Layoffs weeks away.

Each and every year in recent memory, the evil empire formerly known as Clear Channel has wasted employees right around holiday time.

Sometimes over 500 layoffs at a clip.

This year will be the same – and very different.

Here’s what to expect in the next two weeks.

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1. Who gets targeted this year. This is your heads up.
2. Which positions are relatively safe (I said “relatively”). And for how long. These folks can enjoy the holidays worry-free.
3. Pittman & Bressler’s master plan for reducing employees revealing what they feel is essential – and what is not.
4. How this year’s holiday firings will be carried off – different from previous years.
5. Changes in how iHeart will handle severance.      
6. The grace period before budget approval and the start of holiday firings.

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When is a loss actually a profit?

When Bob Pittman sells snake oil as part of Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.

This happens quarter after quarter.

Enough already.

How does iHeart get away with it?

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1. Why isn’t Pittman behind bars? Here is how he legally makes iHeartMedia profitable even when its debt is $20 billion – up $400 million to date this year and his local revenue numbers are questionable.
2. How bad is it? The average station’s third quarter revenue was “up” by this amount. On the “bright” side, no bonuses.
3. By comparison guess how much Pandora is up with no accounting tricks.
4. Cash reserves are still safe, right?
5. How Pittman made a 10% decline in billing at its all-important LA cluster disappear into thin air to the amazement of the LA cluster that dropped the ball.

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Big time changes ahead.

In fact, as you’ll see, some are already in the midst of happening.

As sources familiar with the situation say they center around Lew and John Dickey.

Jan Jeffries.

Mike McVay.

Investors want less Dickey and more money.

It’s the perfect storm for a whopping shakeup ahead that will rock Cumulus to the root.

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1. New controls over “Other” Brother John Dickey.
2. Secret shakeup – it is unthinkable that this one Cumulus big wig will now have to report to the new radio president that the board is forcing Lew Dickey to hire after a national executive search.
3. John Dickey now has to get board approval to do this – previously he had carte blanche.
4. Jan Jeffries – finally, what’s going on with this albatross who is married to a Dickey.
5. If Cumulus employees have made it this far, will their jobs be safer under the board mandated changes now being put into effect?

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In a very major market.

We’re not talking about some shitty little Townsquare station in Nowhere.

More commercials than music.

Why would anyone go this far?

One competitor has lambasted them on-air and in social media.

Did they do the right thing?

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1. All the dirty details on what mega station broke the record for commercials per hour and how they are handling it.
2. The competitor that is trying to take advantage of it – their thinking.
3. Actual listener response to calling out the station running 31 spots an hour that will knock your socks off.
4. What you should do about competitors that push the limits for too many commercials.
5. Point blank: should you nail your overly commercial competitor to the cross and if so – the safest way to proceed.

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Nielsen conducts your market’s ratings.

Nielsen advises on how to beat their own methodology – or at least get the most listeners you can.

For that, they charge a lot of money.

Here are 7 things you never knew about Nielsen ratings – and none of them costs a dime.

There is a better way to win audience without pandering to PPM.

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1. The stat that you can get on your own with a reputable research company that has strong street market value for local sales.
2. But if you must subscribe to Nielsen, a better way to get credit for the most quarter hours without running unlistenable commercial breaks.
3. The strategic mistake that PPM subscribers are making that is killing their audience – in other words, win the ratings, lose the audience.
4. The maximum humanly possible number of commercial units an hour with PPM that is safe to keep audiences from wandering to other stations or content sources.
5. Shocking evidence about music sweeps that go into the next quarter hour to artificially inflate time spent listening (TSL).

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Honest yes or no answers with solutions for the 5 most critical issues killing radio right now.

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1. Do 2-minute commercial breaks instead of two long stop sets per hour attract more listeners?
2. Does running two long commercial breaks – one each half-hour – really help increase ratings?
3. How is it possible to play more new music when every hit music station’s ratings depends on high repetition of the most popular tunes?
4. Will programmatic selling become the industry standard or just an additional way to sell radio spots?
5. Is it better to NOT do digital broadcasting the way Jerry Lee has done at MoreFM in Philadelphia or should you invest more in digital streaming?

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Clear Channel changed the wrong name.

There was nothing wrong with Clear Channel.

It’s The Evil Empire that needed changing but sad to report iHeart still has no heart and they’re apparently still up to their old tricks.

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1. Punishing a top major market employee because they have an issue with her husband, an ex-employee.
2. How iHeart just hired an employee who lost a $16.57 million lawsuit in his previous job for the death of a listener while serially attacking a terminal prostate cancer victim, ex-employee and husband of a current employee.
3. Phones bugged, computers hacked – the usual dirty tricks.
4. Death threats allegedly starting about the time this ex-employee outed iHeart.
5. Alleged blackballing – the worst fear of any ex-employee at the mercy of The Evil Empire.

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Pittman and Bressler better hope no one does a document dump on their financials.

Publicly, they are saying iHeart is making money hand over first.

And a mysterious $800 million stash Bressler recently bragged about.

No one calls them out.

