powerbelly said:

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amg405 said:

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Just checking to remind everyone how trash the Ticket is now. Radio is dead.

Top 5 sports podcasts are all better every. single. day. than the Ticket.

Try Pardon My Take for a week and tell me it isn't 100% better than the Ticket.

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All the barstool stuff is so bad.

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I've never listened to any of the barstool stuff so I can't comment on that but for anyone who is not a longtime P1 I would venture to say the ticket is so bad.

Outside of Bob (and Jake specifically talking NBA) the sports talk (or any topic where you have even a passing knowledge of) emanating from the ticket on a daily basis is about the lowest rung imaginable and it's gone sharply downhill the last 2+ years. The one thing they always had going for them from an entertainment standpoint is how non-PC they were. They were funny so you overlooked their glaring shortcomings. Then they all somehow turned into PC principal over the past two years and I sometimes wonder about the super fanboys on this thread that still listen all day, every day and defend the station. Have they ever listened to anything else?

WC87 said:

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I always thought the Tier 1 talk was incredibly condescending and I know in my line of work could violate HR policy. Can you imagine openly discussing grouping of employees in tiers, and then doing that on air? And I'm not talking exempt vs non-exempt. Slotting a coworker with a Tier 4 tag and yourself as Tier 1 would never fly at my company. We all know employees are in pay bands but that's not open discussion fodder, and certainly not broadcast to the world.

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actually based on dan's interactions with julie i would say there are definitely things you CAN say on air that wouldn't fly in normal interaction.

While I am sure that Sirois' popularity was a reason why he got so much live spot and ad work, and I am also fairly sure that his scale was probably significantly lower than "tier 1" when it came to that kind of stuff. to paraphrase Danny, I bet Sirois was the perfect "large pizza at a medium price" when it came to that kind of stuff.

Phat32 said:

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AgGrad99 said:

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Are there Tiers on the station? Sure...just like there are within every organization that existed in history. But most of us wouldn't walk around talking about it, or pointing it out to our co-workers, like Junior does. That's very Chris-Chris of him.

Curious if Junior continues to mention the Tiers, now that he knows it's so offensive to the others.

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Correct. Every organization has them, but I don't belittle those beneath my tier publicly. May have been cute at first but they clearly didn't find it funny anymore.

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Yea, it's the epitome of punching down when it comes from Junior.

Also the one big flaw in Junior's tier system is only having Tier 2 unoccupied. Based on recent pay scale revelations I would say it's more accurate that Tier 2, 3, and 4 are all unoccupied and maybe the rest of station people start trickling in around Tier 5.

I heard that Mike was making $45k but they gave an idiot $250k.

Dont know if it was Jake or Corby.

The Ticket is going to "Rue the Day!"...

MW03 said:

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While I am sure that Sirois' popularity was a reason why he got so much live spot and ad work, and I am also fairly sure that his scale was probably significantly lower than "tier 1" when it came to that kind of stuff. to paraphrase Danny, I bet Sirois was the perfect "large pizza at a medium price" when it came to that kind of stuff.

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Maybe.

But there is a reason he was in such high demand, and not Jeremy or Mino, etc.

MW03 said:

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While I am sure that Sirois' popularity was a reason why he got so much live spot and ad work, and I am also fairly sure that his scale was probably significantly lower than "tier 1" when it came to that kind of stuff. to paraphrase Danny, I bet Sirois was the perfect "large pizza at a medium price" when it came to that kind of stuff.

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They kinda talked about this a bit on Saturday night. How The Ticket advertise their producer positions as on-air personalities, which can be a pretty cool incentive when you are up-and-coming in the radio business ("I get to be on the radio!").

But then that incentive evolves over time as the producers grow more popular because they are on-air personalities while still getting paid the same as a producer at another station who may not be an on-air personality.

So a person may initially prefer the job over another radio job because of the opportunity to be on-the-air but then could potentially grow to resent it as they grow to believe they aren't adequately paid for pulling a double duty of sorts. The whole large pizza for medium pizza price thing.

AgLaw said:

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dcAg said:

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I heard that Mike was making $45k but they gave an idiot $250k.

Dont know if it was Jake or Corby.

The Ticket is going to "Rue the Day!"...

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I've been wondering how much - if any - of this is tied back to Jake being "out" earlier in the spring. Pretty sure he was holding out for more money. If he's the idiot referenced above, I can see why guys like Danny and Sirois would just say F it and take off.

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He has confirmed that it was a contract holdout on IJB.

What sucks about the apparent lack of funds to pay on-air talent is that I don't really see a way to remedy it with more money (unless executives/Tier 1 hosts are really hoarding a massive chunk of the pie and not sharing) since radio listenership and ad revenue is only going one direction: down.

