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Delmarva Broadcasting Lets Go Two On-Air Personalities in Salisbury.

O

ocradiofreak

On Monday Delmarva Broadcasting let go two On-Air personalities at their Salisbury cluster. News Director for WICO Bill Reddish and Afternoon Driver Mike Cheney was let go from Cat Country. He also handled mornings on 97.1 The Wave. I guess this is a sign of the times as Delmarva was always the place that didn't lay anyone off. Good luck to these two.

Cheney used to be the morning guy on Q-105 for over 10 years. He was let go from there in 2005 and landed at Cat Country shortly there after.
 
Sorry to hear about Mike and Bill. When I worked over at Clear Channel in the early 2000, Mike was over there. He and Sandy Alexander did mornings for years. She retired last year. I think Delmarva has some good products in the Salisbury market, but to really gain a foot hold they need more personalities, not less. WICO-FM/AM is all off the bird, and you can't compete against WGMD which is only of the bird during Rush, and after 10pm. As for the WAVE, the music sounds great, but it's missing not have real time jocks. Cat Country is a much better station then Froggy, but Clear Channel even with less than 15 local employees still dominates the market. The way to beat the Big box stores is on service, the same for radio. Delmarva spends way too much on WDEL in Wilmington which struggles to pull a 3.0 share, while cutting back their other stations.
 
No matter what Cat Country does Froggy always dominates the ratings with the stronger stick. Truthfully the stations aren't that much different now. Both have live two person morning shows, a woman jock in middays (Froggy is voice-tracked from somewhere else), in the afternoon Froggy is live with Dick Raymond and Cat Country now has OM Joe Edwards. Not sure if that is live or not since he is doing mornings on the Wave too.

Both clusters now have the same amount of programming employees: 4. Great Scott really missed the opportunity to take control of this market in 2008/2009 when Clear Channel started the bulk of their layoffs. But Great Scott missed the boat like they always do.
 
Since radio revenue is not increasing that rapidly, I am not surprised that Delmarva is making cuts. Its sad, but I'm not surprised.
 
They know how to survive a Depression, which they have survived even before the days of the modern day radio stations they own and operate. They know what they are facing when it comes to money. I would say that Pete Booker and Cynthia Morgan also put the ethics of their companies and personnel above the money (NOT saying at all that ethics or lack thereof had anything at all to do with the dismissals). Anybody who might consider that they are so big, operating more than radio stations, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, that they don't have time to deal with unethical or criminal conduct is sorely mistaken. The company does not take it lightly.

Again, not saying that ethics had anything to do with the dismissals in Maryland. Just adding their ethics to their ability to survive hard economic times.
 
This had nothing to do with ethics. It has to do with the Salisbury cluster not making as much money in these tough times. Plus the company is having some issues with it's other holdings outside of radio.

And yes it sucks that Mike Cheney is out of a job after all of these years. Who knows what he will do.
 
I specifically said that in the case of the two Maryland jocks it wasn't about ethics.
 
I should have added that they do have a station with a very bad apple on board, but that happens in a lot of companies. They know it, let it slide and figure eventually it'll move along.
 
In addition to Bill and Mike, DBC also let go Theresa Patrick, who had been their office/traffic manager for at least 15 years. I worked at that company on-air, off and on, for about 14 years. They are an EXCEPTIONALLY great company and have some of the best people I've ever known. Sadly, the nature of this business (the selling of intangibles) is such that it is very susceptible to economic downturns, perhaps more so than most other industries. Even with the best sales staff on the Peninsula (Janice Cory, Mike Cobo, Steve Frene, etc.), it's difficult to keep things afloat when the ad revenue base is worried.
Bill and Mike are such well-known professionals that they'll be back on-air somewhere soon. Likewise Theresa. Best of luck to them all.
 
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