Ask the employees of KGO, San Francisco if they’d rather have Cumulus run their cluster or whether they’d give anything to get former Citadel CEO Farid Suleman and Judy Ellis back.

The Dickey Brothers have been brutal to local radio.

They’re quick on the trigger to fire people and have a small group of trusted henchmen carrying out orders.

Plus lots of cockamamie ideas to gut local programming – no matter how iconic a station may be – for cheap programming solutions.

I’m here to tell you that the destructive Cumulus game plan is so popular with investment banks and greedy owners that another radio group is getting a bad case of Cumulitis – the disease that eats away at a radio station while lining the pockets of chief investors.

And even good groups are now open to some of their policies.

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1. The latest major group to go over to the “dark” side.
    
2. A total of four radio groups that are now adopting Cumulus tactics and policies.  Some are damn good which worries loyal radio people.  Here’s who they are.
    
3. Specific ways these companies are becoming more like Cumulus.
    
4. How long can good, local and people-friendly radio groups hold out until even they succumb to Cumulus operating policies.

If you would like to see which radio groups are beginning to adopt Cumulus strategies and what the strategies are, click “read more” below. 

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• Why Clear Channel is handing over the talk franchise in Atlanta to Cox along with the keys to success:  Rush Limbaugh.  You don’t do that without an alternative plan.
   
• The end of AM as we know it.  Why it’s no longer worth it for large radio groups to even run cheap syndication on AM stations. 
   
• How Clear Channel is in behind the scenes negotiations right now to steal talent away from competitors.  Here’s what they plan to do with this talent.
   
• The timetable on the gutting of major market FM music stations complete with the extent of the damage and timeframe.
   
• Come away with a look at how major market radio will change in just one year for now.

• What went so wrong at Merlin after less than two years.  Let me count the ways – 8 to be exact! 
   
• What one move – not commonly known publicly – sealed Merlin’s fate.  Not the firing of Walter Sabo.  That, too!
   
• Specific evidence that CEO Randy Michaels’ denial the stations are for sale is a fib.  And why he’s making it up?
   
• Who might want to buy the 4 major market Merlin stations.  Yes, I’ll name names and I’ll betcha I’m right.
   
• The surprise buyer no one is tracking that could buy one or more Merlin stations and knock your socks off.   That big a deal.  That surprising.
   
• Is Emmis a buyer – or a potential dealmaker since it owns about 50% interest in 3 of the 4 Merlin stations?  It’s complicated.

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Clear Channel is in the middle of another massive reduction in force – especially in certain types of targeted markets and for a sustained period of time.

Already, a troubling pattern is emerging.

The firings are becoming more brutal and the way they make the decision to fire an employee has actually been outsourced.

Here’s how it’s now being done with actual quotes from fired employees and insights as to the reductions in force ahead from people close to the situation.

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1. How many?  How long?  How brutal is brutal?
    
2. How Clear Channel by and large outsources who is to be fired by people outside the market.  Way outside.
    
3. What it’s liked to get fired after more than a decade of employment from soup to nuts – the call, the axing, the aftermath.  A recent victim confirms the coldblooded firings in detail.
    
4. The “dog whistle” phrases used by firing managers to prevent lawsuits.  The coded language that appears to mean one thing to the victim but has a different meaning to corporate lawyers.  Here’s one:  “today is your day”.  You won’t believe the others.
    
5. What kind of severance to expect.  As Bill Clinton says, do the arithmetic using what a decade-long employee got.  And work downward.
    
6. The one – and I mean one – stay of execution that I have heard of in four years of Lee & Bain’s ownership.  How lucky do you feel?  Or unlucky as you’ll see in this case.

The answers begin here.

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Just when you think the radio industry ran out of ways to fire people, they come up with another.

Except this time, they’ve actually got the attention of the employees they are firing.

And if this approach catches on, it may be coming to a station near you soon.

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Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio concert series and app are starting to backfire

Employees and people familiar with what they are doing now say that the costs are going through the roof and the benefits are declining rapidly.

Too bad most major radio groups have hitched their future to iHeartRadio.

They’re going down.

1. Clear Channel is making apparent false messaging claims related to the just concluded Las Vegas music festival.  What receiving and replying to their claim of 50 million messages really costs them – from an industry insider who knows.
    
2. Deep resentment is building at local radio stations over iHeartRadio (which employees even refer to as iHateRadio).  Here’s the little known rub that really burns them up.
    
3. What iHeartRadio partner companies – their actual radio competitors – are coughing up to be part of this sinking ship.  Yes, even down to the deal details – here.
    
4. The new trend in radio right now is not so much that Clear Channel and Cumulus are fantasizing about not being local radio companies but that something even more troubling is starting to happen.
    
5. The real unvarnished reason iHeartRadio is worth all the hoopla and expense to Clear Channel – and no, it has nothing to do with getting listeners or making money.  Even more important!

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By another radio company – not a community group.

