NorthEast Radio Watch 4/29/2024: Audacy Cuts. Again.

In this week’s issue… Audacy cuts in Pittsburgh, Hartford, elsewhere – WBUR makes job cuts, too – WBAI faces FCC scrutiny – Giovanni’s farewell – Remembering NYC’s Pigg, Cuscuna, hockey’s Cole

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*It was another one of those weeks in the industry, when the financial realities of corporate radio dominated the headlines and too many good people lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

This time, it was Audacy in the spotlight, with about a hundred employees – one out of every fifty – getting cut across the country on Wednesday as the company tries to find a path out of bankruptcy in the only way these companies seem to be able to do so, by reducing headcount and doing more with less.

As always, there’s a complete nationwide roundup of the cuts over at our sister site, RadioInsight, but you’re here because you want to know about this region. While many of Audacy’s cuts affected national team leaders, especially in its digital divisions, there were local cuts as well, and as best we can tell, there are three markets in our region that got badly hit.

In Hartford, AC “Lite 100.5” (WRCH) took the brunt of the cuts, losing both midday host Joan Dylan (who was also music and imaging director) and afternoon host Chuck Taylor. Dylan had been with the station for 25 years, Taylor for five as a fulltimer. Those shifts will now be voicetracked, at least partially from outside the market. Down the hall at WTIC (1080), the news-talk station suffered cutbacks in its newsroom as well, losing anchors Kevin Gorden and Greg Little and cancelling overnight news headlines, instead just using network newscasts.

In Pittsburgh, KDKA (1020/100.1) has rearranged its schedule now that Rick Dayton is gone from afternoon drive, a victim of the cuts. Without Dayton, a 15-year station veteran who moved from morning news to afternoon host in 2020, the new lineup extends Larry Richert’s morning show an extra hour until 10, followed by Marty Griffin (now in a four-hour slot at 10 AM instead of a three-hour slot at 9), and then Colin Dunlap from 2-6.

In New York City, Christine Richie is out as evening host at WNEW-FM (New 102.7) after thirteen years with the station. A New York radio veteran, Richie came to WNEW from eight years at WPLJ; before that, she’d worked for several Philadelphia stations including WYXR and WBEB.

And there’s at least one on-air cut in Boston, where Mike Kadlick is out after a year as the Patriots beat reporter at WEEI-FM (93.7).

“Audacy is performing well against our 2024 business plan, and we are on track to emerge as a stronger and healthier company, well positioned for a bright future as a differentiated, scaled industry leader with the industry’s strongest balance sheet,” the company said in a statement. “As we continue to make large investments and drive enhancements across our business, we are simultaneously implementing some difficult but necessary decisions…” – and no, you don’t want to hear the rest of the corporate-speak any more than we do, right?