Clear Channel Action Could Damage Radio

I wasn't at the Dallas meeting of Clear Channel managers last week; I've been informed about "reported discussions" there from a number of radio industry bloggers - all written by radio industry veterans.

"Everything in the radio industry is a "we're going to do" type of story. There's very little about 'what we've done.'"

Radio's main industry trades haven't mentioned anything about what you're going to read here. Little wonder, especially regarding Clear Channel-owned Inside Radio.

If what's being reported is true, Clear Channel will bring the radio business to a new level of scorn. You need to read about it today because your eyes will be on something else if/when this reported event happens in radio. (In a way, what follows is a public service announcement if you believe that part of a PSA's function is to to disseminate information against odds.)

This isn't going to be long: It's reported that Clear Channel has scheduled a mass firing under cover of the Presidential Inauguration on January 20. Total post-firing body count is estimated to be 1,000.

The timing of the firings is what helps drive an image of Clear Channel being more than a destroyer of the radio industry. With this reported plan, it's crossing a line surpassing anything we've seen in radio relative to holding people hostage with anxiety.

Clear Channel, along with new owners BainCapital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, has allegedly begun the process of relieving up to 1,000 (or more?) radio personnel of their livelihood on a day it knows eyes will be turned elsewhere. The reports have this bloodbath occurring when all publicity will surround a new President Obama. Clear Channel will sidestep as much negative publicity as possible with this strategy. Only...

If word gets out now it will draw attention. When this story gets its listing at the top of Google News and MSN News today, there will be many people exposed to how Clear Channel does business. Possibly it will cause Clear Channel advertisers to question doing business with a company exhibiting such type of action on Inauguration Day. Hopefully, it will draw attention to the plight of radio families being upended, and cause reporters who read Audio Graphics' articles to check into CC's actions on Inauguration Day.

I've often reminded my son of the saying that "actions speak louder than words," and how you can tell a lot about the spine of a person (or company) by the timing of their actions.

We are entering a new era of openness with Barack Obama. It's just my humble opinion that should the above "reports" go down on Inauguration Day as some radio industry bloggers have said, it'll be a shameful way to dishonor this historic occasion. Especially as Clear Channel stations report with other media that we're entering an era of transparency.









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