Nobody's shift was changed. Nobody was told what to say. They quit on their own.
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Audacy Bankruptcy Goes To FCC
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Nobody's shift was changed. Nobody was told what to say. They quit on their own.
I think we'll have a better sense once the bankruptcy is settled and we know who's running things.
Audacy is probably my least favorite major operator, but I have to give credit where it’s due. They’ve made a number of smart moves with format changes or tweaks in certain markets that needed to be made, or flipping stations back to past brands that were more successful. Bringing back Live 105, 102JAMS in Orlando, restoring Power 96 in Miami back to a sound similar to its glory days, the hot AC pivot in Philadelphia, “fixing” KROQ to bring it out of the depths of the basement, etc were all smart moves.
I don’t know the internals, but i do have my eyes on one Audacy alt station - WDZH in Detroit. WWJ is the last all-news station they own that’s exclusively on AM with no FM, and Alt 98.7 would probably be the station blown up if the company decided there was a revenue benefit from ditching it for a FM simulcast of WWJ. There’s the low rated 104.3 The Shark in Miami, but I don’t know what else they could/would do with it.
Audacy put Mike Kaplan in charge of KROQ while he stayed in NYC, that wasn't a smart move.
What about KRLD Dallas? Although they're no longer "all news."
They also "fixed" KVIL. Lot of compliments for John Allers.
I don’t know about the billing, but Audacy seems to invest more and receive better ratings for WWJ than they have for KRLD in quite some time.
I forgot about KVIL, very true.
I don't know what they were thinking with that whole "alt pop" thing they tried. Lazlo still jokes about having to play Yung Gravy to this day.
Personal opinion: During the last vote on aid to the Ukraine there were a lot in the GOP who played politics.
History has a bad habit of repeating itself.
Germany lost WW1. Hitler promised a return to glory and started overrunning small counties. I personally feel had he been stopped early WW2 would not had happened.
The Soviet Union lost the Cold War. Now Putin is promising Russia will restore the Soviet Union. They got Crimea. Now the Ukraine is next.
IMHO: It better to have the Russians bogged down in the Ukraine than have Russian tanks rolling thru Poland on their way to Berlin.
I did not say that anybody's shift was changed. I was using that as an analogy.
The air staff was told the station would be more "balanced". They took that as a threat more than a promise, and nearly everyone quit because they worked as much for the "Cuban Cause" (La Causa Cubana) as for the money. Further, Soros's support for reduced sanctions and "normal" relations with the Cuban government was anathema to them.
Maybe. It's not like he has the power to affect foreign policy. On the other hand, in 2019, several employees of Radio Marti were fired for blatantly antisemitic comments about Soros. So it seems like this is mostly one-sided. They're using the radio to attack him without any actual basis. This happened under the previous administration and reported by the VOA:
Audit: US Broadcasting to Cuba Rife With Bad Journalism, Ineffective Propaganda
Independent review of Office of Cuban Broadcasting programming came after its broadcasters made anti-Semitic comments about philanthropist George Soros
www.voanews.com
There didn't appear to be any basis in anything Soros did. They didn't say anything about his interest in normal relations with Cuba. Just that he was Jewish. This may be more religious than political. The people at Mambi were probably very aware of this, and were supportive of the people at Marti who were fired.
Getting back to the topic of this thread, there doesn't appear to be any factual basis in the statement that the Soros investment is the reason Audacy is seeking a foreign investment waiver. Their comments are strictly political, and putting this in front of the five commissioners is likely to result in a political decision, that they will use to promote their own election campaign.
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Having worked for both Martí and Mambí, I can tell you that there is no love lost between them. Local Miami radio almost totally ignores Radio Martí as ineffective and irrelevant.
Most agree that all Audacy is doing is protecting itself, as other public corporations have done, from potential problems caused by offshore accounts and international mutual funds and investment companies.
Short version? Simplified version? The company formerly known as Entercom bought the entire CBS Radio portfolio lock stock and barrel. Took on an enormous amount of debt, began reorganizing stations/clusters in order to save money (they fired a bunch of people), and then waited for the debt service revenue to start rolling in.
Then while they were finishing up that whole "reorganization" thing, a global pandemic hit. Bit harder to both service a billion dollars in fresh new debt AND make money in a global economic downturn. Stock price tanks, fingers are pointed, even more people are fired, and bankruptcy is put on the very rickety table.
Technically, Radio Marti and OCB aren't supposed to target or appeal to a domestic audience. It's a leftover from the Smith Mundt Act. But you're right, it is pretty much crap.
And, just to add, before the purchase of CBS Radio’s assets, Entercom had some of the best run stations and was among a top tier operator IMO. Very respected company.
IMO it was a miscalculation trying to "skate where the puck would be." Music trends and what hits can be hard to predict, especially with a format as fragmented as alternative. They probably figured if that was where music was trending with younger demos on streams then that's the "alternative" that would work.
There was little consensus new music. They got no direction from the musicians or the labels who don't care about alternative radio airplay. So they played Billie Eilish because she sounded alternative and was popular. They were right about her. She & her brother won a bunch of Grammy awards and have become consensus artists. She & Maneskin are the few bankable new artists.
But as I said, the future of radio isn't playing music. Especially music that don't have consensus music. Audacy replaced an alt station in Kansas City with Sports talk. I expect more of that to come.
It seemed like Audacy alternative stations leaned into one particular sound that was unique to their stations. Stuff like JXDN did not get played much on iHeart or Cumulus alternative stations around the country, but it seemed like Audacy stations leaned into that sound.
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That's what happens in a format that has no consensus. Other formats have a core of new artists who get airplay across all platforms.
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