That's Why They Call It Broadcasting

Think your job as a disc jockey or announcer has been whittled down to a few Breaks? Can you see the writing on the wall? Yes, there will be a day when you might be replaced by yourself (or your virtual self) for less or no money at all.

Voice tracking, streaming audio, and pod casting are all tearing at the traditional seams of what makes us broadcasters. The fault: corporations can cut millions of dollars off their bottom line. Meanwhile, our professional earth is quaking.

I chair AFTRA’s local broadcast steering committee. Our goal is to stay aware of the changes that are coming and try our best to assist in protecting members’ financial interests.

Some say that voice tracking is the wave of the future and it is here to stay. The companies spent hundreds of thousands to buy and install the technology, which is efficient and effective, but still relatively new. What we don’t hear is why broadcast companies are refusing to pay for the ability to play your voice as if it were live. Every consultant, engineer and tech support person was paid to make voice tracking a reality. But you, the talent --the voice-- are told that you won’t be paid extra as along as you track during your regular shift. Most AFTRA contracts have no language pertaining to or using the term voice tracking. Management would have you believe that this battle is over, but they have to negotiate with AFTRA about voice tracking and other ways to use our services. At AFTRA, the fight is just beginning. The only way we can lose is if we give it away.

Make sure AFTRA knows of any and all circumstances where you are being asked to compromise your position and career by voice tracking. I was even told how “cool” it would be to listen to your own radio show while you are running errands on the weekend. I replied that the only thing I would feel is a sinking feeling, knowing I’m hearing my show, that thousands of dollars in commercial money are flowing by and I am working like a high school intern, for free. Yes, you are helping the company. But remember that they’ll repay you by trying to further cut your salary at your next contract meeting. Remember that.

Streaming audio. Sexy. Cool. Wave of the future. Now. This is even more devious because not only are you being told to give your program content up for free, but now your show can be sold to a sponsor for webcasting and the screen can be sold like print ads for additional revenue which AFTRA has no control over at this time. You make exactly nothing. Finally pod casting. Any dork with a mic and a computer can blather about anything. Hey wait a minute. That’s the secret to my show!!!

Seriously, what if your station’s marketing department hires an unskilled “marketing director” to host a pod cast to play back highlights of your show that’s been taken off your original web-cast? The company makes money, the marketing geek remains a marketing geek and you get NOTHING.

At AFTRA, locally and nationally, we are working to make this a fair fight where we don’t have winners and losers but sharers in this great new technology. Please contact me through the AFTRA office when you have questions or problems about all broadcast horrors. Don’t give anything away. Question everything that doesn’t make sense. If anyone asks you to “choose now before you leave this office” make a call. 412-281-6767. Uh, the voice machine may pick up but rest assured Mark Roberts is being paid handsomely for his services. My best to all of you, my brothers and sisters.

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A Living Wage for Downtown Workers

Thousands come to downtown Pittsburgh to earn a living, see our teams, and enjoy first class entertainment. Despite the proliferation of suburban malls, downtown is still our region’s economic life blood. Especially visible this year downtown are workers with strike signs—janitors outside office buildings, attendants at parking garages, and, most recently, musicians in tuxedos picketing the Ballet. What’s going on? Strikes are quite rare these days. What makes these folks forsake a paycheck to trudge in protest? The underlying issues aren’t always voiced or reported. Observers may think it’s business as usual. In fact, our city (downtown especially) is at the crux. How it plays out, I believe, affects not only the vast majority of average working people, but our jobs and our income, too.

The big picture is clear. Since the mills closed, our local economy has stagnated. The income and jobs that have been generated are in banking, health care, service, government, some high tech, and, yes, entertainment and media. Much of this economic activity is located and directed from downtown Pittsburgh.

Workers who support downtown business --janitors, parking attendants, bus drivers, government clerks—unlike local workers in manufacturing and industry, have managed to keep their jobs and, in many cases, their unions. Though historically low wage, these $8 to $12 per hour jobs with benefits opened the door to the middle class. Equally important, affordable health care meant family security.

