As RBR+TVBR was first to report on Tuesday, Emmis Corporation has received “overwhelming support” from shareholders to amend its articles of incorporation.
This allows the former Emmis Communications to move ahead with a three-year privatization plan allowing it to reinvent itself and invest in new endeavours outside of radio station ownership.
Now, “the programming genius” behind some of its former hallmark radio stations has announced his retirement — sort of.
Rick Cummings is relinquishing his role as President of Radio Programming at Emmis, effective September 1. But, he’ll remain a consultant, continuing a relationship that dates to 1980.
Cummings, with the assistance of Kevin McCabe as Music Director, helped fuel a freestyle dance movement in New York with WQHT, originally “Hot 103.” In September 1988, it moved to its current dial position, becoming “Hot 97.” In the mid-1990s, a transition to hip-hop made the station legendary, and helped fuel a highly successful repositioning of KPWR “Power 106” in Los Angeles from a dance-fueled Top 40 station to pure hip-hop.
Other radio stations shaped by Cummings include memorable Top 40 stations of the 1980s that Emmis sold in the early 1990s, including WLOL-FM in Minneapolis and WAVA-FM in Washington, D.C.
That said, those are such a small example of Emmis’ former footprint in broadcast radio, which even included Slager Radio in Hungary during the 1990s.
Commenting on his shift to an outside role with a company he’s been a part of for 43 years, Cummings said, “Save my immediate family, nothing has given me more joy in life than working for [Company Founder and Chairman Jeff Smulyan] and Emmis. This company has afforded me extraordinary professional and personal opportunities, here and abroad, that no kid from rural Indiana could ever have imagined. I am eternally grateful for this and the future as Emmis allows me to continue in a consulting role. As I told Jeff, ‘I’ll work for you until they carry one of us out!’”
Smulyan commented, “Rick and I have been together every day since Emmis started, and we worked together even before that. It’s hard to describe our relationship, but no one has contributed more to the success of Emmis for 43 years than Rick and no one has been a better friend and partner. It is hard to see Rick wanting to slow down, but he has certainly earned the right to do that. Knowing that he will remain as a consultant means that we will continue to work and laugh together for a long time.”
A Cloverdale, Ind., native and Butler University graduate, Cummings became Emmis’ first Program Director at its flagship station, WENS-FM 97.1 in Indianapolis, in 1981. In 1984, he was named Emmis’ National Program Director.
In that role, Cummings and Smulyan took a gamble and converted what had been Country WHN into the country’s first all-sports station, WFAN.
In 2002, Smulyan became President of the Radio Division of Emmis Communications, overseeing more than 20 radio stations. In 2008, he became President of Programming for Emmis’ domestic radio group.
Cummings, who today is 72 years of age, is a past member of the National Association of Broadcasters and Radio Advertising Bureau boards.