But sources close to iHeartMedia corporate say it’s all lies.

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1. Just like on The Price Is Right, guess how much iHeart’s most important LA cluster will be off year to year – without going over the actual retail price!
2. Big lie number two – about their other stations.
3. As incredible as it may seem, co-CEO Richard Bressler’s stroke of genius to solve the revenue problem.
4. Take a quick guess – how much is iHeart dropping its rates in LA (CBS is at 50% off).
5. How iHeart plans to avoid paying sales related severance.

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You know that iHeart is dumping talk from flagship WOR, New York.

Just back from a visit to the greatest city in the world so, as Paul Harvey used to say, “standby for news”.

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1. What’s going on – iHeart pushed off its best Premiere talk talent to Cumulus in the Bay Area to free up a station for cheap music programming and now this?
2. You won’t believe the rumored format replacement for talk at WOR.
3. Not worried because your talk station is not in New York? These confirmed iHeart plans will make you worry.
4. What has pissed off Pittman so badly that he’s rethinking talk?
5. The other Clear Channel formats that aren’t worth a chance in hell of surviving.

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You give CBS 22 minutes and they’ll cut your news stations resources.

The last of the great radio formats is in a race to the bottom.

At great risk is their moneymaking machine all-news radio.

Not just for CBS, but it can bring down other formats if it continues to decline.

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1. How WTOP winds up the top billing radio station in the country when everyone else is dumbing down all-news.
2. The scary sh#t CBS is doing to dumb down and cutback on its top revenue producing news stations.
3. The CBS all-newser can’t even get a 1 share competing against WTOP in DC – have they all of a sudden gotten dumb?
4. What Radio One did wrong in its failed 3-year attempt to do all-news in Houston – another one bites the dust.
5. The almost impossible CBS all-news playbook going forward.

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There may be another bidder going after CBS Radio.

But Lew needs CBS badly.

His stock his down and there is nowhere to grow without that merger.

Bad karma is coming back to Lew.

This company may kick Lew when he is down.

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1. The radio group under the radar that is cozying up to CBS lately.
2. The reason why it seems impossible until you see the evidence that this buyer could actually pay more than Cumulus and make a sale easier for CBS.
3. Ways CBS Radio is already working with this group.
4. One top radio executive: Dan Mason and this CEO “are joined at the hip”.
5. Damn! CBS employees will not see this bidder as an upgrade from Cumulus.
6. It’s almost 2015, do you know where your CBS Radio group is?

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iHeartMedia has another (bad) idea.

Play with the Miller Kaplan numbers until they are no longer credible.

This is reportedly happening right now.

Competitors are going to be outraged when they get a load of this.

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1. Bob Pittman’s latest snake oil to make bad revenue figures go away.
2. His new plan to use “corporate welfare” to cook the Miller Kaplan’s.
3. The underperforming markets that are getting rescued – and the ones that are not.
4. Which market gets a Pittman gift of $1 million to virtually use anyway they like – yes, I’m naming it.
5. If you thought that iHeart was plum out of money, you’ll never guess where this cash infusion is coming from.
6. An ingenious if not sketchy plan to move revenue around from market to market to make things look better.

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Be careful of what you wish for.

An injured Dickey is a dangerous Dickey.

Their employees are the ones who will pay for their mistakes.

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1. The main reason Lew Dickey has fallen out of favor with investors.
2. Investors are falling all over each other to get out of Cumulus stock now nearing a 5-year low – what is scaring them.
3. The biggest thing Lew Dickey is doing to piss off investors – remember, a few months ago they loved this man.
4. A list of merger possibilities.
5. You’ll see Dickey’s Plan B – so what about Entercom if Dickey can’t make the CBS Radio merger happen soon.
6. The fallout if investors force the Dickeys out.

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My brutally honest preview of the most significant moves by 16 major radio groups expected in 2015 – just a few months from now.

This will impact markets.

And careers.

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1. The name was changed to iHeartMedia ahead of this big move for 2015.
2. What Cumulus intends to finally get done in 2015 – and I’m not talking about the CBS merger.
3. CBS’s transition year with surprises everywhere.
4. Forget Townsquare as a “hybrid” of radio and digital, you’ll see its real reason for existence emerge in 2015 and why it needs public money at the ready.
5. I’m thinking Hubbard has some big moves next year – let me explain.
6. Plus, the biggest moves you can expect from these radio groups: Entercom, Saga, Univision, Cox, Summit, Connoisseur, Digity, Greater Media, Beasley, Lincoln Financial, Univision, E.W. Scripps (formerly Journal) in as honest a way as I can put it.

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You are the best! I am mindful that there is no shortage of publications you can read for free. Thousands of members in our group (over 500 new ones in the past few months) subscribe to this publication for its honesty and insight uninfluenced by advertisers or media companies. Your interests are the only interests that matter.

Richard Branson is giving all his Virgin employees as many weeks of vacation as they feel they need as long as they keep being a valuable employee.

Netflix did it first.

This is a far cry from radio.

You may not be ready to let your employees choose as many weeks of vacation as they want – yet – but there are some things you can easily add to your bag of tricks.

And if you’re interested in being a great employer and, oh yes – rolling in dough like all the companies that offer great benefits to employees, here are the other tactics that very successful companies are using and just about no radio stations, record labels or TV companies subscribe to which means …

You can be first.

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1. Start with an easy one – the one thing that you can do today to make employees kill it for you that doesn’t cost a cent – not one red penny.
2. If there is one thing a company never, ever should do, it is this – it kills morale instantly.
3. Require this of every employee from now on – but you go first.
4. The one “perk” that companies cut first that employees appreciate the most.
5. A sure way around the biggest employee problem that gets in the way of productivity.
6. The new rules on firing when it is absolutely necessary that doesn’t scare the hell out of those who keep their jobs.

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Looks like Wall Street knows something we don’t know.

It’s loaded with insiders who have been suddenly and consistently voting against Cumulus every day by selling their stock.

Cumulus has dived to a new 1-year low of $3.40 a share down from $8.08 a few short months ago.

The first clue of trouble in Dickeyland was when Cumulus’ big lenders forced Lew Dickey to start recruiting a number two man whose name doesn’t start with “D” and end with “y”.

Screw them, you say.

Wait up – what is about to happen to Cumulus is like Ebola to the entire radio industry as you’re about to see.

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1. Caught!  Lenders are finally on to this worst practice evident at Cumulus.
2. But CBS Radio is no better – sources close to the situation say if you don’t like CBS cutting ad rates by 50%, you will hate what they are about to do.
3. Cumulus is being blind-sided by the scam artists formerly known as Clear Channel – here is how iHeartMedia is making life unbearable with this payback for the Dickeys.
4. Tons of spots and crappy content is begging iHeartMedia to rename one of its stations “All Spots Radio” – yes, whopping 12 minute stop sets every half hour revealed here.
5. Don’t laugh – how US Airways has the solution to radio’s revenue problems.       Steal it.

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Townsquare has a mission in the radio industry that you may not know about.

Yes, their employees mock them.

The owners are the laughing stock of the industry when they talk about being a hybrid of digital and events.

Of course, that’s horseshit.

But something evil is in the works that is going to upend the entire radio industry.

I thought you would like to know.

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1. Why Entercom should be the most worried.
2. Townsquare is standing by for their next mission from Oaktree Capital and it’s a potential radio bombshell.
3. Les Moonves is too smart to stay in a dying radio business, but here’s how Townsquare could be part of his solution in a sneaky way.
4. How can it be that the tiny stations Townsquare owns has its stock price rising while Cumulus is at a one year low – the stock market knows something and here’s what it is.

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Oh, no!

Say it’s not so.

CBS is fast becoming “See B.S.”

Swapping and building, pontificating about their platforms – sounds like imNOTMedia, doesn’t it?

Sad to say, plans are being made to wipeout expenses and that means huge personnel cuts coming.

Here’s what sources close to the situation are saying.

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1. The iHeartMedia/Cumulus type cuts that CBS Radio top management is planning to unleash.
2. Hundreds of “survivors” (sorry CBS TV) are not going to have it pretty either – Here’s why.
3. The big changes that air talent will have to get used to.
4. Who is exempt from these huge cutbacks – two men. One of course is Dan Mason. Here’s the other lucky devil.
5. What is Dickeyheimers Disease – the incurable disease that is beginning to infect the once great CBS Radio.

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What kind of Kool-Aid is the radio industry drinking?

CBS Radio does a swap with Beasley to further consolidate two major markets.

While laying off more people right now than Cumulus and iHeartMedia combined!

Caught cutting ad rates by 50% in LA, Chicago, Dallas and Detroit to name a few markets.

And you still think CBS Radio will remain an operator?

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1. What happens now to the other 25 or so CBS stations Les Moonves has promised to get rid of.
2. How Moonves thought he stuck it to Beasley while Beasley is getting the last laugh.
3. Now will KYW Newsradio in Philly finally get its FM simulcast.
4. What CBS employees think Les Moonves is up to -- the most troubling thing about his sudden interest in trading up.
5. Why would CBS want to stay in radio when they are furiously reducing their staffs even at so-called essential major market stations?
6. And the question CBS employees want answered! Are their jobs finally safe now?

The answers start here.

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Suddenly, whopping discounts up to 50% for everyone out of nowhere.

Major markets included.

Leaving competitors helpless to get their rates.

Mortally wounding the radio industry’s best efforts to break even this year.

Here’s the evidence that the new greedy bastard in radio is going scorched earth on the way out the door.

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1. CBS is dropping their drawers on rates in these major markets among others.
2. Simultaneously firing almost everyone in site at stations they intend to announce as sold or traded very soon – amazing content dumping in the past few days alone documented here.
3. One of the biggest billing stations at CBS Radio caught cutting rates this low!
4. The unbelievable way CBS Radio handles “50% off” ads in drive time.
5. An honest answer as to why the best company in radio is balls on trying hard to be the worst – all in the last 12 months. Sorry if anyone’s feelings are hurt.

The answers start here.

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