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...
The latest downsizing of Audacy involves 250 - 300 layoffs across the country . The company's digital content division is almost completely eliminated. Morning hosts in New York and Boston were let go. RIFs happened with talent, management, sales, and traffic. T he last major Audacy layoffs locally were in 2022 . The current Audacy layoffs hit the LA market quite significantly, perhaps more signifcantly than three years ago. Ralph Stewart is described as both a strong radio man and a wonderful person. Raised on Seattle rock-n-roll, he started with rock and progressed to CHR. In 1987, his station flipped to the format first heard in LA known as "the WAVE." He suddenly had Yanni's home phone number. He guided the station through the transition until the station itself was sold. As it turned out, there was an opening at the original WAVE whcih brought him to Southern California in 1991. He briefly left CBS Radio to help launch All Comedy Radio in 2003 before returning...
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...
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