Station Taking A New Direction

I used to work for a Hip Hop station in a fairly decent sized market.  We did not have any direct competition but the market did have a Top 40 station indirectly competing with us.  One day we learned that a new Top 40 station had also emerged in the same market.

I thought it would be a no-brainer to swing the station more Urban since the market was already being flooded with Top 40 music.  Apparently management did not see it that way and leaned the station more Top 40.  To me, this was the dumbest move the company could have done.

So now there were 3 stations playing the same Top 40 crapola in the same city.  I was not happy.  Our imaging claimed we were a Hip Hop station but playing the same crap the real Top 40 stations were playing.  I could not understand the logic behind such a move and it was not long that I voiced how I felt about it.  We were in a programming meeting when I was explaining to the staff how dumb I thought the whole things was.

Someone finally spoke up and told me “You are old school radio, this is new school.  Urban stations now play the Lady Gaga and the Justin Bieber records.  You are too old to understand.”  I was not angry by the comment but also was not happy about it either.

“Is this what the Urban format has been reduced to?  It is situations like this is the direct reason as to why the genre is in the sad shape that it is in.”

Some of the staff looked at me in shock that I was speaking out the way that I was but I did not care.  I had just resigned my contract and I knew if they would fire me over my opinions, they were going to have to pay up.  However there was one thing that I was not telling anyone.  I actually wanted to get fired.  I grew sick and tired of radio.  I wanted to start my own business.  I was tired of working for the man and wanted to do my own thing.  So, I started not to care.

I still performed my job as I was instructed to but I would make sure that I would make snide remarks about how I felt so-in-so had no place on a “Hip Hop” station.  I would also criticize everything.  I was asked repeatedly by management to stop criticizing the station and the music on the air but again, I did not care.

It got to a point where the station had let me go.  This was exactly what I had wanted.  They were forced to pay out my contract.  Now, I had enough start up money to start my own business and that is exactly what I did.  It did not take long for it to become popular and in less than a year I was making more money off my business than I ever was in radio.

You fired me but I won in the end.