NEW iHeart PLAN CAUSES MANY EMPLOYEE DISLOCATIONS • LOVE RULES AT WDAI MEMPHIS

 Never has the basic nature of commercial radio and public radio been so different.

Like many journalists who cover media, last Wednesday [link] we reported on iHeartMedia’s big new operating plan that, they claim, transform the company into a digital powerhouse. 

Missing from the plan is a commitment to local service.  Also missing are the communities where they own radio stations. There seems to be no corporate vision or sense of purpose, other than money.

Of course, the own the place and do as they please.

But really, iHeart’s new plan is a way to operate the company with as few people as possible.

Why is iHeart doing this?

The answer is, they need to fatten the bottom line so the company will attract a big buy out offer. Then the executive management team and the shareholders likely will get a big windfall of cash. Both Liberty Media and SiriusXM are trying to buy iHeart’s assets.

To grow the bottom line, iHeart has initiated hundreds of “employee dislocations” – also known “getting fired” – at their 800+ radio stations. Lots of programming people have been cut, plus people working in news, sports and even engineering are taking big hits.

Never has the nature of commercial radio and public radio been so different. 

Temporarily, this may help public radio gain additional listeners.  But the bigger effect will be a declining number of listeners.

i-Heart is failing Radio 101.

Lance Venta, editor and publisher of RadioInsight.com, he wrote a fascinating post about the guts of iHeart’s plan [link]. He used a variety of sources such as internal memos to tell the story. We don’t know Mr. Venta, but we admire his good work.

HERE IS THE PLAN ACCORDING TO LANCE VENTA

(imporant stuff is highlighted)

NO MORE LOCAL PLAYLISTS OR LOCAL VOICE TRACKER

Many markets have relied on what the company used to call “Premium Choice” music logs and voicetrackers to fill non-locally originating parts of their schedule. That will take on a new form.

SCHEDULING OF MUSIC  TRACKS WILL NOW BE DONE AT THE CORPORATE LEVEL

From talking to many people on the programming end as well as those in the record industry, the remaining local Program Directors will no longer directly schedule music at their stations.

They will still have the ability to suggest additions or removals of songs for their stations but the actual playlists will be done on the corporate level.

The company has made “significant investments it has made in technology and artificial intelligence (AI). AI is powered to link with Media Monitors, Mediabase and other licensed data streams. (Corporate determines the playlist order.)

MORE VOICE-TRACKING, FEWER PEOPLE

• On-air talent to voicetrack additional dayparts and stations with integrations to allow programmers to easily denote what should be mentioned in each break.

The company has made “significant investments it has made in technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Those technological advancements…explain why the company eliminated many of the programming and on-air jobs.

There will be people in engineering will be dislocated

Multiple engineers have stated to us they have been required to diagram all of their wiring configurations at studios and transmitters and turn over all passwords to corporate in order for their monitoring systems to be integrated.

• Moving all IT work to the national level, which saw the exit of a few engineers this week.

Plus do you really need every midday jock making similar rewrites of a TMZ article when you can just have the staff at the upcoming Digital “Center of Excellence” in Nashville write original stories for all the station sites?

KEN SAYS: This is a big roll of the dice at the corporate level. They seam to be betting they can make the bottom line so robust, they can get someone like John Malone to make them all rich.

MARTIN LUTHER KING LOVED RADIO

 Dr. King’s voice was wonderfully suited to AM radio.  He appeared dozens of times on WDIA, Memphis, the first all-black formatted radio station WDIA.

Here is the story in my YouTube video: