SCA boss John Kelly confirms further redundancies
Southern Cross Austereo made a number of redundancies on Thursday, with SCA’s chief John Kelly informing staff, in an email seen by Mumbrella.
It is understood that roughly 8% of its 1,700-strong workforce have been laid off, with insiders telling Mumbrella the marketing team, regional breakfast shows, and Triple M were hit the hardest by the downsizing.
In the email, Kelly referred to “the challenging economic conditions and structural challenges being experienced by the Australian media industry” in the email, with a pointed remark regarding “recent corporate activity where SCA was the target of other Australian media operators.”
It’s not just SCA or the media industry, but particularly in Australia businesses are run by accountants or ex-accountants or sometimes by ex-Management Consultants (many of whom were once accountants, bankers or engineers). Check out the details of senior execs in any major listed company.
In many cases they don’t have extensive experience of a particular industry apart from the numbers, it’s their broader financial skills that can be applied from place to place. And they get advice on “transformation” from said management consultants who crunch numbers and decide who has to go. So creativity or engaging presentation is not the decider.
Not sure what the process was here, but the modern style of Australian management is particularly stark at Austereo given it was a company that was created and grown by old-school radio people. And now is run by an ex-COO/CFO. Just like the ex CFOs running Seven West, SBS and until recently the ABC.
It’s hard to know if decisions would be different but speaking generally I preferred the older era when people were specialists in an industry not specialists in “skills” that could equally be used to run a supermarket chain, a tractor importer or a bunch of radio licences. Would someone who knows how to appeal to listeners decide that less live and local is the way to go when anyone can listen to a curated or automated playlist through Spotify.
Though I do wonder whether the same applies to more junior roles (do you need experience in media sales to run a radio sales team or is it ok if you used to sell cement b2b)?
I will never listen to mmm again. Luke bona was fantastic, If he pops up again I will surely give him a go. but not mmm. wan kers:::