TDGA's Larry Keene on posting political rate info

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Here’s some timely data on the NAB trying to keep political rate info offline, from Traffic Director’s Guild of America’s (TDGA) President Larry Keene: “Our recent survey finds 11.5% of radio traffic personnel are charged by management with updating and inserting political order data in the station public files. For Television, the percentage is 9.9%. These are stats you won’t find anywhere but from TDGA.


This is based on responses from over 2,000 participants in our just completed Annual Traffic Personnel Compensation/Workload study.  Considering that overall (Radio & TV combined). Traffic personnel are involved in approximately 32% of the ongoing Public File maintenance tasks, ranging from Children’s TV Commercial content reports, Community Issues and EEO Reports.

While the burden wouldn’t apparently fall on the plate of Traffic, consolidation and log preparation that has mushroomed to include streaming, sub-channels, Internet and Mobile – Traffic has reached a Catch-22 spot, faced with an evolution to Traffic Hubs and significant downsizing over the past two year period. The TDGA data above was released this month and is considered to be very current.”

RBR-TVBR observation: Yes, adding political rate info online will make a lot more work for everyone—traffic personnel obviously included. With staffs already stretched beyond the breaking point, do they need more work to do? Anyone can see why the NAB is trying to stop this.