INSIDE …

• Out of places to eliminate iHeart employees there’s only one that has been “hands off” for years -- that looks like it’s about to change in 2022.
• Their next “Excellence Centers” idea to further consolidate programming. 
• The ad economy has still not recovered but the anticipated iHeart RIFs are being driven for a very different reason.
• iHeart/Clear Channel has been laying off for two decades, here’s their most predictable pattern.
• iHeart has been averaging $50 million in cutbacks a year – here’s next year’s number.

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AM is in danger of dying for no good reason

• My students can barely name an FM station, frequency or type of programming on the air and have no idea what AM radio is – and I’m talking about my USC students years ago as well as NYU music business students today indicating a death watch for AM among young people.
• AM operators have been failed by the FCC and most importantly their lobby group the NAB which has talked a good game but left thousands of AM stations vulnerable and on life support.
• If they can’t attract audiences younger than 60, AM will be all but gone in a few more years but there is an answer – provide incentives for consolidators who already have too many stations to run to do long-term leases to AM operators.

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Yesterday:  NPR and EMF Putting on a Clinic for Consolidators

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Top Execs Rewarded for Missing Revenue

• David Field and his COO Susan Larkin are in for pay raises after a dismal year in which Audacy repeatedly missed its revenue projections and presided over the further loss of audience.
• Rewarding C-suite officials for failure is not new to companies propped up with private equity money but is curious in the case of Audacy as they teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.
• BUT, Field and Larkin are not the only ones who will see a change in their paychecks as Audacy station personnel are also in for significant changes ahead.

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• The groups that are ready to deemphasize conservative talk
• Damage from Limbaugh’s death and Bongino’s mouth
• Format replacement options on the table for AM talk radio
• Even more radical solutions presently discussed privately

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• Year-end cost-cutting
• The next phase of regionalized formats
• An Audacy format that will be virtually eviscerated to save money
• Auditors to decide Audacy’s future path

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• Bad news for voice actors and voice trackers
• It’s being done right now on a radio station, more planned
• The most likely major radio group to go first
• Big implications for local ad campaigns

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