However, in recent years, service jobs with benefits have come under attack. Some corporate managers look with envy to other cities where non-union, minimum wage immigrant workers are employed. Angry homeowners, struggling with escalating property and bloated parking taxes, cannot bear the burden, and opportunistic politicians blame the victims. A basic job is branded a luxury.

If our city cannot support living wage service jobs with benefits, our economy, weak as it is, will truly hemorrhage. Who will buy the goods and services? Who can afford the healthcare co-pays and deductibles? Who will have money to bank? Who will buy the sports and theater tickets?

Enter the gambling/gaming industry. By next year, the City will host at least one, probably two, slots parlors. There will be several thousand new service jobs. Will they pay a decent wage? Not if the union standard is eroded.

That’s why I believe supporting janitors, the parking attendants, the stagehands, and the symphony musicians in their fight to preserve living wage jobs with
benefits is paramount. We should work with other
unions to keep good jobs. If we can’t to this, our jobs are not far behind in the race to the bottom.

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Be Part of the Growth...

How many times have you heard the old rule: “…never volunteer for anything…”?
Normally, it’s a pretty good idea. But, let me take my tongue out my cheek long enough to tell you that there’s nothing better than knowing you’re doing something positive for the craft we all love and want to see grow. The good news is, we all have that opportunity. Here’s the skinny.

Our local has a few standing committees that need us to ‘help us help ourselves.’ Real results are
possible. The best part is how little time is needed to bring about those results. We can raise the amount of available work in the region exponentially in the next couple of years if we would just devote a few hours to making it happen.

For example, how many of us have been told by one of the talent agents, casting directors or production houses to get a new headshot if we want to get more work? And we know it’s true. Every time you update your headshot, the decision-makers in the biz take a fresh look at you. But, that fresh perspective comes at a price. Usually close to $250 before you have what you need. Members of the Conservatory Committee got together one evening in October and brainstormed a few ideas. One was to get ten or twenty members who need a fresh headshot together with a great photographer and make-up person for a day or two. It’s going to cut the cost of getting a new headshot by about $100.00. Not a bad deal the committee came up with while drinking beer and brainstorming and still getting home in time for Monday Night Football. (You made it home in time for the game, didn’t you Dave?)

Committee work is an essential part of keeping our local strong and vital. It’s no drudgery; the time commitment involved is fairly minimal. Most committees meet every other month for anywhere from sixty to ninety minutes, (except for the three months of summer when we take a hiatus.) You can figure on three hours of interesting stuff per month in-between meetings to accomplish. So, do you think you can spend an hour networking with some people in your business every eight weeks or so; and, put about an hour per week into helping to create work for yourself? It’s also a chance for you to make your opinion make progress. Committee membership is open to all full members not just members of the board.

Give me a call about The Freelance Steering Committee, The Conservatory Committee or, maybe for you party animals, The Annual Awards Committee. Broadcasters can sit on committees other than just the Broadcast Steering Committee. This is our union to foster for our own benefit.

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Negotiations

Settlements are in the offing at WEAE Radio (ESPN 1250), WPXI-TV, and WTOV-TV. In national talks with ABC, a compromise was reached on disciplinary language. That removes the last barrier at ESPN locally. At WPXI, the final issue is a fee for on-call rotation assignments. At WTOV in Steubenville, the parties are down to scale increases reflecting the cost of living.
Stalemates with CBS/Viacom/Infinity in separate negotiations covering KDKA-TV, KDKA-AM, and FM music stations WDVE, WZPT, and WRKZ continue. Federal mediators have been engaged to assist the parties.
Contract renewal talks covering the announcers and support staff at KQV Radio have begun.

