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A Little Support Goes A Long Way
April 11, 2023
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It started with a tweet by LSU Women’s Basketball Head Coach Kim Mulkey after the Elite 8 playoff game during March Madness. The caption read, “It’s not every day that you have your Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Head Football Coach and Athletic Director travel across the country to come support your team! Appreciate the love from our LSU community.” The Tweet included a photo of Coach Matt McMahon, Coach Brian Kelly, and Scott Woodard. In case you haven’t heard, the LSU Lady Tigers went all the way to the NCAA National Championship and took home the trophy over Iowa for the University’s first and only Championship win in history and broke the record for the highest scoring game in the history of the tournament with a 102 to 85 win.
It continued with a post Championship press conference with Kim Mulkey who was quoted as saying, “He gets out of the way. You see that he doesn’t have to be and doesn’t want to be the most important person in the athletic department.” She was referring to Athletic Director Scott Woodward again.
Despite Mulkey’s “colorful” and very strong personality, it’s clear that she has the trust and support around her from her male colleagues needed to help grow and nurture a successful team and winning environment. Not that it would bother her if she didn’t, but that is a rare situation, particularly in the world of sports on all levels, where Men’s athletics is taken way more seriously than Women’s. It surprised me honestly, but it also gave me hope, that it does exist. There actually are instances where strong and successful men are smart enough and secure enough to lift their female colleagues and invest in their success and the progress of their careers. That is EXTREMELY rare in the Broadcast industry. Only once in my life was a man secure enough with himself, interested in my career growth, and had enough trust in me to promote me to VP/Programming and that was my Vegas (and a long time ago Denver) VP and Market Manager Jerry McKenna.
In fact, when I was given the title, my fellow co-worker in the building and colleague who felt like he deserved the title, took it extremely personally, refused to accept it and did everything in his power to let that be known. And no matter how hard I tried, my attempts to make him understand that I didn’t need to be his “Boss,” and held him in high regard and wanted to work together with him to win, fell on deaf ears. And still to this day, this person continues to talk down my reputation.
That only went further when I moved to another market for the company, and carried The VP Title with me and was given additional responsibilities as the OM. Another Manager in the cluster not only took it personally but refused to work peacefully with me together on a team for the benefit of the entire cluster no matter how hard I tried. Not only did he actively ostracize me and my team members, but still to this day, this person is doing everything in his power to ruin my reputation despite my winning track record and managerial experience.
Do you know how many times I have been passed over for a promotion, only to lose out to a male colleague despite my qualifications? But I always took it “like a man.” Because well, that’s what Women are supposed to do in this business, but more importantly, because as the daughter of a football coach, you learn how to lose with grace, and you learn to take the lessons that come with it.
I could go on and on with stories about my challenges as a Woman in a Male dominated industry over the years, but that is enough material for a book, and we obviously don’t have time for that. I could also go on and on about the challenges young Female talent I currently work with are going through for the same reasons. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not ALL men. And there are some who do respect and raise up their female colleagues and mentees, and see them as assets instead of threats, but they are few and far between.
The black and white is, the numbers don’t lie. We’ve all seen the latest gender study from Mentoring and Inspiring Women which indicates that the percentages of Female Market and Sales Managers are growing quickly, but when it comes to Programmers, the statistics are not only tragically low, but they are decreasing. There are many reasons for that, but speaking from experience, the lack of support from our male colleagues, especially in positions of power, is one of the main ones.
I can’t tell you the number of times I have hosted or sat in on the “Women’s Panel” at an industry convention and there were more empty seats than there were full. Same thing for the “Diversity Panels.” I can remember one year at a big convention, the big “VP/Programming” panel was literally right after the “Women’s Panel,” and NOT ONE of the VPs attended it. They all went to lunch together during the “Women’s Panel,” then rolled in at the very end of it ready to do theirs. It was embarrassing and a clear indication that there was no interest in the growth of Women in radio. The same thing happened at the last radio convention held in March of this year. An empty room during both the “Women’s Panel” and “Diversity panel.”
Why is there a blatant lack of support for Female Programmers in the business? Why are strong Women seen as a threat instead of an asset? Especially in a business where many formats are geared toward Women? I am asking the men in this industry to lead by example. If you have any interest in helping to promote, groom and/or nurture female programmers please use your voice and power positions to make a difference. And please show up for “Female” and “Diversity” panels. If you are not doing this, then shame on you. You don’t deserve to be in this business.
They often say that any action is better than no action at all, that silence is complicity. I also think it’s cowardice. If personalities and egos as large as Coach Matt McMahon, Coach Brian Kelly and Scott Woodard can go out and support Kim Mulkey publicly, with no insecurities, then certainly somebody in the radio industry in a position of power can do the same for the amazing Female programming talent that is out there right now. It starts at the top, and there is no better lesson than to lead by example. It’s time for someone in this business (besides me) to become a Champion for Women, especially when it comes to Programming. I promise it won’t hurt your reputation or get you replaced by a Woman if you are truly qualified. In fact, it will have the opposite effect, and will make you a hero in the eyes of the industry. Something this struggling business badly needs more of.
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