I Told A Friend To Get Out Of TV

I told her to get out. That’s advice I’d never given before–advice which came surprisingly easily.

next-generation-weather-satellite-goes-o.jpgI got a call yesterday from a friend. She’s a meteorologist and former intern I’ve helped with her career. She has reached a crossroads.

The job is no longer fun. Her company’s viability is questionable (as are some of their cost cutting practices now showing up on-the-air). She is being asked to do more with less–that less often being her own sleep! It’s not a good situation. She doesn’t see it getting better.

I told her to get out. That’s advice I’d never given before–advice which came surprisingly easily.

“There are going to be fewer, not more jobs,” I told her. “There will be ‘central casting’ where one meteorologist serves a bunch of stations.”

If asked tomorrow to do weather for Connecticut, Albuquerque and Grand Rapids, I could. Most on-air mets could. Looking out the window is overrated when you’ve got as many observational sources as we have.

Her small station is a prime candidate. A friend in Palm Springs tells me the NBC station there is already getting their weathercasts from someone at their sister station in Las Vegas. He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t read about it in the newspaper.

There are tradeoffs. Two stations can’t be live at the same time. Some local forecasting quirks would have to be learned.

Mostly the public wouldn’t notice (as my friend the Palm Springs broadcast executive didn’t notice)–except the finished product would be more sterile. If you’re recorded, live interaction becomes a casualty. It’s the kind of fatal wound that bleeds slowly, but steadily.

I’m not sure broadcasters can afford the luxury of quality over cost. Many, like my friend’s employer, are upside down in their financing. Money to pay off notes trumps every other expense.

More-and-more this is what’s happening to local radio. One disk jockey can do a handul of shows every day if all the waiting between the songs is eliminated. It’s called voice tracking and it’s done because it costs less–not because it’s better. It decidedly is not better&#185!

Back to my friend. She sees her career as a dead end. If she stays, what is she staying for? It is an environment where company loyalty is a one way street.

She has other skills. I suggested she go with those and set up a small business in the community she’s grown to like. She’s in a relationship. That’s much more important than a boss who sees her as an interchangeable part and will always be looking for ways to let her go.

I’ve never given this advice before. I never thought I would. Most people don’t understand the financial pressure all media is under–not just print.

My friend does.

&#185 – If you really want to be depressed about the state of radio, read Jerry Del Colliano’s “Inside Music Media.” He is brutal in his assessment heavily leveraged companies have eviscerated local radio.

5 thoughts on “I Told A Friend To Get Out Of TV”

  1. It’s everywhere.

    Consumer product field reps are finding themselves in sales assignments twice the size anyone imagined even a year ago, and being routed by computer so as to simply skip smaller accounts.

    Coming up next is doing the job by email (yeah, that’ll work!)

    Want your display allowance?

    Give us your email address or else.

    There’s hope for you though Geoff; you’re witty and generally fairly funny to boot.

    Pretty soon I suppose you’ll be doing the “local” weather via satellite for stations all over the country.

  2. Weird! – my wife complains that I repeat myself and sure enough I just did!

    Delete one of those and this too when you have a minute okay?

    Thanks.

    -Doug Hageman / `ACR’

    ———————————

    Doug was bitten by this site’s often slow backend. Sorry. When leaving comments please be patient. This is what you get when you’re paying pennies per day for website hosting–as I do. – Geoff Fox

  3. I have given the same advice to someone thinking of coming into my field. And to a person who had a few years invested. I can’t leave with 22 years in. It is a hard thing to say to someone to find a new career but they really apprecIate it now.

    Beth

  4. I have given the same advice to someone thinking of coming into my field. And to a person who had a few years invested. I can’t leave with 22 years in. It is a hard thing to say to someone to find a new career but they really apprecIate it now.

    Beth

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