Well the cat’s out of the bag. The station that I was talking about yesterday was obviously KRBV in Los Angeles. LA sources informed us that Radio One president Barry Mayo flew in to break the news to staff yesterday afternoon officially. As you know, in this industry more people know about a company’s situation on the outside then those on the inside and the dwindling black population in Los Angeles and the growing Latino-driven urban format options makes it very difficult for the urban stations to compete in the market. With a legendary heritage staple like KJLH in the market a start up with a similar format and target will almost certainly fail. In 1999 Radio one paid twice the Bonneville purchase amount of $137 million to Clear Channel/AMFM. To many it was an amazing irony that Radio One purchased (the former) KKBT, which at the time was known throughout the industry to be an extremely racist outlet in the LA market preferring to hire all non black announcers and management for the never say “urban” new “multicultural” format. As a former employee, I can testify to that fact, it is indeed true. (…also, there is no such word as “multicultural” it’s a cop out and a pacifier for people to make money off of cultures they don’t belong to.)
Radio One’s Alfred Liggins stated “This is an attractive transaction for Radio One, as it frees-up capital and management resources which can be re-deployed to execute our long-term strategy. We expect to use the proceeds from this transaction to reduce our leverage, accelerate our Internet strategy and re-commence a limited buy-back of our securities.”
The official format change to talk will take place at the end of this quarter or the beginning of the next. No word on when the staff will officially be terminated.
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