Radio trade publication All Access has abandoned its plan to shut down its operation, but will move forward with layoffs that will impact nearly all of its editorial staff.
On Monday, All Access founder and publisher Joel Denver said the decision was made to continue operating after he received an outpouring of support from the website’s clients and partners.
“Your feedback gave us pause to review what could still be possible despite the financial headwinds we have been facing,” Denver wrote in a note to readers.
Last month, Denver said All Access would stop publishing by August 15, and hinted the website may go offline completely, after he reported financial challenges brought on by a slowdown in the advertising market.
At the time, Denver said he was unsure if the All Access website would remain online after the company stopped publishing industry news. The website has operated continuously since its founding in the mid-1990s. In a podcast interview, Denver made it clear that if All Access could not continue meeting a certain high standard of publishing, it wasn’t worth doing at all.
“We just were not doing enough business to maintain the infrastructure and the staff and the quality of the product any longer, and I did not want to hack it apart,” Denver said in the interview. “I did not want to do a half-assed job on that news — I did not want to do things that required people to interface with it, because we just can’t afford it right now.”
This week, Denver said an outpouring of support from the industry convinced him otherwise. On Monday, he affirmed plans to continue offering job boards, Nielsen ratings, airplay charts and other data-driven information on an “abbreviated” version of All Access.
At the same time, Denver is holding firm on his decision to shut down the daily news product, called “Net News,” which will see the elimination of around 20 staff positions.
“The financial headwinds caused this layoff of my amazing team,” Denver said in a statement on Tuesday. “I’d hire all of them back again. They are all outstanding folks with terrific work ethics and talent. Scoop them up before someone else does.”
The decision to continue going with a lighter version of All Access comes as some of the website’s competitors announced plans to replicate some of its core features.
In late July, Radio Insight publisher Lance Venta said his website would offer Nielsen ratings and a job board, directly attributing the decision to the impending closure of All Access. The new features launched on the Radio Insight website a short time later.
