Broadcast Gypsies

Ted O’Reilly, the Toronto broadcaster, answered my flippant question in yesterday’s posting: “Why won’t these broadcast people stay put?”

Station owners—all have risen from the sales department, or got their money the old-fashioned way, inheritance—won't let them. An ever-deepening lowest common denominator, combined with a desire for an ever-raising bottom line drives owners to “greater efficiency”, meaning “put in computers serviced by pre-digested content providers”.

Greater Efficiency has never benefited consumers (and certainly not employees), only shareholders. Individual voices are driven out of the market, more and more to fringes. That may mean a larger city, and certainly a marginal-niche station.

I was attempting to be sardonic. I know the life. In twenty-four years in radio and television news, I changed cities eight times, jobs nine times. Luckily, each move save one was to a greener pasture. Ultimately, that one turned out well, too. But that was before the corporate MBA mentality governed by quarterly earnings reports to shareholders gripped the broadcasting business in a stranglehold that has resulted in increasingly deeper cuts, greater homogenization, devaluation of experience, lower quality, and confusion about the difference between news and entertainment. Otherwise, everything is perfect.

Do I miss it? Oddly, yes, sometimes. When we have major events like Katrina and Rita or a significant betrayal of the public trust by the highly placed, the fire-horse reflexes kick in. Generally, I come back to my senses after a day or two.