Career Crises

"Your Future's Up In The Air"

I never did get your act anyway

If this limerick sounds somewhat familiar, you're not alone. It has been repeated in some form, over and over, to many of us after dwindling digits caused those who once believed in us to suddenly have doubts. Now with the spring Arbitron sweeps upon us, our futures are once again up in the air.

Another thing that is up in the air and going to affect us all is change. It's a change that began with deregulation and continued with consolidation and group ownership. Now new words like "downsizing," "restructuring," "takeovers," "mergers," "podcasting" and "Jack" have been added to our vocabularies.

Several years ago, deregulation began to alter radio ownership from long-term investments to short-term financial windfalls. Instead of concentrating on a quality product, radio now concentrates on Wall Street affairs and the bottom line. With many companies, the concern for the station's product, as well as concern for its personnel, have been pushed aside. And what happens if stations don't perform according to expectations? Someone has to take the hit for the stations' poor performance. Heads have to roll. GMs, PDs, MDs and air-talent have almost become an expendable commodity.

Budgets got slashed. Priorities were switched almost as often as call-letters and formats. Consultants were the rule and research became the buzzword. Many programmers have been reduced to being music schedulers and order-takers. These changes not only eliminated hundreds of jobs, they caused radio to undergo unprecedented cultural moves from mom and pop businesses to ones at home in the boardrooms of the nation's largest companies. Clear Channel, Radio One, Cumulus, Citadel, CBS, Emmis, Cox and Inner City now own the largest share of commercial radio stations in America.

On the record side, a quick look into the busy labyrinth of roads that crisscross America's new media mother load and constantly changing music industry reveals similar major changes there as well. In the process, countless people found themselves on the outside, some for the first time. Not only did many of these people lose a career, they also lost hope.

Tough Choices

Getting fired or laid off is a devastating jolt, but with that devastation can come opportunity. First, there's the tough decision of deciding whether you should leave or stay. Surveys show that most of us will work for several employers during our working lives and one of the hardest career decisions in whether to leave a career and location or stick with it. You might want to stick if:

1. You like to think about your job on weekends and decide what you might do to perform better.

2. Your position is compatible with your needs and values.

3. You dig your job, your colleagues and the exciting atmosphere that surrounds our industries.

4. Your work enables you to fulfill your sense of purpose.

You should probably get on up outta there if:

1. You feel tired and irritable most of the time.

2. The hours and work interfere or conflict with your preferred lifestyle.

3. There aren't any jobs within the organization you can transfer to.

4. The work is not congruent with your needs and values and you have another job offer.

If you decide to stay in our exciting industries, just know that the solution is to try to become an indispensable specialist. Stay marketable, network effectively, and stay visible in the marketplace. No longer can you be obscure and secure. You have to become noticed. You need the ability to provide thought and insight. There needs to be a little bit of fire to go along with the smoke. It also helps to poke the flames.

Trackin' Back

Back in the day, before call-out research became the bible, promotion and radio people actually hung out, discussed music and spent quality time together. Radio programmers and music directors really listened to music.

Record companies wanted to sell records and build acts. Information from any urban music station was openly courted and gladly accepted. Radio was concerned with staying one step ahead of their audience's tastes. It was the age of Aquarius, when peace ruled the planets and love steered the charts. After a while it turned ugly. First, there was the era of the "paper playlists." Records were added and reported, but not played. After three weeks they were dropped, without a fair trial by a jury of their peers. Then promotion people stopped hanging out and programmers started hanging up. Record companies got SoundScan, Mediabase, BDS and cutbacks, and radio got monthly Arbitrends. The incentive was just keeping your job.

One trade magazine garnered power, renamed formats, demanded strict adherence to

its tyrannical policies, and turned into the "watchdogs" of the industry. Suddenly "Breakers" were more important than sales. Field promotion staffs were cut and independent contractors added. Tiny radio stations in small towns with only one yellow page, where the city limits signs were back-to-back, became famous overnight because of their reporting status. One that was not earned, but "anointed."

Formats have fragmented and urban radio is being squeezed, not just by the music and mergers, but also by a system that demands playlist additions dictated by rules and regulations that have nothing to do with audience tastes. To make data simpler to process and easier to control, radio has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Innovation, imagination creativity and style -- once characteristics most sought after in our business -- have been stifled because white consultants with no background in urban radio are making musical decisions with a disc drive from afar.

This spring, music-directors and consultants must make playlist decisions based on what's right for their audiences or suffer long-term damage. Sales executives have to be re-trained and taught to find innovative ways to comfortably sell younger demos and formats they don't listen to or fully understand. If radio continues to follow the baby boomers up the demographic scale, in another few years we may be hearing nothing but ads for Geritol and Depends.

Commercials during the last Super Bowl (which sold for more than $32,000 per second) focused almost exclusively on the young and young-at-heart, from Budweiser, Pepsi, Nike and McDonalds to the automobile manufacturers, music and video suppliers. In an attempt to superserve the 25-49 demos, urban radio has lost some automotive, soft drink, beer and fast-food franchises to television. What doesn't make sense is that in the advertising world, where youth and sex are used to push almost every product and service, some of our stations missed out again. Why? No, it wasn't just the so-called "urban dictates" from Katz. It was simply because mainstream urban radio, which epitomizes these traits, consistently abandons its strengths in a vain attempt to be older and more mature. Some urban adult stations suddenly said they didn't want to play

national commercials if they were performed by rap artists or featured rap styles or lyrics. Yeah, right.

A New Day

For years, complaints have been mounting. Everyone is griping, but no one has done anything about it -- until now. Now the mood is different. The climate is ripe for change. This time we have to find innovative and improved ways of accomplishing our goals. We must build on our storehouse of knowledge about what we do and the new delivery systems with which we now have to compete.

With the mandate for change comes responsibility. It is one thing to simply sit on the sidelines and complain about the way the game is being played. It is another to become a "true-player" yourself and influence the outcome. To affect change, we must participate in the process. And no matter how long it takes, we must not despair. Despair is when you're so poor you marry just for the rice. Or when you owe so much money your will is made out to the small claims court. Despair is also using color as an excuse for failure or a reason not to try.

Word!