As we head into the holiday weekend, families are getting together. So, I thought I would share a family story about my Uncle “Big Tom Callahan” and my cousin “Little Tommy.” If you’ve ever spent time around the Callahan side of my family tree, you know we are a loud, passionate bunch. Who built a legacy on making quality auto parts in Ohio and treating our workforce like family. My uncle “Big Tom” was a force of nature who led with his heart. Tommy, despite his habit of setting model airplanes on fire or driving a Plymouth Satellite into a ditch, ultimately understood that a brand is absolutely nothing without the actual people who keep the lights on.
But every great heritage brand eventually runs into a Ray Zalinski.
You know the character Dan Aykroyd played so perfectly. The self-proclaimed “Auto Parts King” who stands in front of an American flag and look-at-me graphics, smooth-talking the audience by saying he makes parts for the American worker “because that’s what I am.” He positions himself as the ultimate champion of the consumer, yet he doesn’t care about the actual components, the craftsmanship, or the people sweating on the factory floor. He just cares about the logo on the box. He’s perfectly fine selling a guarantee with no substance as long as the marketing looks clean. Okay, by now you may have figured out the Toms aren’t really family, but hear me out.
The Corporate “Thud”
That exact Zalinski gymnastics routine was on full display recently. When the internal memos floated through the industry detailing the latest round of iHeartRadio layoffs, the corporate-speak attempted the ultimate pivot. The messaging was wrapped in a bow of “evolution” and “future-proofing,” explicitly claiming that these difficult organizational shifts would ultimately benefit the larger ecosystem, the product, and the consumers.
It fell with an absolute thud. It wasn’t buyable.
When you tell an air-staff, a cluster, or an industry that you are stripping away local, human capital to “benefit” the brand, you are putting a shiny guarantee on an empty box. The audience isn’t stupid. They can tell the difference between a station anchored by a living, breathing companion who lives in their zip code and a voice-tracked utility line piped in from three time zones away. In short, you cannot spin a loss of local connection as an upgrade for the listener.
The Data Disconnect
What makes this corporate playbook so baffling is that it flies directly in the face of every single piece of industry research we possess. Well, not that baffling I suppose. It’s about money.
Pick up any recent Techsurvey, Edison report, or dashboard study. The data is entirely unanimous: human talent is radio’s ultimate moat. Listeners tune into local radio for the companionship, the local context, the personalities, and the shared community experience.
So, how does this math work? How do we look at mountains of data proving that talent is the single most critical asset for securing our place in modern listening, and still conclude that the best way to move forward is to cut them?
When you strip out the quality inside the box just to save on production costs, you might save a buck this quarter. But eventually, the consumer buys the part, the car breaks down, and they never trust the logo again. Likewise, when we strip the human element out of our radio stations, we don’t optimize the brand — we just give the driver another reason to plug their phone in and leave us behind.
A Call for Compassion
Now we need to talk about the human cost.
This week, a lot of incredibly talented, dedicated, and hard-working broadcasters found out their livelihoods were eliminated via a cold notification, a few while on vacation. These are people who woke up early, stayed late, emceed the local charity events, and poured their souls into those call letters. They didn’t do anything wrong. They just caught the bad end of a corporate weather shift.
To everyone impacted by these cuts: please know that this is a reflection of a broken system, not your worth or your talent. Our industry needs your voices, your creativity, and your passion now more than ever, even if the current corporate structures don’t know how to properly value them.
As we head into this holiday weekend to spend time with the people who matter, let’s make sure we are reaching out to our peers who are navigating these tough waters right now. Let’s look out for our own.
My Uncle “Big Tom” and Little Tommy knew that a business is only as strong as the people who build it. It’s time the rest of the industry remembered the same thing.
Lastly, I am sorry if you hate the movie analogy. However, I almost wrote this one about an episode of the Twilight Zone (a show released many years before I was born) called “To Serve Man.” Ultimately, that one was about aliens that appeared to solve all of humanity’s problems. It turns out that their manual “To Serve Man” was ultimately a cookbook with humans on the menu.
If you were (to use their word) “impacted” by these moves and I can help, please use the contact info below.
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As the Executive Director of Programming & Operations for Pamal Broadcasting, Kevin Callahan oversees 25 stations across five markets, including the company’s four Country brands. An award-winning brand specialist, Kevin is a passionate advocate for talent development, dedicated to mentoring personalities and restoring our medium to its most vibrant, high-impact form. His career is highlighted by 12 years as Audacy’s West Coast Regional VP of Programming for the Country format, where he managed premier brands across major markets including San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix, Riverside and more. Today, Kevin balances his corporate leadership with his role as President of Sonic Maple Media, serving as a fractional executive advisor to broadcast leadership and fractional programmer and talent coach to broadcasters nationwide. He can be reached at kevin@pamal.com
