Columnist rails against Suleman

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Chicago Sun-Times media columnist Robert Feder is pulling no punches in describing the staff cuts last week at Citadel’s WLS-AM and WZZN-FM as the work of the “idiots and incompetents who’ve been destroying radio,” most recently by pink-slipping 14 people at the Chicago combo. “The villain this time was Citadel Broadcasting Corp. CEO Farid Suleman, who made a lousy deal to buy the stations and now appears determined to wreck them in order to save face and pay down his crushing debt,” Feder wrote. “Before he blundered into Citadel, Suleman used to be a bean counter and hatchet man for Mel Karmazin at the former Infinity Broadcasting. Suleman obviously learned little from his mentor, who appreciated the value of talented personalities to a successful radio product,” Feder railed. In his view, the news operation at WLS has been so decimated that the station might as well stop promoting itself as the place to go for news.


Read Feder’s column from the Sun-Times.

Slaughter at WLS cuts news from ‘news/talk’

March 4, 2008

By Robert Feder, Sun-Times Columnist

The idiots and incompetents who’ve been destroying radio struck again Friday.

In this case, their targets were legendary major-market stations that until recently were owned by ABC – including Chicago’s news/talk WLS-AM (890) and oldies WZZN-FM (94.7).

The villain this time was Citadel Broadcasting Corp. CEO Farid Suleman, who made a lousy deal to buy the stations and now appears determined to wreck them in order to save face and pay down his crushing debt.
Before he blundered into Citadel, Suleman used to be a bean counter and hatchet man for Mel Karmazin at the former Infinity Broadcasting. Suleman obviously learned little from his mentor, who appreciated the value of talented personalities to a successful radio product.

At WLS and WZZN, 14 people were fired Friday. Although two could return through a back door (including afternoon traffic anchor Christina Filiaggi, if a deal can be reached with Metro Networks), the slaughter was deeply destructive.

The moves were an overreaction to Wall Street after a tough fourth quarter. With audience ratings solidly in seventh place and 2006 revenues of $18.5 million, WLS was operating smartly and profitably. And WZZN, which seemed to be on the verge of a turnaround under a new manager, almost surely will have to shelve its expansion plans.

It certainly will be a lot harder now for WLS to promote itself as the place to go for news since its once-proud news department has been utterly decimated.

Forced out were news director Jennifer Keiper and reporters Bill Cameron (a distinguished veteran of the City Hall press room) and David Jennings. Left to carry on are two drive-time news anchors and one street reporter.

Outsourcing and reliance on newspaper contributors will be the new order of the day.

"I never thought it would be on this scale," said Keiper, who feels sympathy for the survivors. "And I think this is only the beginning."

Also out are weekend hosts Jake Hartford and Nate Clay. Hartford is an especially tough loss since his Saturday morning talk show had been a popular draw for years.

Off-air hits included local sales manager Patrick Fitzgerald and John Romanovich, exec producer of Don Wade and Roma’s morning show. A producer, a technical board operator, a part-time voice talent, a Webmaster, a sales assistant and a receptionist round out the hit list.

With the Wades’ contract up in November, speculation has been heating up that Suleman could force WLS to replace them with Don Imus, whose New York-based morning show was resurrected by Citadel last year.

If WLS loses its local morning show to syndication, it could be the last nail in the coffin for The Big 89.

Republished by permission.

Here is a link to the original column.