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Re: [OM] OT: CBS to Sell Radio Assets to Entercom

Subject: Re: [OM] OT: CBS to Sell Radio Assets to Entercom
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2017 11:48:58 -0600
Having successfully escaped that industry, I can look back and say
that CBS fell out of relevance in the radio broadcast industry about
1995.  (WCBS, and the sister stations in NYC were the only worthwhile
stations they had). The consolidation of the industry also destroyed
the industry. But it made a thousand dentists very rich when they sold
their 1kW AM daytimers for millions to Clear-Channel.

I remember a conversation I had with a head-honchos at a major group
(not to be named, but inferred elsewhere in this post), where I asked
them how they intended to improve the industry? The answer was that it
was all about eliminating (buying) the competition and having only one
sales force in a market. Nothing but sales. It had nothing to do with
product, only sales. It was their intention (and my company was
enabling it with the technology) to automate all stations and have
only a few sources of original content. Then they would dominate their
markets by buying up all the competition so they would be the only
advertising sales force in market.

What about the concept of "local"? Gone. It was more important to sell
21 minutes of advertising per hour than anything else.

So, my thought is "screw you" to the broadcast groups.

We made a fortune selling automation to them, but then we lost our
shirt on the backside. It didn't help any, when the biggest group
decided to just buy the suppliers they wanted and closed out the rest
of the supply industry. That was short-term gain, because the
companies they bought were no longer staying relevant to the needs of
the industry--just the one "client" they had. Meanwhile, the rest of
the suppliers had to stop R&D because they couldn't sell anything to
the largest groups.

An interesting side note: In 1989, I developed the basic architecture
for automation and centralized, but "localized" broadcast content,
using a store-and-forward mechanism with localized drop-and-insert. I
was hired in 1993 to a company that then took my design and
implemented it and it became the standard model for the industry. So,
I effectively enabled the industry to do what it did. However, if it
wasn't me, it would have been someone else. My design (and software I
wrote) is still the core behind how it is done today.

Blame me, if you want, but I didn't get royalties, so yell at somebody else.

That industry is dead or terminal.

AG Schnozz
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