Shared GMs

Radio News from Ontario

Shared GMs

Postby jon » Sat Mar 31, 2012 9:45 pm

They call them General Managers, but I still call them Station Managers.

Rogers just announced that their GM for all of Atlantic Canada (radio) is moving to Kingston, Ontario, to run the set of stations that Rogers owns there. But he is still going to be responsible for all Rogers stations in Atlantic Canada.

I'll let Dan comment on how many stations Rogers has in Atlantic Canada. But there is something very wrong with having a Station Manager who would have to travel for pretty much a whole day ONE WAY just to visit (some of) the stations he manages. While I admit that we are long past the day when it is a requirement for Station Managers to actually be able to listen to all their stations "off air", but the distances involved in this one is getting to the point of ridiculous.
User avatar
jon
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 9257
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:15 am
Location: Edmonton

Re: Shared GMs

Postby jon » Sun Apr 01, 2012 9:21 am

Some interesting thoughts arrived in my in-box as a result of this post.

Here are two that really caught my eye:
  1. On the TV side, Rogers has gone to Supervisors for many of their TV stations. There is no GM, and the Supervisor must contact Head Office for every decision.
  2. Speculation that Bell will expand the existing TV GM's role to also handle Radio in the same building.
But mostly it is about how much travel a multi-city GM must do, and how hard it is on his family. And on the employees who have to track him down for decisions.
User avatar
jon
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 9257
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:15 am
Location: Edmonton

Re: Shared GMs

Postby PMC » Sun Apr 01, 2012 4:36 pm

jon wrote:But mostly it is about how much travel a multi-city GM must do, and how hard it is on his family. And on the employees who have to track him down for decisions.


Technology has changed things... an employee can send cell phone or desktop camera live images, to see, and hear. A twitter account can reach you, or IM, or regular e-mail. There would be travelling involved, but not as much as expected because of the tech tools used in communication. If all the stations have an internet feed, the manager can listen at random. If the manager has an internal network connection to the corporate network, then s/he could access any computer within the station... assuming it has been designed into the operations... and I would assume so in this one.
PMC
 

Re: Shared GMs

Postby Anotherwpgguy » Sun Apr 01, 2012 10:20 pm

PMC ... you're bang on except for one aspect. You've erroneously thought the GM would actually be listening to the station via internet feed.

My non-current broadcast experience would be to say that all the Sales Mgrs are on speed call, or maybe constant video conference getting updates on the number of successful sales contract closures by the quarter hour.

Programming be damned, they are on the liability side of the ledger.

AWG
User avatar
Anotherwpgguy
Advanced Member
 
Posts: 460
Joined: Sun May 24, 2009 8:46 pm
Location: West of Winnipeg


Return to Ontario

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests