Providence Radio: VP/MM John Sutherland OUT At Cumulus Cluster

John Sutherland

For the second time in just over a year, Cumulus Media, 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 N/T WPRO 630 AM / 99.7 FM, Top40 WPRO 92.3 FM, HipHop WWKX 106.3 FM HOT 106,WWLI 105.1 FM Lite Rock 105 and Talk WPRV 790 AM.

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.
Prior to coming to Providence, Sutherland worked in the Worcester and San Jose/San Francisco markets in radio.