If you’re in the media business long enough, you learn not to let yourself ever get too disappointed. People and organizations are going to let you down. It is a natural byproduct of commercializing art. We have ideas and the people willing to pay us for those ideas have financial goals. Part of pursuing a career in any sort of arts-related field is accepting that most of the time, those goals take precedent.
Logic tells you that the broadcast business works because of the talent. Companies and sellers have something valuable to pitch to clients because of what is on the air between the commercial breaks. A part of me wanted to believe that a professional group called the National Association of Broadcasters would put the people behind the mics and in front of the cameras first.
What a sweet, simple boy I can be sometimes.
The power behind the NAB are the multi-market mega corporations that buy up stations they cannot afford and then clean house. It’s the companies that decide a city like New Orleans doesn’t need a local host on their urban station’s afternoon show. There’s a program director already running three stations in our Charlotte cluster that has a southern accent. Why not just add voice tracking the shift to her duties?
Congress was asked to consider doing away with non-compete clauses in our business. I shouldn’t be disappointed that the NAB fired off a letter framing the anti-capitalist practice as “pro competition,” but I am.
I should have alligator skin after 25 years in radio, but I’m disappointed because it confirms all of my worst fears about the broadcasting industry – not the media, mind you, but the broadcasting industry as a whole. Our jobs exist to make the air time between the commercials valuable, but that doesn’t make us valuable to the people that are supposed to have our best interests in mind.
Have you been laid off or fired? Were you expected to honor the non-compete clause in the contract your employer just broke? It’s not just unfair. It seems shitty, right? If the company that had been employing you up until today has a vision of a brighter future that doesn’t include you, why is it so important to them that you not be able to make a living in your industry in your city for another three, six or twelve months?
That’s not pro-competition. In fact, it’s the polar opposite. To frame it any other way is insulting.
Non-competes are just part of my problem. The position the NAB has taken on those is upsetting, but non-competes have been part of the reality of this business for my entire career and probably for at least the majority of the careers of a lot of people reading this. They are an injustice we have grown accustomed to.
What comes next for our industry is going to be genuinely disturbing.
Every industry can recognize benefits and red flags when they evaluate how artificial intelligence will impact businesses. As OpenAI’s products get more and more indistinguishable from human work, more and more jobs are at risk.
Artificial intelligence has already taken away jobs in the broadcasting industry. There are probably at least half a dozen stations in your town that do not have live bodies in their studios at all in certain day parts. Why do they need them when automation exists?
But go to an NAB conference and there are plenty of stories told about companies that saw the benefit of investing in local talent during mid days and nights. There are GMs that can tell you about clients that see the benefit of the connection the mid day guy at the classic rock station has with the blue collar workers that tune in on their lunch breaks. Those listeners have heard “Back in Black” and “Another Brick in the Wall” a million times each. They aren’t putting on The Eagle or The Rock or The Brew to hear those songs. They are tuning in to hear him.
Now we’re being told that that connection isn’t important anymore because Futuri’s RadioGPT is going to give the biggest companies the best of both worlds – full automation with a friendly voice to keep listeners tuned in between Adele songs.
Futuri is billing it as “live, local and powered by AI.” If the last part is true, then the first two cannot possibly be, right?
What is so depressing is that the same companies that pour money into staging those NAB conferences, where those stories of the importance of local, human connection with our audience are told cannot wait for the tech to be perfected.
Sports and talk hosts can be smug. Sure, this is coming for DJs’ jobs first. AI doesn’t have to be perfect to spit out 15-20 seconds about traffic on [insert local highway] or tickets for [concert by popular artist at local venue] going on sale.
Do you think that’s where this is all going to stop? Did Amazon build a website that sold some books, turn a profit and say “ah, good enough!”?
Companies are going to demand Futuri or someone else make this technology better and better until AI can spit out a solid ten minutes on what [local sports team] should do in free agency.
The National Association of Broadcasters should be advocating for BROADCASTERS, but after telling Congress about the benefits our industry gets from keeping talented people out of work, I have no faith it will. That letter showed me that the NAB is so shortsighted that it will advocate for profits over people straight up until the day there is no one left working in the broadcast industry to attend one of their events.
I don’t like it, but I can live with the NAB misleading lawmakers about who non-compete clauses benefit. I expect that. My fear is that the group will advocate its way to its initials standing for No Actual Bodies.
