An ayoda on radio

Congratulations!:   Two LA radio personalities will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards as part of this year's Golden Mike Awards, sponsored by the Radio and Television News Association of Southern California (RTNA).  It's no surprise Pete Demetriou , who we've designated as the Dean of local radio journalists, is a recipient for this honor. Here's what's stated in the RTNA press release: KNX’s Pete Demetriou has reported from the streets of Southern California for  more than four decades, bringing virtually every big story from the Northridge earthquake  to the 1992 LA Riots to the radio airwaves. When there’s breaking news, Demetriou is on  the front lines. He’s won more than two dozen Golden Mikes . Also receiving the honor, sadly posthumously , is KTLA's Sam Rubin . He was best known for his three decades offering entertainment news as well as red carpet coverage, but he also was heard on the local airwaves, including his time as a talk show host on KLSX and...

  pokerindustrypro.com Your local radio correspondent is still trying to make sense of the past year on the local dial and the business in general. Nonetheless, while the (now belated) year in review is still in progress, there’s been some recent news worth highlighting. Clearing the Field: Audacy Chairman David Field has stepped down as the CEO of the broadcasting and audio company after 27 years. There’s different ways to view the departing Audacy CEO. Under Field’s leadership, the company has expanded from 15 stations with $35 million in revenue to its current 230 stations, including the former CBS Radio cluster, and $1.2 billion in revenue.     Still, Field has weathered his share of criticism. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (from which they emerged in late September 2024 ), restructuring $1.6 billion of debt to $350 million. The company’s stock price now hovers around 15 cents per share from a high in 2000 (as Entercom) at $66 a share. Part of ...

  Pacific Palisades We're working on the review of 2024, but we hope you understand it's been a bit challenging these past couple of days. My school notified faculty in the middle of their classes on Tuesday night to send students home, we were closed yesterday (we reopened today), mostly due to the high winds. We nonetheless have had many events postponed, rescheduled, or cancelled. My wife's childhood home in Altadena is gone, the family sold the house years ago but they still have their memories. We may go take a look sometime this weekend if we're not in the way of firefighters. We join many who are thinking of those of you and your families, who lost their homes or have had to evacuate. As of this writing, the fires had not yet reached the tower farm located on Mt. Wilson, but it's getting uncomfortably close. Both local radio and TV stations, as well as emergency communications originate from that peak. In addition to the fantastic first responders, local medi...

  We hope you had a Merry Christmas and had a good start to Hanukah! This is our dog Pepper with her present, it's already had one ear chewed off. They're listening:   Heritage rocker KLOS is conducting a listener survey to find out what their audience is listening to and what they want to hear. Worth noting is the station is station is comparing itself to other rock stations includiing JACK-FM (KCBS-FM), ALT 98.7 (KYSR) and KROQ, also well-established stations. There's speculation Meruelo Media is now refocusing on their radio properties, having sold KWHY-TV to the Church of Scientology. Still, Meruelo owns KBEH-TV, along with their other broadcast properties - bilingual Reggaton CALI 93.9 (KLLI), hip hop Power 106 (KPWR), and classic hip hop KDAY. Others speculate Meruelo is trying to exit broadcast altogether. One more note: The call letters for Channel 22 will be changed to KSCN , abandoning the KWHY call letters the station had held for nearly 60 years. Another final...

  While we were out of town last week, we'd been hinted the 2024 edition of layoffs at iHeart Media were not yet completed. We can confirm the latest changes involve their Total Traffic & Weather Service  (TTWN) which also is affiliated with their "24 / 7 News" which now feeds KFI and other iHeart stations from a regional hub. Twenty-eight year TTFN veteran Mike O'Brien is among those who were laid off from Total Traffic. He most recently served as the afternoon airborne reporter for "KFI in the Sky." He is a native of the Inland Empire, a graduate of Redlands High School. The Riverside resident also studied at Saddleback College and California Baptist University. O'Brien previously provided traffic reports for country station 95.1 K-FROG (KFRG) as "Commander Kermit," before heading to all-news KNX and later KFI. Nick Pagliochini was "the traffic guy" for KFI's "Wake Up Call," Bill Handel 's morning show, the Gar...

  It’s taken a couple of weeks of research, conversations, and seeking other sources of info to try to make sense of what’s happened on the local dial, particularly with KFI. We offer the best information we’ve been able to gather, with more to come as we confirm what we’re learning. What happened at KFI? After a relatively uneventful couple of years, at least locally, iHeart Media made significant cuts to their radio division, about 10 percent of their 10,000 employees. Although there were changes made on the music-based formats in other parts of the country, most of the cuts here in Los Angeles focused on the news operation at KFI, where the staff was reduced from 22 individuals to 13 , including the dismissal of longtime news director Chris Little . Also departing was their veteran of 22 years as the station’s program director, Robin Bertolucci . Why did KFI’s newsroom get hit so significantly? Given the corporate mindset, it’s kind of amazing the newsroom was able to su...