Layoffs Trim Six From Waitt Radio Networks Staff

Before getting into radio, Kurt Luchs spent 10 years as a comedy writer for The Onion newspaper and "The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn."

But there was nothing funny about what he had to do earlier this week.

The general manager of Waitt Radio Networks' operation in Omaha handed out pink slips Monday, trimming a staff of 22 down to 16.

"I hate to fire people or lay people off," Luchs said. "I've never had to do this with a company before and I've never had to do it like this before."

Waitt is not in any kind of financial trouble, he said, but a business cannot be run inefficiently, either.

"I've had a foot in both the business and creative side," Luchs said. "If something makes business sense, you have to do it. That includes doing the work with the optimum number of people. Strategically, going forward, we needed more flexibility."

Luchs declined to name the six people who lost their jobs, saying only that they were all on-air personalities.

Business Model Was Inefficient
Waitt provides eight music formats (country, oldies, classic rock, adult contemporary, etc.) to radio stations across the country from its studios near 90th & West Dodge Road. Each format utilized as many as five on-air personalities to deliver around-the-clock programming. It was a business model that was inefficient, Luchs said.

"There was a wide disparity in the amount of work each individual person was doing, through no fault of their own," he said. "Some people were doing between 10 and 20 lines (voiceovers between songs and commercials) per hour all the way up to the high end of 40 or 50 per hour."

Following Monday's reorganization, Luchs said each on-air personality will have the same workload.

"Some will do more work than they were doing, others will do less and some will be doing the same," he said.

Stations who subscribe to Waitt's programming will likely notice little difference. If anything, they will benefit from greater flexibility, he said.

"The hallmark of the new work model is the ability to work in multiple formats," Luchs said. "The old model made it very daunting to try a new format. We needed four or five new jocks just to experiment.

"Now (stations) will be able to choose among different announcers in each daypart since each announcer is handling two or three formats."

Employees Given Severance, Eligible For Re-Hire
Luchs said the employees who were let go each received a severance package based on their years of service, plus money equal to one month of COBRA health coverage (that they can spend as they choose). Because they are eligible for re-hire, they are being made aware of job openings in other parts of the NRG Media Inc. organization, he said, and received outplacement service counseling and the opportunity to use Waitt's studios to record airchecks and demo tapes.

Luchs said he would rather not be known as "Ebenezer Scrooge" for those who wonder if there could have been better timing to the layoffs.

"The time to do it is always in question," he said. "If we would have waited until after Christmas, these people would be spending money they wouldn't even know they would not have down the road."