Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Clare FM / KFM.

With the sale of Kildare's KFM to a consortium headed by Clare FM, the first question Ithought of was - will there be job losses?

I have never had too much interest in who owns what or why...I liked to concentrate solely on the on air end of things. However these days, the question of 'who owns' is actually quite important as has been evidenced recently by ClearChannel in the States.
So what have we got here? Clare FM and it's own investors have basically taken the main chunk of the station and the rest has been split between other parties.


They could go the cutbacks route and merge two jobs into one and save money that way, so it was nice to hear Clem Ryan, KFM Station Manager (and now CEO) say that there will be "no job losses and no change to our services".
I know a few people working a t KFM and they are dedicated to the station and have the passion and enthusiasm to make it a longterm major success story. I hope management there take the long view and allow the station develop as a full and vibrant outlet. Voice Tracking and job merging etc saves money in the short term but long term? Well, we know where that can lead.

So fair play to Clem Ryan for making that announcement and I hope things continue that way in the lovely county of Kildare (where I lived for a few years, by the way)!