A guy I know began working for a radio station in a Top 10 market, doing an evening shift.
After his first week at his new station, he hadn’t received any feedback from his program director. So he called the station during the day and was told the PD was in a meeting and would call him back.
The PD didn’t call back, so the jock called him the next day and left another message.
And the next day, with another message.
Finally, just before beginning his show he happened to see the Assistant PD in the hallway.
“Hey, I’ve been calling (PD) all week, and he hasn’t returned any of my calls. Is there something wrong?”
“Oh,” the APD replied, “that’s just (PD); he never returns calls.”
He never returns calls.
Not even from his own jocks.
Mr. Power Trip.
I won’t give you any clues to the PD’s identity, but I’ll tell you one thing about his station:
It’s got terrible ratings. Abysmal. Embarrassingly bad, and it’s been that way for at least as long as this guy has been program director.
Not due to lack of resources; it’s owned by a major station group.
Meanwhile, here’s what Scott Shannon — who’s had far more success than Mr. Power Trip could ever dream of — says in LIVING YOUR DREAMS/PROGRAMMING TO WIN:
“Be nice to people, for God’s sake!
“Don’t give up your character. If you happen to have any values, hang on to them.
“If someone calls me at WPLJ in New York and I’m not in a meeting, I’ll usually take the call. If not, I’ll call them back within 48 hours.
“What I can’t understand is when occasionally I try to call a PD in Phoenix or Duluth, and you know what? He’s not taking calls today.
“So I don’t leave my real name. I leave another name with my number, and the guy never calls me back.
“What’s wrong? Can’t he call somebody back? He’s too busy?
“I really don’t understand that.
“Return your calls!”
Maybe you don’t have the time to return every phone call you receive from a stranger. (Although if you’re programming a radio station, you should schedule the time to return those calls.)
But not to return calls from your own air talent?
Can you say “Little Guy Trying To Act Like A Big Shot”?
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“this person should not be a Program Director”…and yet they’re EVERYWHERE. What are they programming anyway? Voice tracked airshifts with stale, repetitive music selected by Fred Jacobs? Todays PD position requires very little actual radio knowledge, and it shows.
Wow, Dan. Just wow.
This is one reason why I just don’t pursue radio any more–you can’t reach people on the phone, and they won’t call you back. It’s an epidemic of coolness.
I agree that not returning calls to your own employees is rude.
The observation that a program director is just “too cool” or on a power trip because they don’t return a call by a stranger, that one is worth my two cents worth.
I have been the program director at my current job since 1989. That’s a quarter of a century next January. When I became PD, we had two stations, an AM and an FM. Since then, we’ve added four more, including an AM that will hit the air as our sixth in the cluster within weeks.
The economy combined with technology has allowed us (and forced us) to increase the number of stations while drastically decreasing the number of employees. We had more full time jocks here with two stations in 1989 than we do with six today.
What used to be delegated to others is now done by me. What used to be done by me continues to be done by me. There aren’t enough hours in the day to ever feel like I’ve completed any task. Many days, it is all I can do to tread water.
I have to budget my time accordingly. If a person calls me and I have no idea what it’s about, I likely won’t call them back. Especially if I don’t know them.
This is not a power trip. It’s a decision based on time management.
It’s insulting to those of us that work our tail off in the industry today to assume we’ve all got our nose in the air. Programming clusters instead of single stations is more common than you think.
This should be considered before anyone writes opinions of others and tosses all of us into one big bunch.
This same attitude pervades other workplaces. “I’m so busy, I don’t even have time to read, much less reply to, e-mail.”
Be nice to people! Return your calls!
Saw this too many times. Not many people will call you back anywhere these days. Sad.