Although I'm in Northern California, I have an acquaintance in the sales department at Premiere who is very dialed in with a producer at Fox. He says Fox is the black sheep of Premiere. He also said the CEO of the company recently had Ashwood in his office for a major ass chewing because of the constant turnover at the network.
If Sporting News Radio goes ahead with their plans, Fox is probably done. Ashwood was brought in to stop the financial bleeding at the network, but he's placed the network in a deeper hole than when he arrived. All of the shows continue to lose money. I'm told they have a hot-shot sales guy who has helped balance the loss in revenue since Bruno's departure, but Fox is barely making it.
With Bruno and Kiley and Booms, SNR could be poised for a major comeback. A friend in Chicago tells me they've already made verbal deals with a few current and former FSR people. Look for all new clocks, imaging, and a revised line-up to coincide with the new Bruno show.
Ashwood was banking that no one would deal with Bruno on a national level again and SNR was basically dead a year ago. Clear Channel doesn't want any of their talent to have too much power. Their philosophy is to protect the brand, even if that means you cut bait with your best talent in favor of weak, vanilla talent and bland programming. Clear Channel is a "let's win by owning everything" type of company. Rather than program each property well, they use 3 or 4 properties to dominate. They're basically the mafia of radio.
The truth is, every employee at Fox is terrified of Andrew Ashwood. With the exception of about 2 people in the building, everyone thinks he's a bafoon. The people he perceives as his biggest supporters trade Emails daily about how he has ruined the network. Even his most trusted confidants laugh at him behind his back, and that should be the comfort to those who are disgusted with what he did to Fox. His lack of judgement is not limited to the choices he makes as a programmer.
You know sports radio is getting bad when sports stations start playing non-sports shows. We've got Tom Leykis in the morning!
If Sporting News Radio goes ahead with their plans, Fox is probably done. Ashwood was brought in to stop the financial bleeding at the network, but he's placed the network in a deeper hole than when he arrived. All of the shows continue to lose money. I'm told they have a hot-shot sales guy who has helped balance the loss in revenue since Bruno's departure, but Fox is barely making it.
With Bruno and Kiley and Booms, SNR could be poised for a major comeback. A friend in Chicago tells me they've already made verbal deals with a few current and former FSR people. Look for all new clocks, imaging, and a revised line-up to coincide with the new Bruno show.
Ashwood was banking that no one would deal with Bruno on a national level again and SNR was basically dead a year ago. Clear Channel doesn't want any of their talent to have too much power. Their philosophy is to protect the brand, even if that means you cut bait with your best talent in favor of weak, vanilla talent and bland programming. Clear Channel is a "let's win by owning everything" type of company. Rather than program each property well, they use 3 or 4 properties to dominate. They're basically the mafia of radio.
The truth is, every employee at Fox is terrified of Andrew Ashwood. With the exception of about 2 people in the building, everyone thinks he's a bafoon. The people he perceives as his biggest supporters trade Emails daily about how he has ruined the network. Even his most trusted confidants laugh at him behind his back, and that should be the comfort to those who are disgusted with what he did to Fox. His lack of judgement is not limited to the choices he makes as a programmer.
You know sports radio is getting bad when sports stations start playing non-sports shows. We've got Tom Leykis in the morning!
