Report Card on Hiring of Women GMs Called ‘Disturbing’

Clear Channel, Entercom, ABC and Cox are among companies making significant progress at hiring women as managers, a new study finds.
But according to the Most Influential Women in Radio group, as of late 2003, only 13.7% of approximately 10,600 U.S. radio stations were managed by women. The study used station information compiled by M Street publications.
The report was critical of some other groups for not having any women GMs, including Journal Broadcasting, Jefferson Pilot and New Northwest.
“Among the 112 groups owning 12 or more stations … women manage 16.5% of the 4,602 stations owned by these groups,” stated MIW’s Joan E. Gerberding, president of Nassau Media Partners. “Thirty years after affirmative action opened the doors to management for women, that ratio is disturbingly low.”
The analysis shows a slight increase in the percentage and the number of women GMs this year among groups owning 12 or more stations: in 2003, 17.7% of all GMs in these groups were women, compared with 17.4% in 2002.
Details from the MIW statement:
Forty groups with a total of 741 stations – 16% of all stations owned by groups with 12 or more stations – have no female managers.
Only three of the 112 groups with 12 or more stations have more than 10 female GMs: ABC Radio with 18 of 50 GMs (36%), Cox Radio with 5 out of 24 (21%) and Clear Channel with 48 of 237 GMs (20%). Clear Channel reduced its total number of GMs by 15 in 2003, but added four female GMs.
Among the five largest radio groups (owning 100 or more stations), only Entercom and Clear Channel exceed the average, with 22% and 20% female GMs respectively. Citadel is at 17%, Cumulus, 15%, and Infinity, 12%. Infinity reduced its number of GMs between 2002 and 2003 by 20, with four of them being women, so that only eight of 66 Infinity GMs are women, vs. 12 of 86 last year.