Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Your Hourly Clear Channel Job Cuts Update

At this rate, we should do this at the top of every hour, and sell a sponsor billboard...with the proceeds going to fired Clear Channel employees...

B&J PURGED: OMW confirmed it earlier this morning, and now the Soviet Style Purge has happened.

Clear Channel hot AC WMVX/106.5 "Mix 106-5" has now removed long-time morning drive team "Brian and Joe" from its website's schedule pull-down menu, and from its front page.

We clicked the link we posted earlier to the "Brian and Joe" section of the site, and it's still up...you just can't get there from the front page anymore.

The "Brian and Joe" menu item is gone from the main WMVX page, and the "On-Air" schedule pull-down menu list now starts with midday/afternoon/all day voicetracker Daune Robinson.

While the now-former WMVX morning pair still has an accessible web page, albeit off the beaten web track, let's copy some of the text there:

Brian and Joe are as "hometown" as hometown gets. Born and raised in Northeast Ohio and now in their 22th year on the air - Brian and Joe mix it up early weekday mornings on Cleveland's Mix 106.5!

Yes, it says "22th". No, there's no point in correcting it, as the page is likely to disappear not long after this item is posted.

Oh, wait. We see it's not a Full Soviet Style Purge, as a banner for a series of Brian and Joe promotions is still atop the site! Quoting the linked page:

Join Brian and Joe and MGD 64 for '"The Little Game." The Little Game is a 'lighter' version of Brian and Joe's "The Big Game" where you compete against other contestants for a chance to win prizes!

We're wondering if the no-longer-employed-by-WMVX duo will be at the following locations anyway, even if they presumably would no longer be giving away a six month gym membership and a chance at a Wii Fit:

4/30 - 6:8 pm The Garage Bar 1859 West 25th Street in Cleveland
5/7 - 6-8 pm Around The Corner 18616 Detroit Ave in Lakewood

UPDATE 4/28/09 2:14 PM: We just stumbled onto this WJW/8 "Fox 8 News" story on Brian and Joe's exit:

CLEVELAND--After more than 20 years on the radio in Cleveland, Brian Fowler and Joe Cronauer's mics have been silenced.

The popular morning duo at WMVX/106.5 were called to a meeting with station management Monday and told not to report for the "The Brian and Joe Show."

The radio shows usually airs from 5 to 10 a.m Monday-Friday.

Clear Channel is said to have laid many other employees, including other notable names in Cleveland.

Brian and Joe have been heard on Mix 106.5 for the past 10 years.

Yes, that fourth line is probably Fox 8 newsies referring to our items, though we're pretty sure we've used the term "laid off", not "laid"...

MORE HEARD FROM: We've managed to cobble together a decent list of the cuts at Clear Channel's Toledo cluster.

We already passed along word, thanks to FMQB.com, of the exit of top 40 WVKS/92.5 "Kiss FM" program director Nathan Reed. We also have confirmed that "Kiss" staffer "Mookie" is also out in the cuts.

We do hear that "Kiss" morning driver "Andrew Z"'s show is still intact (as far as we know, as is), and that "Boomer" will be program director of WVKS from now on.

(We're running out of quotation marks! Send more!)

Also out at CC/Toledo: AC WRVF/101.5 "The River" afternoon driver K.C. Palmer, along with two part-timers in news and programming, and one full-time office staffer...

YOUNGSTOWN: We're still processing Youngstown, though one other significant potential cut has been rumored in our comments again.

We're not able to confirm or dispell any of those rumors at this point, so take what you see in the comments with a grain of salt...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "Win a Wii Fit with Mix 106.5 & MGD 64!" promotion was just reassigned to MD Jay Hudson. For what it's worth.

Anonymous said...

Although Brian & Joe podcasts haven't been removed yet... I'd give them a few days...

http://www.wmvx.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=BrianAndJoe.xml

Who in their right mind would listen to 106.5 now?

It Said said...

Just who is going to do mornings? Any indication or is that decision still TBD?

Anonymous said...

My guess is that, in time, the station will probably become a jukebox just like 92.3. Daune Robinson and Jay Hudson are the only two left. And Daune has a nine-hour long shift!

GregoryToy said...

Cleveland
Morning duo Brian & Joe have exited hot AC WMVX (Mix 106.5)/Cleveland and will be replaced by Valentine's show, beamed from hot AC sister KBIG (104.3 MYfm)/Los Angeles.
-
http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebsite20/members/ShowHeadline.aspx?FormatId=0&ContentID=49014

Anonymous said...

So Valentine comes back, eh? He was at WAKS from 2000 until displacing him (in reality, a repurposed form of his original KIIS-FM/LA PMD show) with Elvis Duran.

I doubt this will go over well at all with anyone. If I were Dave Popovich at WQAL, I'd sign B&J up ASAP - and finally drive a stake through 106.5's remaining heart.

firebird said...

What's real amazing about these cuts in the various cities is that no one was cut in Atlanta. Then again, Clear Channel has already decimated Atlanta that there are about 5 local on air hosts with the rest of the day parts filled with syndicated or voice tracked programming. I'm surprised that WTAM still has local hosts on the weekends. WGST in Atlanta has one local host Monday thru Friday, and that's it.