I don't think I've listened to the Windy Geriatric Network since my dad drove my brother and me to get cheap haircuts two towns over (Sitting up high on a board weathered by a million squirming little-boys...yellowing "Archie" comics...fly paper holding the fossils of tiny Paleozoic creatures...one 'a them top-hat wearing, nodding drunk-sippy birds with an ass-full of blue gin. Good times...) but I do know that it is a vast, venerable and powerful money-making Private Sector engine which you would think would have figured out how not to fall prey to the letting-dumb-fucks-run-the-place-into-the-ground syndrome.
Apparently you would be wrong.
From this interview with WGN's recently-fired talk show host Steve Cochran:
Q. Let me get this straight: WGN just fired its most talented, youngest and most versatile full-time host. I don’t get it.
A. I don’t know that I get it either. One answer may be politics, but I believe it was largely because I spoke out about what I was witnessing. I didn’t like what they were doing to the radio station and let them know that with regularity. They want people who will never ask questions and just do as they are told.
It’s also likely to be a decision from the man behind the curtain. [Tribune Co. CEO] Randy Michaels is making programming decisions and has wanted to bring in his guys for as long as he has been in charge. That’s why the new guy from WLW [in Cincinnati] was hired and why they wanted Bill Cunningham, too.
The “young-ing up” of the demos is the funniest argument I’ve heard. I was the youngest guy in the prime-time lineup. John Williams is just a year older than me at 50. The rest of the staff is 55-plus — and sounds older than that.
Q. How long have you known this was coming?
A. That is a bit unclear, but I certainly feel I was on top of the hit list for standing up for what I felt was right. This was not about change. Change is appropriate and needed in the evolution of any company. I certainly represented change when I was hired 10 years ago. The difference here is that there seemed to be no consideration for building on what worked. Instead, it was about tearing things down and the almost daily drill of insulting and threatening memos, and a sense of a total lack of respect for anyone who was here before the Zell invasion.
When I turned down the morning show, I’m certain it was not if but when they would pull the plug. The reason it took a year and a half is because the show consistently made money.
Meanwhile, the statements made from the inside about WGN were ridiculous
...
And who was Steve Cochran?
For most of his time on the air there, Cochran, 49, had been regarded as the future of the station. By all accounts, the seasoned radio veteran was being groomed as the successor to WGN’s 40-year line of top-rated morning hosts — from Wally Phillips to Bob Collins to Spike O’Dell. But as the Sam Zell era at Tribune Co. unfolded, Cochran suddenly found himself on the outs with new management (and most notably with WGN program director Kevin “Pig Virus” Metheny).The key to keeping your job in these parlous times is to figure out what your organization actually produces and then to plant yourself as deeply into the production process as possible.
Cochran’s fate was all but sealed when he was signed to just a four-month contract extension earlier this year and demoted from afternoon drive to a two-hour midday shift. For many listeners already disgusted by changes in the station’s lineup and attitude, his ouster may have been the last straw.
...
Mr. Cochran though his organization "produced" sound decisions and listener-pleasing entertainment.
Clearly he was wrong.
2 comments:
I have to comment as to how true this essay rings with me.
Thanks for documenting this instance, Dg.
When I was laid off from the aerospace software industry, I was the youngest and the only manager in the group that had been brought in to reorient the company to the new world of software.
Over the 14 years I was there, straightening out every screwup necessary (and there was a constant stream of them), I was never allowed into the inner circle (as I had been promised when hired) and all of my ideas for change were either stolen and attributed to others or ignored as being worthless (but positive change was really not in their plans - which turned out to be to lay off the professional engineering staff, go out of business, skim off the profits of an American iconic engineering presence for the enrichment of those who had temporarily taken over the reins of the company, and then sell the leavings to others who would then have to figure out how to run necessary defense endeavors in the far, far away future).
I knew there was something very odd about all the young, untrained people who had been brought in with big unearned titles, but only lodged complaints when it was clear that my path would be out (as it was made very clear to me early on by well-placed mentors to keep my mouth shut about what I saw going on from my semi-high perch).
Thanks for documenting one more tale of short-sighted, short-term oriented, death-seeking (of the business) management.
It doesn't help much, but somehow it's good to know that there are others who have also protested.
S
My husb. is being paid a lot by a Real Estate software company (they do software that allows Agents to open those door-lockboxs with their iPhone or other phones: they must be secure, and that is what Peter does). So he was hired to find safe secure unhackable software ... and he did find it, after Extensive research and training: it can be off the shelf Microsoft, or Oracle, or ? many other professional software companies. Purchase OTS and modify it, and have it made more secure by Husband. cost: a million-or-so in licensing fees.
But Management Won't. Do. It. Instead they're spending/wasting millions and millions of dollars a year trying to write their own software "from the ground up". They've been doing this for years, at great expense and nothing but buggy-garbage as a result. Why won't they follow the advice of one of the World's Experts (really, I don't exaggerate: look up Peter Williams, London College)? Apparently it comes down to ego and greed. The head of the dept. writing the Crap Software is good Pals with the Owners. Also, they want to sell their company to a Bigger Corporation and think it'll sell for more if they have their Own Special Software.
Just -crazy and stupid.
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