The Infinite Dial

It's a familiar fact for radio people that format changes are sprung not just on listeners, but on staffers as well, and that jocks rarely get a chance to say goodbye. As the St. Louis Post Dispatch points out in an intriguing bit of enterprise this week, Facebook has changed that, allowing the personalities of Urban KATZ (the Beat) St. Louis to post their goodbyes as status updates.

And what did the Beat jocks write? "Just want to thank you for all your years of love and support over my radio career!" "I want to THANK everybody for all the kind words and support." "I have no hard feelings and I thank God for the opportunity." Only one former staffer went as far as bemoaning the state of the format: "We were puppets [to] a system. Years and years of non-support (bootlegging, etc.), has finally caught up. Urban radio is suffering all over."

Facebook could, I suppose, make personalities more diplomatic overall; a potential employer is able to see those comments. But it's worth noting that, in any event, these are not exactly the kind of comments that managers worry about when they decide to keep outgoing personalities far away from the mic.