Radio’s worst week ever

A lot of good people lost their jobs at radio stations all over the country this week.

In most cases, it didn’t matter whether they were talented and capable or whether their stations were successful and profitable. They were fired because the huge companies they worked for didn’t want to pay their salaries anymore.

Dozens of program directors were among those who suddenly found themselves unemployed and unlikely to find new jobs commensurate with their skills and experience. I know two of them personally, and consider both to have been among the best in the business.

Michael LaCrosse, who until Tuesday was operations director of oldies WLS-FM (94.7), told me that he considered himself “really lucky” to have worked at a couple of great stations in his home town — even if his layoff by Cumulus Media means the end of his career here. “Most people aren’t that fortunate,” he said without bitterness.

Mark Edwards, another old friend from his days as vice president of programming at adult contemporary WLIT-FM (93.9), was forced out in a “cost restructuring” Thursday as program director of Entercom Communications’ KZPT-FM in Kansas City. “Everyone says it was not performance,” he told me. “I was just the only PD in the building not holding down an air shift or programming more than one station.”

Clear Channel Radio won’t say how many employees it laid off in small and medium markets Wednesday, but industry websites estimated they were in the hundreds. One of the sites, Joel Denver’s AllAccess.com, carried running tallies of the victims’ names as waves of firings were carried out from coast to coast.

Even Inside Radio, the daily newsletter wholly owned by Clear Channel, couldn’t sugarcoat the facts: “The downsizing appears to be [Clear Channel’s] largest since it reduced the workforce by a combined 11 percent in 2009,” the publication reported Thursday. “The new dismissals hit program directors, assistant program directors, music directors, producers and air talent, including ones that were voicetracking shows for other stations. Some were even the top talent in their timeslot on a top-ranked station.”

Unlike the layoffs at Cumulus and Entercom, Clear Channel insisted that its actions this week were not about cutting costs. “We’re making these changes to improve the quality of what we provide to each of our local communities,” a company spokesperson told Inside Radio. “There will be more localization, not less.” Imagine that.

Amid the carnage, some inspiring stories of integrity emerged. John Laton, an 11-year veteran of Clear Channel who most recently had been vice president/market manager for the Quad Cities, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, quit rather than implement firings he believed to be undeserved and counterproductive. “I just said, ‘Enough already,’ ” Laton told Duane Dudek of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Within days, Laton was snatched up as Milwaukee market manager for Spanish-language Adelante Media Group. “I actually get to go to work every day and use my best judgment,” Laton said of his new job. “My input will not only be respected, but as importantly, expected in this company’s culture. For the first time in a very long time, I will be in control of my own destiny.”