Monday, March 14, 2011

3.14.11 Bee-otch of the Day: Citadel Broadcasting



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Name: Citadel Broadcasting
Age: 27
Occupation: broadcast giant
Last Seen: Las Vegas
Bee-otched For: becoming even bigger
 
 

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Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix all met their maker at the tender age of 27.

Now, it's going to be Citadel Broadcasting's turn.

Last week, it was announced that Cumulus Broadcasting had finalized their buyout of Citadel and its assets for just over $2.4 billion. The buyout will involve its radio stations and what used to be the ABC Radio Network, which is now Citadel Media. Cumulus will end up with 572 radio stations and radio stations in all major Arbitron markets in Michigan except Traverse City.

For years, Citadel had been a bitch in the world of broadcasting and deservingly so. Here in Grand Rapids, it all started in 2002 when the company appointed Matt Hanlon as the General Manager of their cluster there. Since his takeover, he's managed to destroy rock leader WKLQ while their audience migrated over to WGRD, making that station Grand Rapids' rock leader, he's fired many hard-working people and replaced them with no-talent jerk-offs like Michael Grey and Darren Arriens, he hired many big-market losers like Ron and Don and Kevin Matthews to no-good ratings and so on. Let's not forget how he screwed over Howard Stern and his listeners here in Grand Rapids.

And even though none of his stations are in the top five in the Arbitrons, plus the fact that he helped Citadel run into bankruptcy, good 'ol Matty boy's still in charge.

But tragically, Cumulus ain't much better, at least on a political standpoint. In the early 2000's, they dumped Howard Stern from all of their stations claiming that his show was too expensive to air, even though in most markets, airing his show's the same price as airing Rush Limbaugh. Affected markets included Toledo and Davenport, IA.

Let's not forget that it was Cumulus that made it cool to hate the Dixie Chicks because of lead singer Natalie Maines' Bush-bashing on stage in London. To prove that they've pledged alliegence to the Bush Crime family, most of their Top 40 pop stations now air Billy Bush's nighttime radio show. While a young DJ is struggling to find a job, Billy boy gets to make more money.

The point is, it's corporate radio business as usual. Listeners come last while the neocon advertisers come first. Meanwhile in the process, the listener now has more options, such as satellite radio and MP3s. For many like myself, terrestrial radio is as useful as the 8-track player or (lol) HD radio.
I still feel that terrestrial radio needs to work harder to maintain listenership if they want to keep them. Billy Bush won't save radio, and neither will blacklisting the Dixie Chicks. Hell, there's a small daytime-only country station in North Carolina that played the Dixie Chicks recently, and on their Facebook page, a man thanked them for playing them.

Radio: it's time for a change. 
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