SMH columnist Mike Carlton may have left radio but he hasn’t vacated the industry altogether. He still revisits it as a topic for his column. On Saturday he foreshadowed a rash of sackings in the industry before Christmas. History and the results of the last survey of the year on December 13 will likely prove him correct.
As Carlton laments, “All in the name of ratings, bloody ratings, but it’s always the on-air talent that cops the blame. Station managers and program executives – many of whom are knaves, fools and poltroons, believe me – survive the carnage.” Read Mike Carlton’s column.
Well, not always. Virtually all of DMG’s program management team and some of their station managers were turned over in the past year.
Perhaps it’s different at the ABC where Carlton recalls this episode, “When I was at 702 a few years ago, they announced to a staff meeting that the budget was stuffed. Cutbacks had been decreed from on high. Either Richard Glover or Jenny Brockie would have to go at year’s end. Impudently, I asked the then boss why it was that ABC managers never got the boot.”
It stands to reason that more announcers would face the sack than managers, after all there’s more of them.
Nonetheless, do you agree with Carlton’s assertions that many station managers and program executives are, “knaves, fools and poltroons” and the notion that on-air staff are often sacrificed to save the skins of senior executives when ratings fall?
Perhaps Mike is forgetting one particular moment in 2UE's history.
I can recall when a certain breakfast presenter, (who was earning a particularly large sum), was languishing in the ratings. Rather than reduce his salary to reflect his poor ratings, or change announcers, Management added a former Wallaby/Fairfax journo for a reported $500k sum. This was much to the dismay of the producers/reporters/researchers who were frustrated at management as they were unable to receive any kid of wage increase from the 40/50k they were earning.