[BC] Station For Sale on Ebay

[Thomas G. Osenkowsky]

I managed a standalone AM station in a market with 3 other
AM's, NYC AM's, Hartford FM's and two local FM's. A previous
GM had an affair with a young, naive salesperson, another wrote
a letter to a friend at an agency quoting Arbitron numbers in which
he clearly stated he didn't subscribe to Arbitron and could get into
a lot of trouble by writing the letter. Funny how most of the staff had
a copy of the letter and I wonder who sent it to Arbitron. The owner
had been sued several times, financial problems, bouncing
paychecks, etc. The GM who I replaced fired me on a Thursday
evening. I sat in his chair the following Monday morning. One of the
DJ's he hired to do evenings was on a 50% commission basis. He
got 50% of any new business he brought in. He sued on the basis
that he should have been paid minimum wage for acting as the
FCC required Operator On Duty. He won.

It wasn't easy but I turned a monthly profit of at least $2000. I told the
owner I would be responsible for all expenses, but not for prior bank
debts. Eventually, Chase Manhattan forced the station to close as
the owner was not paying down his loan. I had a great staff, we all
had fun and were like family. Was it easy? No. But it was a wonderful
experience and nice to see what it's like to be on the other side of the
desk. I was the GM/PD/MD/Prod Dir/Promo Dir/CE. I had to build
an addition to the closet for all those hats.

Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE

>I'm not that surprised at what happened to the owner.  after spending years
>watching the general manager of a small station barely getting by, no
backup
>tx, relying on vols for night and weekends, theft, forever having to go to
>the bank and renegotiate loans, deadbeat advertisers and block time
>purchasers, daily crisis, people quitting with no notice, etc. etc., i
>concluded being a gm (or ownner) of a small station would put anyone in an
>early grave.    not a job i'd want.