As a consumer, would you be willing to tolerate/pay for:

1) A monthly subscription to a premium version of the SportsDay app with the ability to rewind more than 1 hour
2) An official Ticket archive that let you listen to any segments from the past 7 or 30 days
3) Shorter commercial breaks but replaced with more live spots/plugs DURING segments like they used to do on TV back in the 60s and 70s. In other words, read 2 stories for Muse in the News but then stop to do a live read before proceeding with another story.

I also think they should reduce all the weekend shows to 1 hour back-back from 8-noon on Saturday morning, then just simulcast whatever live sports are happening after that. If the producers/Tier 3 guys can't fill 1 hour a week with riveting (or even listenable, if we're honest) content, they should be kept on a very short leash and cycled through until they can find someone else with potential.

(By the way, if your answer to most/all of the above is "no," then you can see the predicament Cumulus is in).

Quote:

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What sucks about the apparent lack of funds to pay on-air talent is that I don't really see a way to remedy it with more money (unless executives/Tier 1 hosts are really hoarding a massive chunk of the pie and not sharing) since radio listenership and ad revenue is only going one direction: down.

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It's an interesting "sports adjacent" question: would anyone at the ticket take a hometown discount a la Dirk to make sure that the bench and supporting cast can be stronger? My guess is no, because they aren't chasing championships. In the end, it's a job like any other. One of the perks they all enjoy is that they love going to work. Lots of people work lots of jobs making less money than they could elsewhere because they love what they do. When that love is outweighed by salary concerns or what they want from life, they move on. We can all agree that it's short-sighted of cumulus because they are losing talent, but we also don't know how strapped that company actually is. Like this post I quoted mentions, terrestrial radio isn't the money maker it once was. Maybe they legitimately can't pay substantially more for these positions.

I think they are constrained by corporate. Most producers under the cumulus umbrella are probably $45k guys.

just a passing reference but no surprise that dan was the one to even acknowledge on air this happened.

MW03 said:

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Quote:

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What sucks about the apparent lack of funds to pay on-air talent is that I don't really see a way to remedy it with more money (unless executives/Tier 1 hosts are really hoarding a massive chunk of the pie and not sharing) since radio listenership and ad revenue is only going one direction: down.

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It's an interesting "sports adjacent" question: would anyone at the ticket take a hometown discount a la Dirk to make sure that the bench and supporting cast can be stronger? My guess is no, because they aren't chasing championships. In the end, it's a job like any other. One of the perks they all enjoy is that they love going to work. Lots of people work lots of jobs making less money than they could elsewhere because they love what they do. When that love is outweighed by salary concerns or what they want from life, they move on. We can all agree that it's short-sighted of cumulus because they are losing talent, but we also don't know how strapped that company actually is. Like this post I quoted mentions, terrestrial radio isn't the money maker it once was. Maybe they legitimately can't pay substantially more for these positions.

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I watched the Gordon/Mike Saturday night Twitch and the brief pre-break segment Mike and Cash did on ONE T1ME Sunday afternoon where the "broke down the film" from Saturday night.

Your point I bolded above is the point I think Mike was kinda/sorta trying to make. If the Little Ticket was still the Little Ticket I think they would be taking care of their own. But they aren't the Little Ticket. They're a Cumulus Media Station. And Cumulus Media Stations have a Corporate Pay Chart/Structure for various positions they apply to all their stations, regardless of how much those holding said positions "contribute" on the air.
But at some point, paying your dues doesn't pay your bills, so you move on. He mentioned he was a finalist to replace Danny, but turned it down because the time commitment would mean he couldn't work gigs at The Well Creative any more and the (slight) pay bump would mean an overall pay CUT.
I sincerely hope he can come back and do Boom in the House full time with Donovan someday but until then I think he'll do fine with Cash & Co.

That's all true, but even most corporations recognize the benefit of keeping talented employees around and compensate them accordingly.

It sounds like there isnt much between entry-level and on air talent, salary-wise. That's not a recipe for success. It's kind of amazing they've held onto the talent they have, for so long.

The only positive is I know that Fernando probably doesn't make $50k. And, I guess I have to admit that just makes me smile.

Also, makes me sad that Jer probably did have to spend all of his money on Wrestlemania... perhaps Cash hooked him up.

Didn't Mikey just get back from like a 2 week vacation in Italy? Not sure how he afforded that on a $45k salary but I do love him using all his PTO before resigning.

Been listening to the twitch stream throughout the day, and yall weren't kidding about this being uncomfortable. I think Gordon got a little offended.

Spaceship said:

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Didn't Mikey just get back from like a 2 week vacation in Italy? Not sure how he afforded that on a $45k salary but I do love him using all his PTO before resigning.

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My guess is that Cash covered a chunk and then credit cards the rest. And those credit card bills coming due may have played a role in timing