Grievances and Arbitration
Arbitrator Shyam Das’s decision on a terminated anchor’s notice and severance pay is due in several months. The hearing was held in September. An arbitrator has been chosen to hear AFTRA claim for notice and severance pay for a terminated disk jockey. In both cases, the union assisted the grievants in winning unemployment compensation over Company objections.
AFTRA successfully grieved for short-term disability benefits for an announcer about to take family and medical leave. The benefits were originally denied by the Company. An overnight disk jockey who was given the opportunity to “audition” for two months in a day shift position won the pay differential after the union intervened.

Progress Against Non-competes
Members in Pittsburgh recently met with State Senator Sean Logan, a co-sponsor of SB #442. Logan is on the Senate Labor and Industry Committee. AFTRA members in Philadelphia will meet with two other Senate Committee members.

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News Feature Award Winner to be Showcased

Pittsburgh AFTRA is proud to present “Young, Gifted and Black: Pittsburgh’s African American Achievers”, the WPXI documentary news feature which won AFTRA’s American Scene Award at the 2005 national convention in Los Angeles. The program will air at the Local member meeting on November 14. (See box on back page. ) WPXI veteran reporter and AFTRA Board member Dee Thompson will host and give special recognition to the show’s producer, Robin Beckham.

“I’m thrilled that the good work of my station has been recognized nationally,” says Thompson, who encouraged the submission to the awards competition. “Ours was one of only four such awards given.” At the convention, Thompson accepted the award on behalf of WPXI General Manager Ray Walker.

The half-hour program, hosted by Channel 11 news anchor David Johnson, focused on three Pittsburghers who have achieved local and national acclaim. Pittsburgh native Lamman Rucker (“All My Children”) and McKeesport’s own WNBA basketball star Swin Cash are profiled along with Dr. Dwight Heron, a renowned radiation oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Heron’s story, reported by Vince Sims, entertains the doctor’s ambition to someday become America’s surgeon general.

AFTRA’s American Scene Award was created to honor groundbreaking work, imagination, and talent that reflect the diversity of our society. The awards underscore AFTRA’s on-going commitment to increasing employment opportunities for its diverse membership.

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Ed Schaughency

Edwin Schaughency, better known to thousands of Pittsburgh area listeners for almost fifty years as “Uncle Ed’, was an early radio legend. He started as an intern at KDKA in 1932 shortly after graduating from high school in his hometown of Beaver, PA, and quickly went from doing skits on the “Kiddies Club Show” to full-time announcing. By 1936 he was one of the most popular radio personalities in town and in 1938 he took over the early morning drive spot on KDKA with “The Musical Clock” which delighted audiences for 16 years. Ed wasn’t just another disc jockey. He was a Pittsburgh institution. Between records he dispensed down-home humor in a relaxed style, commenting on topics of the day he bantered with a comic sidekick, Elmer “Rainbow” Waltman. There was usually more talk than music but the audience loved it. Listeners often said Ed was like a member of the family to them. He also made frequent personal appearances at schools and clubs as host of variety shows he produced, using all local talent. When Pittsburgh’s first TV station went on the air, Ed was invited to emcee the inaugural show, even though he didn’t work at that station.

As radio changed in the 50’s, Ed was replaced by a younger personality and moved to an afternoon slot. After two years, despite thousands of protest letters from his fans, he was switched to an unfamiliar role as a newscaster. But again he continued to be as popular as ever, giving his own personal touch to the news, a la Paul Harvey. He retired in 1980. During his entire career of 48 years he had worked for only one radio station.

Ed was dedicated to AFTRA. He was a charter member of the local when it was formed in 1942 and served on the very first board of directors, continuing to serve as an officer and board member until his retirement. Ed always was concerned about the problems of younger AFTRA members and he frequently offered them advice and help. When he finally left the airwaves he was honored with a special tribute at the local’s Awards Dinner. He died in 1990.

Ed Schaughency once said, “The radio personalities who have lasted are those who endear themselves to people. In this business, warmth is the most important quality. ”

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