7-17-2012
The news of no more news wasn't delivered to the Chicago crew by Randy Michaels. It was Andy Friedman (who also lost his job) introducing one of Randy's money men, Jerry Kersting, who handed out envelopes. In the envelopes were 27 pink slips and some moving money. About 16 people were retained to work at the new i101 in Chicago, now a Classic Hits station.
Chairman of The Merlin Advisory Board John Gehron tells Radio Ink, it was an extrodinary effort on everybody's part but the audience just did not respond so it was time to try something different. "If you look around the country, it has been difficult for CBS in Washington. It has been difficult for Radio One in Houston. It has been difficult in all these markets for new stations to break out. It takes a long time. And in some markets, you are up against, frankly, good competition. CBS does a good job and CBS is finding out the WTOP does a good job. It is not something that happens overnight.
On the flip to music in New York and Chicago. "87.7 in Chicago has broken out of the box extremely well with Alternative. They are doing a different Alternative than the old Q101 did. This seems to be resonating a lot better. The hope is the same thing will perform better in New York too. You could argue in Chicago that there is a home for what they are doing. It is kind of a Hot A/C or Gold A/C based format. Nobody is really focusing on that music, especially since the Fresh went away. There is an opportunity to do something, certainly with better numbers than they were getting with news."
(7/17/2012 3:51:05 PM)
AM and FM is on its way out... It is sad that Tom Leykis was right, that people are getting the ax and moving to the internet..
(7/17/2012 3:44:33 PM)
I swear, if you tried to explain this business at a cocktail party..people would laugh and say. "No seriously".
1900 meters in a market of 7.8 million, 12 plus...just sayin.....
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