KGO, KNBR, The Bone (107.7 FM) ==-all stations that are owned by Cumulus are about to be slashed and sliced. Nobody is safe. Even those under contract are not immune to a company-wide mandate to SLASH. It's so bad, even bread winners are going to feel the wrath, especially when they had HORRIBLE months like last November.
SOME ANALYSIS:
Chip Franklin was expendable because he made in the $200K a-year area and brought nothing to the table. His personal inventory (ads he read) wasn't significant enough and therefore, Franklin's 86ing was no surprise. Moreover, Chip's ratings, like KGO's had flatlined and were blase at best. Clearly, he didn't move the needle so he had to go. Not a shocker.
*By moving Rothmann to the afternoon, KGO (Cumulus) has essentially given up all hope for live, local, night time radio. The syndication mix of business and taped programming costs nothing and that's what drives the engine at KGO, or what I would call, Pinto radio. It's CHEAP, that's all it is. Which is why all the Cumulus stations, including KNBR, KSFO, 86ed everybody from producers to news people. As I said, this is going to get worse.
*Yes, a bitter, delicious IRONY: on the ten-year anniversay of the bigtime massacre, Cumulus decided to part company with their 2021 Holiday heave-ho. How sweet. What a loving company. I'm sure the Christmas party at Arbr's will be a can't miss event. *Be careful Mark Thompson, while you were paying tribute to your producer, Albert, (who was fired) the Cumulus axe machine is now LOOKING at YOU as a potential cut. Be careful, Mister LA.
*The official Cumulus axe took place on November 30th so Cumulus avoived having to pay Cobra-insurance to its fallen victimes. What a swell company.
Nikki Medoro must be very cheap to keep her on. Haven't lasted longer than 10 minutes listening to her. Pretty soon Chris Merrill will be the only talk show host because he works for a bag of chips.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of that scene from Erin Brockovich where she says "I'm really quite tired".
DeleteI believe Nikki Medoro is not paid a salary but rather by the number of times she says "Exactly" or "Absolutely" after someone else's comment. What an awful show.
DeleteBag of Chips??? Pun intended????
Delete>>>*The official Cumulus axe took place on November 30th so Cumulus avoived having to pay Cobra-insurance to its fallen victimes.<<<
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about? COBRA is a Federal law. Anyone who is a Cumulus *employee* (as opposed to an independent contractor, or on a personal services contract) is covered, and Cumulus will *have* to offer them up to 18 months of extended coverage under the COBRA law. But the terminated employee has to cover his/her own costs by writing a check every month for 102% of the company's group rate cost for said insurance. (The extra 2% is to reimburse the company something for their administrative overhead in administering the program.) So it's not a free perk to the terminated employee, not part of any severance package, and the out-of-pocket cost to the company is not all that high. It just means the employee has an offramp for continuing their medical insurance until they get their feet on the ground.
The significance of the November 30th date is the company doesn't have to pay for another month of employee insurance coverage. If you get terminated on December 2nd, the company's on the hook to pay for your December coverage, and there's no proration, no money back from the insurance carrier. It's just cheaping out on the last, partial month of company coverage. But would anybody expect anything less from that company?
You can thank Bill Clinton for signing The Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law for all of this. All leads back to that.
ReplyDeleteGreed got the best of Cumulus. Their greed ruined radio. Local interests/concerns fell off the table in exchange for $$$. Local radio station owners were smart to sell. They saw a big stupid dumb shit like Cumulus come and buy their property for probably more than it was worth. News Flash: Radio, as we've known it, has been on life support during the 21st century, probably more so since 2010. Satellite has made radio obsolete. You reap what you sow. It's a shame. A real shame.
ReplyDeleteGood, now I can listen to The Ramsey Show from 6pm to 9pm on both KSFO and KGO....
ReplyDeleteI've got two radios so it will finally be in stereo.
Do you think they will syncronize both stations so true stero will be available?
As a bonus, perhaps I can get double the number of Balance of Nature fruit and veggie commerials.
You know, the company that fleeces seniors with the help of Pat Thurston doing live spots.
$100 a month for 6 daily capsules (which combined give the naive customers a grand total of 4 grams of dehydrated produce)
Way to go Pat, anything to keep the station alive.
Lets just call it what it is, a tax on naive seniors.
Chip Franklin hosted some interesting topics, but has two serious downsides for a talk show host. First, he's not a good listener; second, he frequently disrespects his fellow talk show hosts. For example, introducing the next host: "Ok, after the break we'll talk to Rothmann", rather than what a polite, respectful introduction, "John" or "John Rothmann". No idea why he does that, but as has just been demonstrated, it isn't in his own best interest.
ReplyDeleteYeah, rothmann doesnt seem to have the personality for a prime time slot..it will be interesting if kgo tries to give him a sidekick,like kim mccallister to make him sound less boring at times..or maybe being on a little earlier he might be able to interview some pundits or politicians like franklin did
ReplyDeleteRich, does this mean they finally get rid of that mutt Lund and useless Brooks? They are complete garbage no matter what Christine Craft thinks! She's not a lady
ReplyDelete12:55p. I seem to remember that in 1996, the GOP was the majority party in Congress, not the Demos. Therefore this really part of the Gingrich "Contract with America.
ReplyDeleteBill signed it, own it. He could have refused. All goes back to Bill. He probably would have mulled it over if he didn't have a woman waiting in the next room.
DeleteChip is a one string banjo and the band leader was the Bad Orange Man! Now that Trump is gone so went Chips chance at an extended Contract! My question is why do the card keys of the liberal version of Brian Sussman and his two lap dogs on from 10 to Noon still work when slid in the door? Perhaps the cloud could not locate anyone worse!
ReplyDeletetheres plenty of 'yeah, uh-huh -yah, yah 'umm-hmmm'' guys at these sports stations!
ReplyDeleteRothmann hasn't improved much since the days when Mickey Luckoff put him on weekend overnights. He had a couple of brilliant shows on the SF school board re-naming controversy and admissions to Lowell High School. Those shows were so interesting I wondered why management didn't tell him to do local all the time. It's boring when he does the shop-worn talking points the hosts at MSNBC recite during every show. I'm a Democrat and I agree with most of that stuff, but I don't understand why a local station would do national topics. Nobody else is doing local topics, so they would have a monopoly on it.
ReplyDeleteRe the COBRA comment, They dumped this load of employee's at the end of November because if they did it in December, lets say Dec. 2nd, then Cumulus, the company, would have to pay their (the companies) share of the health insurance for December....12:54PM is correct about what Cobra is...The reason the Cumulus clowns dumped in NOV. was to save themselves money. The 2nd Cumulus Bankruptcy is moments away, the trade papers have be speculating that for the past year and more. Sell the Damn Thing (KGO) and put it out of it's misery.
ReplyDelete