[SBE] Industry retirement situation

[dynotherm at earthlink.net]

In their own way, the programming folks have the same issue we have.
Many of the same ones who began their careers 40 or 50 years ago
are still on the air today, and when they are not, the station
is flying on the bird rather than breaking in some minimum wage
kid who might have become the next interesting air personality
who would attract those in his/her own age group.

Isn't it curious that the demise of content interesting to the 
next generation of listeners began about the same time our
industry thought contemporary personalities were too expensive
to fit in the budget.

This is the downside of management for maximum profit each
quarter. Profits often look best a few quarters before the 
business descends into a terminal decline.

Peter Drucker dealt with this topic in more than one of his 
books on management. Essentially, Drucker's premise was that 
profits are not a proper business objective, but rather the
natural reward paid by the market for the operation of a well
run business. It is the practical embodiment of the nursery
tale about the goose and the golden egg.

Drucker declared that survival over the longer term should be
the first objective of all businesses, for only through survival 
could a business fulfill its role in society, creating wealth for
its owners and stable income for its workers. Jack  Welch's, 
spectacular tenure at GE was a perfect example of the execution 
of Drucker's principles of management, but then Drucker served 
as a consultant to GE during Welch's tenure as CEO and was
acknowledged by Welch as one of his heroes.

Phil Alexander, CSRE, AMD
Chairman, Chapter 25, Indianapolis


-----Original Message-----

>From: Barry Mishkind <barry at oldradio.com>



>The really sad part is that while we can see these issues, the tech 

>folks have relatively little leverage to do much. Sort of like a 

>train engineer, we can only drive on the tracks we are given. Until 

>the content problem is solved - a way to involve young people in the 

>air product - we will see more erosion in listeners/sales. The 

>challenge for engineers to avoid being red-lined.