Laid Off from Clear Channel...slipping by in the inauguration media coverage

[toymachines]

Clear Channel Trims 1850 Jobs (NY Times)

Just wanted to spread the word that Clear Channel laid off 9% of its employees, including me. All of the part time radio employees in San Diego were cut. They did it today so the media wouldn't cover any of it. They are nationalizing jobs that were once local and specialized, and the quality of the product will suffer dramatically. Oh well, a good day all in all! Maybe I should try and get a government job, now that I can stand to work for the man in charge.

[2Design]

1. time to work for a democratic company anyway - looks like you have a new beginning - freedom rings n

[MaryEllen9399]

2. our local sports station WDFN is part of Clear Channel here in Detroit

they dropped all local programming except for Pistons games and they fired all of the show hosts today.

[mwooldri]

3. Sorry to hear your job's lost...

... radio consolidation is a bad place to be in.

It's just going to get worse I'm afraid, unless Clear Channel, Citadel or Entercom actually start SELLING stations.

The bottom line is that if done well, live and local programming generally is best... but live and national programming can be good too if done well. There's a few examples of that which works well... Rush Limbaugh happens to be one of them unfortunately. Delilah seems to work well in the evenings still. Howard Stern was OK but he's had his day, Sirius/XM can keep him.

I'm afraid that the future of terrestrial radio in the US is: More networking, and more syndication. I suspect that the fake live and local concept (voicetracking) will fade because listeners can see through that facade. Given that the US is such a vast country, maybe Clear Channel can clusterize its formats so that across a given region you get a single station for a given format (e.g. "Southern Country", "NE Rock")? K-Love-ify Clear Channel so that the only local content you get is the TOTH FCC ID, the adverts and maybe a 1-2 prerecorded community announcement... oh and the National Weather Service computer voice will kick in for the life-and-death stuff?

Only time will tell.

Good luck in your job hunt.

Mark.

[Sepasco]

4. CC's Progressive Talker In Portland Still Doing Well

No layoffs reported at KPOJ, Clear Channel's progressive talk station in Portland, OR, which continues to do well in the ratings.

The latest Arbitron numbers show KPOJ in a solid number 4 position, which gives the lie to the argument that liberals won't listen to progressive talk.

KPOJ's secret? A good local morning show, decent promotion, a good spot on the AM dial (620) and a decent signal (25,000 watts in the daytime and 10,000 watts at night).

Portland ratings at: http://tinyurl.com/b3gfxb