A commenter asks Ms. Rybak and me to say something about the sorry state — make that “the perpetually sorry state” of Twin Cities radio, since people have been complaining about how dull, dim-witted, choked-with-advertising and uninspired local radio is since I started paying attention to it back in 1989.
It’s not like it has gotten any better, generally speaking, but where would we begin?
First though, just to catch up, two stations parted ways with their program directors last week. First, Doug Westerman, briefly my boss, at KTLK-FM, was shown the door, then Erin Rasmussen at FM-107. There had been some gossip that Westerman’s departure might signal the much-anticipated format switch at KTLk, away from conservative talk to … God knows what. But by replacing Westerman with a talk radio program director from Memphis, Steve Versnick — via WLW in Cincinnati, the signal would seem to be that Clear Channel will stick with, delusional 29%-er talk at least through next year’s election, which has been my bet for a while.
The move at FM-107, a.k.a. “The Chick Station”, home of Kevyn Burger, Lori & Julia and more recently, Andrew Zimmern and Colleen Kruse, is more like looking for fresh ideas.
The next quarterly Arbitron ratings won’t be out until later next month, but trends since the “spring book” show very little change other than an overall bump upwards for KSTP-AM, very likely due to Twins baseball — which provides the station with virtually no revenue.
What the commenter wants I think is a grand overview, a station-by-station analysis, which might be an interesting project. But it’ll take a while to gather the deepest of my/our deep thoughts.
Until then here’s a blurb a friend sent my way. It comes from Tom Taylor a veteran radio analyst/information trader, who has a successful independent until he sold and joined forces with … (cue Darth Vader theme) … Clear Channel.
Taylor’s headline is: After Clear Channel goes private — will there be an exodus of management talent?
He writes: One observer e-mails me to predict that “many folks at the management level are just waiting for their payday from the stock buyout. Watch and see. Fueling that is the feedback from the recent managers meeting. Market managers were told that they will be given their revenue goals from above, and then they’re expected to hit them. So much for bottom-up budgeting. The subtle hint was that ‘You’ll hit them, or we won’t be seeing you at this meeting next year.’” He goes on to say that managers feel particularly helpless because “in reality, local markets have discretion on less than 20% of the expense line items in the budget” and that “a large percentage of promotion and research decisions are made in San Antonio,” leading to what he calls “micromanagement.”
I include this only because the “Clear Channelization” of the seven stations the company owns in the Twin Cities and as well as the extent to which competitors acquire Clear Channel-like attitudes toward programming, salary levels and ad clutter is arguably the underlying malaise effecting this market and many others.
Clear Channel is going back to private status some time in the next few months, a move that will — you guessed it — re-line the pockets of the company’s major investors, some of whom joined the Gilded Age when it went public several years ago.
Finally, after nine straight months of blogging, I’m taking a brief break. I couldn’t leave town until the Par Ridder follies reached some kind of conclusion. The Slaughter will be in Ms. Rybak’s more than capable hands until I get back on Oct. 5, although she too will be away soon for a few days.
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