Are these guys crazy or do they have another motive?  Nobody takes on the Evil Empire, unless…

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1. The premise for the petition to deny – How Clear Channel is being accused of warehousing radio stations – operating them even when they are under legal mandate to divest the stations as part of previously approved deals.
    
2. What company bought the most stations in the Clear Channel Trust so far – you’ll never guess which one it is.  Never.
    
3. Even if the license challenge is unsuccessful, what this maneuver could do to the WOR-Clear Channel purchase.  This could be one shrewd move.
    
4. Why would David pick this losing battle with Goliath?  It makes no sense – until you read this.

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Reserve a seat at my next “Music, Broadcasting & the Digital Future” Conference and Big Ideas Breakfast January 30-31. 

If you believe Arbitron that radio listening is growing and young people are fueling that growth while older listening is eroding, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

The latest radio Kool-Aid covers up the real problem in advance of the feel good NAB Radio Show that should be dealing with the industry’s digital deficit instead of throwing red meat to members.

The truth about radio listening takes some courage to hear.

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1. Young people are not listening to radio – they are glued to their digital devices.  How to tell and what to do about it. 
    
2. Why the last thing radio needs is PPM ratings to judge audience growth.
    
3. Why market managers are scared shitless when their stations get a good PPM rating.  That’s right, panicked. 
    
4. Why Hispanics are the bright spot for radio and how radio is starting to let them down – too.
    
5. Okay then, what are the 2 biggest actual problems facing radio listening.  And here’s how to start fixing them. 

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Clear Channel is facing the financial cliff so they are readying a plan to cut costs and try to get some more revenue in the company.

There are two viable options down the road ahead for Clear Channel – both lousy for employees.

And there is evidence that the pieces are being put into place now to work the plan that gives Clear Channel the most options to kick the can down the road.

Here’s what I’m hearing on the ground.

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1. Their new way to fire that – believe it or not – comes off looking like a station promotion!  Unless, of course, you’re the victim.  You’ll see more of this.  Sly foxes that they are.
    
2. A big programming push is coming, but it’s not what you think.  This one has nothing to do with Clear Channel employees.  Fascinating and kind of dirty.
    
3. Why they are getting ready to put many markets on autopilot in all ways even management.  But it’s how they plan to do it that has brass!
    
4. Something is up with that Clear Channel/Big Machine record deal to share revenue in return for digital and on-air access to music and artists.  Notice no other label has stepped up to do a similar deal.  Bob “Pitchman” is taking it on the road to the NAB Radio Show but he’s not telling them the real story you’re going to hear.
    
5. Clear Channel’s latest idea for boosting ad revenue – and it has nothing to do with how well salespeople sell advertising.  Yet, this initiative will be rolled out in many markets in the days ahead.

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The Cumulus’ hit music station in Birmingham is the prototype for the radio station of the future.

A station with no one at home.

And they love it so much, you are soon going to see the station that I describe here in many, many Cumulus markets.

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1. How Cumulus stations will be handling sales and programming.  This is ingenious if not disgusting.
    
2. The minimum number of live full-timers and part-timers on the Cumulus station of the future (now broadcasting 24/7).  We do the arithmetic.
    
3. How Cumulus plans to handle client-based personal appearances on a dime – and they’ve been getting away with it!  Dumb advertisers.
    
4. The new way potential advertisers are put through the wringer to actually buy ads – but it saves money.  Get used to it, it’s coming to your market soon.
    
5. The creative (and destructive) new ways that this radio station is being managed right now.

If you want to see the plan Cumulus is going to be rolling out system wide soon, click “read more” below.

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Cumulus has publicly admitted to paying rebates to ad agencies that give it a large chunk of advertising without the advertiser sharing in the rebate. 

How widespread is bribing agencies to get buys and what makes it illegal.  Evidence that executives are facing jail time in Europe and the U.S. for this illegal activity.  How the offending media outlets hide these rebates from internal and outside auditors.  From pitch to rebate – how the scam works.  What a law firm found when they investigated corruption in the ad business.  Where radio ranks out media in bribing ad agencies to beat their competitors out of a buy.  The reason consolidators are turning to this tactic now.

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A Federal Court in Connecticut just handed down a ruling in the case involving Cumulus vs. Cox and it has major implications for everyone in radio.

Cumulus was looking to prevent an ex-employee from working for Cox and spent $400,000 to stop her – did they prevail?  What the judge ordered the parties to do.  Why any employee who is being threatened by a radio company will want to become very familiar with this case.  Now it can be told – just how mean did Cumulus get during the 3 years of litigation.  Lew Dickey’s deposition testimony – his cognitive problems. 

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The first of many robo radio stations has now arrived with all the usual cost saving, job eliminating tricks that are customary today, but these stations are prototypes for even more radical reductions of radio on and off the air. 

We examine the robo radio station of the future being launched right now.  Why what you hear on the air is just the tip of the iceberg – what happens off the air is even more dazzling.  The new approach to on-air promotion.  The robo sales concept coming next.  How you will be able to fit an entire radio station into one small office with nobody at home.  It’s coming.  Here’s your advanced preview.

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