Getting Local

So I have stayed away from writing about this economy for as long as I can, but it is absolutely killing the communications industry. Radio and television stations across the country are cutting back, freezing salaries, laying off people and adding on more work on the people left behind. In the end it’s the product that suffers, and the product is what you need in order to sell to make the money.

There are tons of good and talented people that are without a job for no other reason than the place they worked for could not afford them.

That is one of the hardest things to get over I think, and I know because I was a victim of that same thing. It is one thing to lose a job because of being just bad at it. Fortunately that has never happened to me.

However, it’s a whole other animal to lose a job because the place you worked for couldn’t afford to keep you on. Two of my friends are in the same boat as thousands of other professionals out there.

It’s hard when you give 110% of your time to your work, carefully making sure it was at the highest quality you can give and at the same time got praise for the work done, only to be told you can’t keep working because of the bottom line.

Local radio sells, I have seen it work. Ever since radio started, it sold itself.

Cutting radio, or going network and getting rid of the local flavor only hurts the company in the long run in the local community.

From my point of view in Minor League Baseball, I will never understand why teams cut radio when it can be such a powerful marketing tool in the community, and so easy to sell as well. I feel so passionate about it and that is why I think it can be a financially successful aspect of the company and is a bad idea to cut.

When it comes to local radio, local hosts, local jocks, they are so much more entertaining then the network. People want to know what’s going on in their community, in their town. There needs to be a local flavor to radio, there needs to be that connection to the community.

People like to know the person they are listening to is local, they like to know when they flip on the radio they are going to hear about their town and not some city or town on the other side of the country.

Why is satellite radio failing? If you ask me it’s because it doesn’t have the feel of the community like radio has, or should I say “had.”

My heart goes out to my friends and all the thousands of good, hard working people out there in my industry that have been let go because of budget cuts. I have been there.

Hopefully things will turn around and hopefully the time on the bench is not long.