[BC] State Licensing

[Fred Gleason]

On Friday 20 May 2005 12:42, Bruce Doerle wrote:
> The only way for broadcast engineers to stay in business and have valuable, 
> meaningful jobs would be for the managers and owners of the stations to care 
> about the station instead of the bottom line, but as long as you have 
> mega-conglomerate broadcasters, it is only the bottom line that counts.   

Uh, the way you 'care about the station' *is* by caring about the bottom line 
-- or you shortly have no station to 'care about'.  Broadcasting is no 
different than any other business in this regard.


> I don't think licensing would solve this problem, but eventually there may
> not be any engineers as we leave the business through normal attrition.
> ?Then the broadcasters may have to pay a decent wage for a scare talent.

This is the normal way that a free society deals with these issues.  Radio 
engineers (tm) are not some special breed uniquely singled out by station 
owners for abuse.  It's the law of supply and demand.  People in *all* 
occupations, ranging from ditch-digging to brain-surgery, end up having to 
deal with this principle.

I suspect that many of us are in this business because of a love of what we 
do, not because it's the highest-paying activity we could find (I know I am).  
That being the case, I accept the fact that part of the 'payment' I receive 
is not in money, but in the sheer fun of what I do.  This is not to say that 
financial issues are unimportant, but it is important to keep things in 
perspective.  If sheer money is one's dominant desire in a job, I would 
suggest that the booming computer field is the place to be, rather than 
broadcasting.  Unless, of course, you're lucky enough to have a job in 
both...  :)

Cheers!


|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Frederick F. Gleason, Jr. | Director of Broadcast Software Development  |
|                           |             Salem Radio Labs                |
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| faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.  Every morning a     |
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|                                   -- Anonymous                          |
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