Less than five months after joining the Radio Advertising Bureau as its #2 executive, Erica Farber is taking over the top spot as President and CEO. Jeff Haley, who has held those posts for five years, is “leaving to pursue a new opportunity.”
“Erica is an excellent selection with the relevant skills and expertise to lead the RAB. She brings an impressive track record in radio sales and management. In addition, Erica has a clear understanding of the organization and what the broadcast industry requires from the RAB. She has demonstrated a strong capacity of working with multiple constituencies which is critical to the RAB role,” said a statement from RAB Board Chairman Scott Herman, Executive VP, Operations, CBS Radio.
“We thank Jeff for his guidance and leadership the past five years in helping to shape an organization that fits the radio and media landscape today. He’s left an indelible imprint on the industry and we thank him for his service and commitment,” added Herman.
The board chairman took issue with RBR-TVBR’s original story, which said that Haley was “ousted” from RAB. Herman insisted that Haley had the “complete confidence” of the board, but chose to leave to pursue a new venture.
RAB has gone through several years of financial and staff reorganizations, not to mention ending its own annual conference to merge it with the NAB confab as a joint Radio Show. As reported by RBR-TVBR, RAB has been cutting expenses – but revenues have been falling faster.
Farber is well known in radio. She was the Publisher and CEO of Radio & Records, now defunct, after serving in various capacities at Interep, also now a piece of radio history. She is a director of Arbitron.
RBR-TVBR observation: The folks at RAB insist that Haley jumped; he wasn’t pushed. He certainly presided over a turbulent time at RAB.
About time Haley got shoved out. Guy was completely worthless as a CEO for that organization. Worst money ever spent by them and that’s saying something!
Ditto from a dittohead! – That no good irishman had it coming! I’m sick of non radio guys coming into our business and mucking up the good old days. We should go back to the way things were before all this digital mish mash and crazy new business stuff. Let’s just play the music and sell the ads – screw everything else!
WOW, Huck Finn. You’ve just illustrated why a guy like Jeff Haley was good for the industry. It’s backward head-in-the-sand thinking like yours that is dooming radio’s future. The “good ole days” are gone. If we don’t attract talent from outside the radio you and your kind will be reminiscing about those good ole days from a beach along with the cassette tape salesman.
“Ousted?” Seriously? Jeff Haley was “ousted?” What kind of scandal rag is this? Either your sources are utterly clueless (at best) or mean-spirited, pointy-headed gossip-mongers (more likely). Either way, you’ve clearly not bothered to check the facts and have delved frelly into the realms of pure fiction. Which is too bad as, anyone who has bothered to get actually to know Jeff Haley knows, he deserves better.
P.S. Mr. Progress: I believe Huck Finn was engaging in some well-placed sarcasm in response to Todays (sic) Tom Sawyer’s post.
Regardless of whether or not Jeff controlled the decision to leave, having worked briefly with him I was able to witness first-hand that he simply didn’t have the down the line vision or business marketing skills to effectively set direction and inspire performance at a senior level. And despite the fact that an organization like the RAB is quite small and somewhat less sifnificant than in the past, those skills are mandadory to effective leadership. Probably his biggest liability at the RAB was that he was woefully weak in his understanding of brand development and product marketing, and at extremely fundamental levels. Given the competitive platform environment of today, this is an area the industry in total must have A+ talent. All great business heads have those skills at minimum.
While I’ve heard that Jeff has a background as a very good sales guy, more sales guys is not what the industry needs. They need high-level competence in key positions as well as a complete brand re-set and crafting of a 21st century strategic reason-why. Radio continues to remain an incredibly powerful media type, it just needs to go bold in introspection, marketing activities and strategic leadership… rather than continue talking to themselves, seeing every problem as sales-related and defending the irrelevant. Perhaps at the RAB at least, they’ll be getting that with their new CEO.
It’s funny but it’s often said that new media platforms (or whatever we’re calling it today) are killing radio. Well after getting the chance to peek at Radio from the inside, I can confidently tell you that’s a bold-faced lie…..Radio is killing Radio. And from one who is a big fan of the medium, that’s a shame.
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