Johnny B wrote:

dispute involving news staff being asked to work for a day in a sales capacity...'

Resignation over a one day assignment? Seems a bit drastic as well as a solid way to burn an 11-year stint.

If it's a job shadowing thing, then perhaps Mr. Eckford has missed an opportunity to make himself (and the news department as a whole) more valuable to Vista's higher-ups. Versatility matters these days as job numbers continue to shrink. The more you can do, the safer you are. Also, maybe a member of said news department has an interest in the sales side.

If it is a case of getting the news staff to do double duty on an ongoing basis, then that is a problem.

I'm convinced there is more to the story.

Last edited by BoredOp (December 10, 2015 4:20 pm)

I remember a few times when a 'sponsor' would talk about getting favourable coverage because they were buying spots/ads/etc on the station...I fully admit putting sponsors on the radio, talking them up in a good way then taking all kinds of payola for it...dinners, clothes, phone cards, booze, toys, you name it...sales guys loved it too...happy client...most of us already know this and anybody tells you this doesn't happen often is bullshitting to the extreme...so I'm a news guy selling spots...sponsor says hey I'll buy a few but you slip in our sale/event/promo in the body of a cast somehow and get your hosts/jocks to talk us up all nice-like too?...we got a deal, right?

Old Codger wrote:

Peter the K wrote:

But there used to be a time when a newscaster never, EVER did anything outside of news so as not to damage the integrity of the news department.  (Then again, there used to be a time when commercials were played from carts.  )
 

Sorry PtK...I do not see the correlation between the two.  If a station's news department has NO credibility then what's the point?  There is NO point.  The news department is invalid and not worthy of anyone's time or attention.  The news department becomes a millstone around the neck of programming, product and sales.  The station ceases to mean anything in a positive vein.  Profits disappear.  Everyone loses

A station which ceased to play commercials via cart did not sell its soul to the devil by going to the computerized method of running elements on the air.  It did sell its soul to the share holders though...which is a whole diffent devil...when it turfed real people in order to offer the audience the barely acceptable alternative of 'canned nothingness' featuring absolutely nobody at the rudder.


 

Spot on OC. Technology can actually be used to make radio better but that's not what we are seeing. Automation is not new either. There were automated radio formats going back to at least the late 1960's. Just that now too many stations turn into a lifeless juke box during the night and evenings. Not sure but I think Toronto's only FM rock station is on auto-pilot following the afternoon drive show.

Newspeople doing commercials or endorsements always has been against the rules of stations which subscribed to RTNDA and it's current day descendant.  One case involved Ken Shaw doing CFTO News and also shilling on air for the families Car Dealership.  It was a case of "do one or the other, not both."   Some station managers had no ethics and actually told newscasters that commercials and endosements were part of the job.  Another high profile example was Hal Anthony in Ottawa.  When I was hired there, they thought they were going to get another commercial voice along with an AND, Morning Newscaster and Engineer.  I turned them down flat and was criticized for failing to do the manager's bidding.  It also was the only radio station for which I ever worked that had sponsor's advertising on the station's news vehicles and it even was in larger font than the stations call letters and frequency.  Most corrupt radio station for which I ever worked, running bogus "Experts on Call" crap where most of the "callers" were employees of the sponsor and US produced infomercials which already had been found fraudulent in the States as well as commercials and an infomercial for a "gas saver device" which the day before the campaign began had been discredited by the EPA and the Canada Research Council ran on CBC Television.  I complained but the campaign went ahead anyway.  The only time we ever saw salesmen in the newsrooms where I worked and had some say was when they came in to steal the newspapers.   Cheap bastards who made more money than anyone else in the joint wouldn't part with a quarter for a paper.

Last edited by Mike Cleaver (December 11, 2015 3:52 am)

As always, a spot-on observation by OC.  I made numerous enemies among sales managers wherever I worked as a sports director in private radio because I would not play their game.  How could I (or anyone) have any credibility while shilling for a product on the side? 

Last edited by maybo (December 12, 2015 1:17 pm)

wondering if CHCH would still be functioning if staff had worked together on the occasional 1-day marketing blitz