Again, The Voices Of The People Are Squelched By Corporate Greed

At the end of last year, Madison was rocked when the manglement at WTDY suddenly canned John "Sly" Sylvester without warning and without recourse.

Fortunately, Sly came back on the air at a different station and the left regained their voice in South Central Wisconsin.

Sadly, more voices were squelched in Milwaukee today.  Not just lefty voices, but the voices of the African American community (emphasis mine):

Milwaukee radio station WMCS-AM (1290), which has served the African-American community via talk programs and music for two decades, is changing its programming but the station’s manager declined to disclose on-air plans.

The station began playing all-Elvis Presley music at 10 a.m. Tuesday, signaling the change.

“There will be a format flip,” said Bill Hurwitz, vice president and general manager of the Milwaukee Radio Alliance, which runs the station. “It is a very difficult thing to do, but it is strictly a business decision. Radio stations need to make money and serve the community.”

The most high-profile personality on the station was morning show host Eric Von, who was a host at the station from 2004 through 2009 and returned in 2010. 

Von and all but four members of the WMCS staff have been terminated, Hurwitz said.

Did you notice that making money came before serving the community. That is one of the greatest crises facing this city, this county, this state and this country.

Everything revolves around the Almighty Dollar, and if it doesn't make you enough money, it has to go. It is the rebirth of Ronald Reagan's "Me generation" which is now summarized as "As long as I got mine..."

WMCS also was home to Earl Ingram, who was a great part of the station. My favorite part of it was when he put William T. Harris in his place.

Their voices will be sorely missed and we can only hope that they come back to Milwaukee's airwaves in short order.

Our whole community is a lesser place without them.

WTDY: Under New Manglement

The big news of the day, at least if you live in the Madison area, was the firing of John "Sly" Sylvester and several other staff members at WTDY.

I can not honestly say that I am as upset as some of my friends, but that is mostly because I'm in Milwaukee and had never heard their station or met any of them. That said, I think it's a great loss whenever a voice gets silenced like that.

However, my distance from these events gives me the advantage of an objective view and a chance to see the big picture. Here are some of the things I've noticed.

Scott Wittkopf cited Sly's announcement of his termination from the station:

Message to everybody: I just want to inform you that today was my last day of employment at WTDY. After 15 years, I was told that my services were no longer needed. I would like to thank everybody that’s supported my program. It’s been a pleasure to share this wonderful experience with you. I need to take a big deep breath this weekend and figure out what my future plans are. But, old Winter Soldiers NEVER DIE, and I look forward to letting you know what lies ahead. Solidarity!

-SLY

That, in my humble opinion, is class. He was direct, and he was upbeat even though his heart must have been breaking. After all, the man had been with the station for fifteen years, which is forever in radio time.

Then again, Sly's positive message could be because they could not make any negative comments about the station, lest they lose their severance package, as reported by Emily Mills. How that's not extortion, I don't know. But it might be the norm for the radio/TV business.

As one would expect, the right wingers were celebrating eight more people losing their jobs the day before Thanksgiving.

Kevin Binversie, a propagandist in the Kochs' employment, and Owen Robinson, an AFP zombie, both stated the change in format was because of low ratings, even though neither one of them offered any proof for their scurrilous remarks.

They offer no proof because they have none. They have no proof because it's not true.

Here's a few things to keep in mind.

If a radio station is going to change formats, this is the time of year they usually do so.

As noted above, Sly has been doing this gig for 15 years, they don't get rid of them at a drop of the hat for ratings. It would take something really egregious.

Furthermore, their ratings weren't low. Wittkopf quoted another WTDY staffer who was fired, Crystal McKenzie Parker, who said that their ratings were the best in 10 years. The last two years of the illegal and unethical behaviors of the Republicans is fodder for shows like Sly's, so it is more likely true that they have had higher ratings.

While it's true that ratings correlate with how much a station can charge for ad time, it's also true that ratings don't necessarily mean a change in format. If radio stations were only interested in revenue, Clear Channel would have dropped Rush Limbaugh long ago. Limbaugh's history of over the top sexist and racist remarks is having such a negative effect on revenue that it is starting to hurt stations that don't even carry him:

Doug Stephan, president of Stephan MultiMedia and host of the nationally syndicated “Good Day” program, had this to offer:

Let’s face it, the agencies and advertisers are how we survive. So to tell them that their clients are stupid for not staying in an atmosphere in which they don’t want to be is akin to the Republicans not reading the tea leaves about changing demographics.

I’m not here to argue the point, but rather to tell you what this ONE incident has cost me as an independent in a sea of big corporate operators, who are obviously losing tens of millions of dollars due to this one event.

So far this year, my losses are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cancellations, avoidance and decisions to just not buy across the whole format, no matter what the content...

I’m not looking for Limbaugh to send me a check (although that would be nice), but I do think we have to let it be known that his actions have been devastating to our survival.

The real reason for the change has to do with two things.

One, they just brought in a new general manager in June. Odds are that this pinhead was brought in to be a hatchet man or he wanted to make a name for himself by being "bold."

Secondly, the new format will be sports talk, relying heavily on a national feed. This is the radio version of a Bain-type of outsourcing. But the experienced and more costly staff and ship the work to somewhere else where they'll do it much cheaper. Then the general manager can point to the higher profits and try to cover up the lower ratings.

The investors will be happy raking in the higher profit and won't know about the ratings until it's too late.

On an end note, I just wanted to point out the biggest ass regarding this whole affair. No, it's not Brett Hulsey either.

It's the Las Vegas Badger, who was not satisfied with the crew getting fired on the day before Thanksgiving, but wished that Sly had a fatal accident:

To [sic] bad this thug didn't accidentally touch any electrical lines that power the radio tower as he left the building for the last time.

No wonder the right is against anyone but them. It's the only way that that buttheads like this, who aren't worth the time of day, can get anyone to pay attention to them.