Well - There Goes 2009!

Can we just skip a year and go straight to 2010? The latest projection for the radio business just came out last night, and analysts are already writing off 2009:

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Newly released data suggests that the U.S. radio industry could be on track to record its worst annual drop in ad revenue in decades.
According to the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), total ad revenue for all U.S. radio markets dropped 10 percent in October from a year earlier. Local revenue fell 15 percent, while national revenue slipped 1 percent.
October marked the industry's 18th consecutive month of year-on-year revenue declines, according to James Boyle, a senior broadcast analyst at research firm C.L. King & Associates in New York.
"One actually has to go all the way back to 1954, when radio ad revenue was down 9 percent against the prior year's dip of 2 percent" to find a worse decline, Boyle said. "1954 was the fourth straight year of substantial radio advertising underperformance versus total domestic ad revenue."
That was also the year, Boyle quipped, "when 'The Lone Ranger' had its last new radio episode and Sen. Joseph McCarthy was railing against hidden Communists."

BLEAK PROGNOSIS

The future doesn't appear bright, Boyle said. "If the recession lasts for all of 2009 and the weakness persists in many of the major radio ad categories, such as auto, to the point where spending severely plunges, then it may be 2010 or beyond before radio revives," he said.

You can read the entire depressing assessment HERE. And just to add fuel to the inferno, we just learned this morning that Montgomery County Teachers ( including my wife) will go without pay raises next year:

Montgomery County teachers and other school employees have agreed to give up a 5 percent pay raise next year, a concession that saves the school system $89 million and allows Superintendent Jerry D. Weast to balance the budget.
Leaders of four employee associations, representing more than 22,000 workers, agreed Tuesday to forgo the raise all workers would have received in the fiscal year that begins in July. Weast said he and other top administrators in Maryland's largest school system would also lose annual raises.
School officials said it was the first time since the early 1990s that Montgomery school employees had given up a contractual pay raise, a sign of the magnitude of the economic challenge. School board President Nancy Navarro (Northeastern County) credited unions with "tremendous sacrifice during these tough times."

You can read all about the teachers' pay raise cut HERE.

As much as it hurts our family budget, I support the county's action to cut the pay raises. As I've mentioned before, I believe it's important for government workers to have a realization of the troubles that their employers - the taxpayers - are experiencing. We'll all in this together, folks!

My wife has been troubled that my current state of underemployment is relatively unique among our friends - like there's something wrong with us. Unfortunately, I'm afraid our situation is going to grow less unique by the day.

Keep your heads down, folks!

How Far Has The Radio Business Fallen?

When I started this blog back in March of this year, I named it "Life On The Beach" for a reason. "On the beach" is a common term - especially in the radio business - for people who are out of work as they search for their next job. I took the name from a popular feature on a radio industry website that people in the business use every day, allaccess.com. Each week, the site profiles a "beached" radio pro, in hopes that it will help that pro to find a job. Well, this week, my profile finally came up. (You can see it if you'd like, but you would have to register - it's free)

To give you an idea of just how rotten the shape of the radio industry is, I had completed my survey about 5 months ago, and it just now popped up online, meaning that I sat in a long list of people - and I bet the line behind me is even longer.

Since the posting first appeared yesterday, I have heard from several people, including two former colleagues whom I had not heard from since my departure from WMAL. Both offered kind words, and it was great to hear from them. They both still have jobs, and I hope their situations don't change.

I also heard from a couple of complete strangers who are in the same boat I'm in. I do plan to write them back and comisserate. It's always nice to trade words with folks who know what you're going through.

One of the guys also sent along an audio clip and resume to me, asking me to review it and offer suggestions. I don't know quite what to say to him. What if my advice works, and he beats me out for a job? And is another unemployed guy really the best place to go for career advice? Hmm.

A common thread running through all of the emails is that I'm hearing from people who love radio, and who, like me, are chagrined to see the business we love crumbling in front of us. This must be akin to what it felt like when plane travel began to threaten large-scale railroad transportation. A lot of railroad employees lost their jobs as the passenger train business dwindled. The same thing is happening now in radio, and each month, literally hundreds of radio workers are hitting the street with nowhere to go in the business they love.

This beach is sure getting crowded.

It's Getting Crowded On The Beach

Actually, if we have just a couple more days like yesterday's 679-point debacle for the Dow, the beach is going to look like Normandy on D-Day.

I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that my former industry is crumbling before me, even as I scramble to get back in to it. Stock values in radio companies are dropping faster than the Dow is, but the big difference between radio and most other industries is that there's little reason to think old media like radio and newspapers are going to recover any time soon.

My former employer, Citadel Broadcasting, now has its stock selling at 37 cents a share, and it is set to be de-listed by the New York Stock Exchange any day now. Sirius-XM, which was created in a merger a couple of months back in a bid to keep the satellite radio companies afloat, is now selling at 45 cents a share. And these are just a couple of examples. Both companies are facing enormous debt loads, and it's unclear why investors would take a shot at buying them. It's clear that advertising is going to take a huge hit, and when it does recover, radio and newspaper are not going to get the lion's share of ad money. Sirius, in particular, depends on people buying new cars to survive, and that won't be happening in acceptable numbers anytime soon, either.

I worry about my friends at Citadel, and I fear that another wave of layoffs like the one that cost me my career is now underway. The longtime Program Director at WABC-AM in New York was shown the door yesterday, as was one of the Human Resources people at WMAL/WRQX/WJZW. Those are the only two I know of so far, but I'm sure there are more. I know there is little-to-no fat left to cut, so it's frightening to think of what might happen next. I just hope there's enough money left for everyone to get a decent severance when the ax falls.

Hang in there, friends - and keep your heads down!

R.I.P. Radio

Recently, my former colleague, Chris Core weighed in on the reason he (and I) were let go at WMAL... And now, the Washington Post's Marc Fisher is offering an expanded obituary for the radio business. I wish I could say I believe Fisher is being overly pessimistic, but from my current seat, he seems pretty darn on point to me!

You can read the entire article here, but here are a couple of passages that pass awfully close to my heart:

In the easy decades of a tightly constricted mass media, there were three TV networks, monopoly newspapers and a handful of radio stations in each place. That lack of choice meant that much of popular culture was middle-brow in ambition and middling in quality. But the nation was guaranteed a common conversation about music, politics and nearly every other aspect of life.

The challenge for all media now is to find a path back to mass, while retaining as much as possible of the freedom and access that the infinite range of the Internet promises.

The programming on the radio these days does not light a way toward that goal. Music radio seems superfluous -- a selection of tunes nowhere near as varied as what iPod users choose for themselves, and without the added value that knowledgeable and entertaining DJs once provided. With the strong exception of public radio and a handful of all-news local stations such as Washington's WTOP, radio has largely gotten out of the news business -- too expensive. And the local talk programs that once made it easy for a traveler to figure out his location without ever glancing at a road sign have largely given way to Rush Limbaugh and a legion of imitators.

And there's more...

The next decade or more will be a transitional time, as radio, like newspapers and television networks, forswears allegiance to any one means of distribution and declares itself platform-agnostic. Those media that, like the record industry, cling to old technology and a collapsed business model will see their futures crumble before their eyes.

Radio, shedding talent as fast as it loses audience, is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the younger generation. Yet most Americans still listen to something for much of the day. Radio could be the way into those ears, but only if it invests in creating compelling reasons to be there, only if it grabs hold of us the way the voices of past decades connected to the loves, pains and dreams of young listeners. As always, the future lies in the past.

The future lies in the past? Maybe THAT's why I've been obsessed with my college choir lately! Is there any money in singing four-part harmony?