Cumulus Fires Top Boss at WPRO, LITE 105 and HOT 106
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
For the second time in just over a year, Cumulus, the mega-media company that is trying to stave off bankruptcy, fired the top boss in Rhode Island. GoLocal has learned that John Sutherland, Vice President/Market Manager has been let go just a year after his predecessor was fired.
Barbara Haynes was dismissed in May of 2015 after more than a decade leading the radio group that includes WPRO AM, WPRO FM, HOT 106, Lite 105 and AM790.
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More and More Changes
The once stable radio group that commands approximately 50 percent of an ever-shrinking local radio market, has seen a dramatic number of high profile shake-ups.
Beside two changes in a year at the helm, the group let sales leader Joe Lembo leave over the past summer. Young talent like Kim Kalunian left for WPRI-12 and most damaging was the death of former Providence Mayor and afternoon drive host Buddy Cianci.
The loss of Cianci caused a reshuffling of talk show line-up on WPRO-AM -- one that has seen a significant loss of advertising revenue for the once highly profitable talk format station and a hit to ratings.
Financial Distress
According to The Street in a February 2016 article, “Cumulus touts about $2.5 billion in total debt through a combination of $1.9 billion worth of leveraged loans and $600 million in high-yield bonds, both rated several notches below investment grade by both Moody's and Standard and Poor’s.”
And GoLocal reported in December 2015, “At Cumulus, new CEO Mary Berner has done nothing new except hire another person from outside the industry…They want to go bankrupt and her experience taking Readers Digest into Chapter 11 is her qualification to be CEO,” said Jerry Del Colliano, Publisher, Inside Music Media.
Prior to coming to Providence, Sutherland worked in the Worcester and San Jose/San Francisco markets in radio.
Cumulus stock is trading at close on Tuesday at $0.34 a share, down from two years earlier when the stock traded at $6.60 a share.
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