The first sign that our meteoric success was short lived came a week before Christmas when Bob instructed me to “layoff” two of my people (he also canned one salesman and two engineers). First I was totally taken by surprise! “Bob why - I thought we were doing so well?” He replied, “Our programs are great - but our budget isn’t.” (Bob always referred to a budget that no one in the management of the station has ever seen - since the beginning I couldn’t budget my programming expenses or future plans. I just filled the schedule and never signed a contract or knew how much money Bob had bartered or negotiated. After the bad news sunk in my astonishment turned to anger that I contained because I had learned that Bob was famous for punching associates in the mouth or disagreed with him. I returned to my office to decide who must go - by the deadline that was set by our fearless leader Frank - the weekend before Christmas, no less.
After much angst and review of crazy scenarios of how my staff would perform at the level that was expected. At the end of the day I called the two last hires that I had made for my team - a young production crew assistant (abiding by the last in first out rule) and after a giant argument with my news director - his secretary/newscast production assistant (who happened to be one of our owners daughter. When there was never a “peep” about this I knew our smooth sail was about to weather a Nor’easter. In my TV life I had never fired a full-time staff person and found this to be one of my hardest act in my entire work life. After the first meeting, the word spread immediately and the rest of the morning I had a visit from every production team member before I invited them to reassure them that “all is well.” Firing was hard - lying afterward is almost as horrible.
As the New Year progressed Bob shared much more with me about how bad things were. He indicated that our mystery budget was $1.2 million for the first year (in fact we made $975,000 which turned out to be a bit short. The cuts continued. And on a beautiful spring day I returned from a breakfast meeting and found a person changing the locks on the back staff door of our studio. As I walked down the hall I met our news director who said, “Better get any stuff you want because the building is in receivership and we all have been told to vacate by noon. I was in totally shock. I quickly gathered several of my demo tapes, some files and a videotape copy of my favorite film - It’s a Wonderful Life. (Years later I regretted that I didn’t take some of the original advertising photos, etc. that were included in the classic films I had programmed - I would have made a ton on eBay for these artifacts of the Golden Age of Movies.)
I never spoke to any of our owners again. At noon that day my one year “grand Titanic ride” hit a massive financial iceberg and came to an abrupt and final end. All I could say was, "That is was a good journey while it lasted."
(I learned years later that our demise happened because our “budget projection” was based on advertising produced for each casino that would provide a minimum of $50K in yearly net income - the reality, all of the casinos combined didn’t reach that “bogey” for our first year - and that miscalculation sealed our fate and the fate of many other businesses that thought gambling in AC would finally become the fading resort’s “golden goose”)
After much angst and review of crazy scenarios of how my staff would perform at the level that was expected. At the end of the day I called the two last hires that I had made for my team - a young production crew assistant (abiding by the last in first out rule) and after a giant argument with my news director - his secretary/newscast production assistant (who happened to be one of our owners daughter. When there was never a “peep” about this I knew our smooth sail was about to weather a Nor’easter. In my TV life I had never fired a full-time staff person and found this to be one of my hardest act in my entire work life. After the first meeting, the word spread immediately and the rest of the morning I had a visit from every production team member before I invited them to reassure them that “all is well.” Firing was hard - lying afterward is almost as horrible.
As the New Year progressed Bob shared much more with me about how bad things were. He indicated that our mystery budget was $1.2 million for the first year (in fact we made $975,000 which turned out to be a bit short. The cuts continued. And on a beautiful spring day I returned from a breakfast meeting and found a person changing the locks on the back staff door of our studio. As I walked down the hall I met our news director who said, “Better get any stuff you want because the building is in receivership and we all have been told to vacate by noon. I was in totally shock. I quickly gathered several of my demo tapes, some files and a videotape copy of my favorite film - It’s a Wonderful Life. (Years later I regretted that I didn’t take some of the original advertising photos, etc. that were included in the classic films I had programmed - I would have made a ton on eBay for these artifacts of the Golden Age of Movies.)
I never spoke to any of our owners again. At noon that day my one year “grand Titanic ride” hit a massive financial iceberg and came to an abrupt and final end. All I could say was, "That is was a good journey while it lasted."
(I learned years later that our demise happened because our “budget projection” was based on advertising produced for each casino that would provide a minimum of $50K in yearly net income - the reality, all of the casinos combined didn’t reach that “bogey” for our first year - and that miscalculation sealed our fate and the fate of many other businesses that thought gambling in AC would finally become the fading resort’s “golden goose”)
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