recent past 12 weeks of activity.
Of course, while the numbers are the numbers, adept company officers have the ability to spin a good yarn, leaning into the best news while evading results that are more difficult to explain away. Most of the time, these calls aren’t especially unique. Tune in enough of them, and you begin to get the nagging feeling you’ve heard it all before. But this quarter’s calls seem to be landing differently as chief executives try to make sense of their own numbers.
Bob Pittman summed up iHeart’s predicament with a particularly profound statement about both consumption of his company’s radio content and his salespeople’s inability to be able to convert them into revenue:
“We don’t have a broadcast radio audience challenge. We have a broadcast radio monetization challenge.”
Caroline Beasley had a more positive “take” on the sales outlook for her company:
“While the broader advertising environment remains dynamic, we believe the actions we are taking today are positioning Beasley to emerge as a stronger, more profitable, and more resilient company.”
Over at Saga, Chris Forgy and company put it this way:
“We anticipate ongoing pressure on revenues due to economic conditions while striving to execute our long-term strategies to improve operational efficiency….We need to execute and monetize what’s already built.”
And then there’s Connoisseur Media – not a public company, but with a free-speaking chief executive with no shortage of hot takes on the radio broadcasting industry. I should know. I interviewed its opinionated CEO, Jeff Warshaw, last week in a free-wheeling one-on-one “fireside chat” at the 38th Morning Show Boot Camp in Cleveland.
Greeted by a cheering section of a dozen attendees from company-owned stations, including executives, format captains, and talent, Jeff took the stage ready to answer my questions. You won’t read any of his responses in Wall Street proforma for Connoisseur, but you’ll read why Jeff is most certainly cut from a different cloth.
Warshaw quote #1: “The single greatest contributor to a station’s success is the market manager. They make decisions, keep morale high, meet with the Mayor when he needs to talk, or the big local car dealer. You need someone local who is responsible for the local market strategy.”
This, at a time when some of radio’s big companies are consolidating GMs and other job titles into regional hubs. And yet, Jeff pushes back against the idea of combining markets, especially for the top job.
And on this one he was adamant. In fact, it became the foundation of other key quotes revolving around staffing up when the going gets rough, rather than to cut back.
Warshaw quote #2: “When something gets harder, you need to put more into it and not less.”
This came up on our pre-call as well – the idea that you have to lean into, rather than figure out a way to run from challenges with less.
And that leads us directly to Jeff’s final quote – his vision of how the industry will undoubtedly become a differently shaped version of what it’s become:
Warshaw quote #3: The concept of running this business without any people just isn’t interesting to me.”
There had to a lot of head nods, especially those who have worked in radio in one capacity or another for a couple decades or more. I specifically asked Jeff whether some of radio early pioneers perhaps had it right all along, with the emphasis on personality, stunts, fun, and of course, community.
It will be fascinating to watch whose philosophy will end up on top when all is said and done. Clearly, the “old school” model espoused by Warshaw is becoming passé in many quarters and many companies.
How Connoisseur can walk that line between fiscal responsibility and creating full-service results, not just for a quarter or two, but over the long haul will be carefully watched.
No doubt, Jeff’s employees will be cheering for him. And probably many others.
President & Founder at Jacobs Media
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched – a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created – a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the “connected car” and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media’s commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
