toddcarruth.com

Poor Uncle Barky.  He comes back from vacation and all of a sudden these random commenters start bashing him because he didn’t answer a question about the traffic girl that replaced is auditioning for my previous post at Fox 4.  And then they get mad because he doesn’t respond because he’s trying to get a comment from the news director. And then he uses that question in his blog.

Question: Has Rebecca Flores replaced Todd Carruth on Fox4 in the mornings?
“Anonoymous”

Answer: Carruth recently left Fox4 as the early morning traffic reporter because he said the hours were killing him. Rebecca Flores lately has taken on that task. Says news director Maria Barrs: “Rebecca Flores is a temporary fill-in, but is also a potential candidate for the position.”

Fairly accurate answer however, I do have one slight correction. It wasn’t the hours of the early morning shift that were killing me.  I mean Tim and Megan and Evan and Chip and everybody else can handle it. And do you know why? Because they are done at 1pm! Except for Chip who works a split shift which can wear you down big time.  I worked 4 hours a day. 5 days a week. No paid vacation.  No paid sick time. No personal days.   Sounds like a dream, huh?   Now if I was making six figures working 4 hours a day, I would have kept my mouth shut and counted my blessings every time the alarm clock went off.  But that wasn’t the case.  And so I had to leave downtown Dallas and head up to Irving where I worked full-time for another media company as a creative director until 5pm.  Yep, 12 hours a day. 5 days a week.  Now that will wear you down.  And break up your marriage.

I am going to pull back the curtain a little bit here.  Most people don’t know that I was not employed by Fox. Instead, I worked for a media company that provides traffic and news- both data and people.  In fact, a large percentage of people you hear doing traffic in DFW on the radio (and some tv) are not station employees but instead outsourced.   It’s good for the station because they don’t give out cash…just inventory for the service. It CAN be good for the reporter because there is some stability. If the station goes away, hey, the reporter is still there ready to do traffic or news or whatever for the next station.

The bad is the money.  This is not a good time to be in broadcasting.  Actually, it hasn’t been a good time to be in broadcasting for the past 10 years.   In fact, it’s always been a tough business and there’s always someone younger willing to do the same job for less money.  And in my opinion, the level of what’s acceptable on air has dropped considerably on both TV and Radio.

On the TV side, it’s more national in terms of “I can’t believe she got a job hosting this show, what were they thinking?” Not so much local.  I haven’t even watched any other news team than Good Day and everybody there was a team player and consistently amazed me with their work.

On the radio, I hear DJs in this market that I wouldn’t  put on the air announcing classical cuts at my college station, KTCU FM.   Hey Twister-FM, I’m talking to you.  But then, that’s what you get when you pay $10 an hour for a DJ. You get a $10 an hour sound.  Actually, I think Twister is about to turn into smooth jazz or something like that.

Anyway, i just want to make it clear, it wasn’t the 4 hours in the morning that were killing me. It was the extra 8 hours tacked on that drove this man to drink find another job.

This entry is filed under Fox Me, Life and Whatnot. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.