Media Curmudgeon

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January 15, 2007

Google Yes, Media Companies No

FORTUNE magazine's January 22 issue had its annual survey of the 100 best companies in America to work for. It was no surprise that Google was the new #1 and, as usual, there were no media companies in the top 100. No large media companies have appeared in 100-best- companies-to-work-for survey since the original Levering and Moskowitz one ten years ago. Why?

Of course I have an opinion, which I've expressed previously in blogs, but before I rant, here are some interesting (to me anyway) stats from the latest survey: Thirteen percent of the best companies to work for are in California and 11 percent are in Texas (mostly Austin and Houston). In third place is New York state, with six in New York city and three in Rochester, for a total of nine percent. Of the six companies in New York city, only one, Goldman Sachs, is a Wall Street firm, one is American Express, and four are financial services/accounting firms (Ernst & Young at #25, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche, and KPMG). So, what's going on? Why no media companies in the media center of the world? No Time Warner, no Disney, no News Corp, no Viacom, no CBS, no GE (owner of NBC Uiversal), or no IAC (Diller's interactive company).

I believe no media companies made the list because large media companies treat their people like shit. Communication, journalism, and film schools graduate tens of thousands hopefuls every year and there are, perhaps, hundreds of jobs open. It's simple supply and demand. Glamor, power, fame, and money motivate people to get into the media business, so college graduates compete viciously for unpaid or minmum-wage internships. Media companies, especially in so-called production jobs and "film," pay entry-level people nothing or next-to-nothing and people will kill to get in the door. So why should media companies pay decent wages or treat people well?

If you need highly skilled people to do boring jobs, like accounting, or live in awful places, like Rochester, you have to treat people well, pay them well, and give them great perks and benefits. Or if you're in a business in which people are passionate about their field and care about quality (quality food, quality software, quality health care, e.g.) and not about fleeting fame or power or celebrity, then management needs to treat people well and give them a satisfying workplace and an inspiring vision.

Media companies and Wall Street firms are motivated by greed (greed for money, power, and, in the media, fame) and are generally among the poorest managed industries in the world--they don't have to manage well, just make more money. Most big media companies and Wall Street firms suffer from Enronitis.

Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp, etc. fret about their stock price. Their CEOs and chairmen think their stock is undervalued, so they try tricks and PR in order to get their stock price up. Did it ever occur to them to them to try to manage their businesses well and treat their people decently?

Posted by Charles Warner at January 15, 2007 12:38 PM

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