Monthly Archives: December 2020

Friday, December 11, 2020

iHeart Firings in 2021

As I write this, iHeart is in the midst of a 6-week reduction in workforce that has impacted hundreds of employees.

2020 was a record year for iHeart because they started the year with over 1,000 firings even before the coronavirus hit.  Then, they didn’t miss an opportunity to cut further using COVID as their cover.

So far this year there have arguably been 4 significant RIFs that included furloughs which were also used as cover for eventual firings a few weeks ago.

Every radio group is trimming its sails and you’d have to be on Mars not to know that the worst fears about a COVID economy are coming true.

People want to know have we seen the end of the current iHeart RIFs and which positions are most likely to be targeted in the next six months.

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Monday, December 7, 2020

EMF Thriving While Consolidators Struggle

Educational Media Foundation (EMF) struck again recently when they agreed to purchase KQGO-FM, Edina, MN and KZGO-FM, St. Paul from Pohlad Companies.  The price was not announced but we’ll get into that in a moment.

EMF has been feasting on the drastic decline in commercial radio station prices and has emerged as essentially the only buyer of commercial radio stations.

They have filled in major market voids by picking the bones of Cumulus and others who want quick cash for whatever they can get.

But don’t confuse EMF’s gambit as ill-advised because not only do they have their own way of pricing stations – and lately paying even less – they have an operational plan that has become the envy of commercial radio groups struggling with debt and declining revenue.

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Friday, December 4, 2020

Townsquare’s 2021 Hiring/Firing Plans

Details on RIFs from a company that now earns 50% of its income from digital

Last year after subtracting some corporate salaries and far fewer station jobs, Townsquare did no further reductions in force beyond 6%.

Their bigger brothers and sisters at Cumulus, Entercom and Beasley could not say the same thing.  And even smaller, independent operators feeling the financial hurt of the pandemic resorted to firings.

Saga, one of the most stable operators, made some adjustments early in the year but mostly cutback on the use of part-timers – still, nothing near what the consolidators were forced to do.

We’re getting a sense for how radio groups will handle their personnel expenses in 2021, a year that they had hoped would be a comeback from the coronavirus not another spike of it.

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