Entercom President/CEO David Field, Thursday suggested significant programming strategy alterations are coming for the company’s Country and Alternative Rock properties. At the same time, a restructuring of Entercom's national sales teams is underway.
The moves were disclosed in a staff memo Thursday. Field called the moves “important” as Entercom continues “to transform and improve our organization to best serve our listeners and customers.”
Field stated entercom needs “reimagine and enhance” its programming and sales strategies “to ensure that we are meeting evolving listener and customer expectations.”
Field made clear in the staff memo clear that Entercom is “of course, not alone” in making “meaningful changes to address new opportunities and competition.” Entercom has started “a new chapter in its Country and Alternative formats with "enhanced content and listener experiences – connecting our communities with the content they love."
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| David Field |
Field stated, Country and Alternative music fans who consume Entercom stations such as WUSN-FM in Chicago, KROQ-FM in Los Angeles, WDSY-FM in Pittsburgh and KVIL-FM “ALT 103.7” in Dallas “will enjoy an improved listening experience.”
“Quality local content remains at the heart of our business, and we remain committed to delivering the best local programming with the best and most popular local personalities and deep local community engagement,” he said, suggesting that a large-scale reduction in local program origination is not in the works.
He also noted that Entercom wishes to “elevate our best programmers and personalities into larger roles,” which means job cuts.
According to AllAccess.com, job cuts include Entercom/Phoenix OM and VP of Branding Tim Richards; St. Louis OM/PD Cat Thomas; KSON-FM in San Diego Asst. PD/MD/nighttimer Greg Raneiri and midday host Amber Barton; WSFS-FM “104.3 The Shark” in Miami midday host Deena Lang, a market veteran who had been there for five years; WLKK-FM/Buffalo PD/afternoon host Nik Rivers; and KKWF/Seattle interim PD/MD/afternoon host Erik Halverson.
“While this is an exciting time of growth and transformation and we look forward to the creative opportunities that lie ahead, we also recognize that change is hard,” Field said. “As we make the necessary changes to best serve our listeners and customers, it is difficult to part ways with members of our team who have made significant contributions to our company over the years. We are grateful to them for their service. In order to assist in their transition, we are providing enhanced benefits for each affected individual and wish them the very best.”
Field also announced that Entercom will be restructuring its national sales teams. “We have operated with multiple national teams calling on the same accounts, limiting our ability to focus our communications and hindering our ability to execute as seamlessly as possible on behalf of our national agency and client partnerships. Effective immediately, we are aligning and unifying our national sales teams to make it easier for clients to do business with us while creating more flexibility for national client integration with our brands — locally and at scale across our platform. Our goal is simple: [to] super serve our national clients and agency partners.”
The text of the staff memo:
I’m excited to share some important moves we are making as we continue to transform and improve our organization to best serve our listeners and customers.
As the media world continues to experience rapid changes in technology, consumer preferences and the competitive landscape, so must we continue to reimagine and enhance our programming and sales strategies to ensure that we are meeting evolving listener and customer expectations. We are, of course, not alone. Every media company in the world is making meaningful changes to address new opportunities and competition.
As we have grown rapidly and become one of the nation’s strongest audio content and entertainment companies with a leadership position in radio, podcasting, digital audio and live events, we have developed outstanding new programming and technological capabilities that enable us to better serve our audiences.
Earlier this SUMMER, we formed a team of some of our best, most creative programmers and asked them to apply fresh thinking to reimagine our programming strategies in Country and Alternative. We encouraged them to take full advantage of our outstanding breadth of premium audio content and other capabilities to deliver the best possible listening experience for our audiences. Our mandate to them was unequivocally clear: put the listener first and develop a plan that will improve our product.
They delivered. Today we announce the results of their work as we begin a new chapter in our Country and Alternative formats with enhanced content and listener experiences – connecting our communities with the content they love. Our Country and Alternative audiences will enjoy an improved listening experience driven by the following:
·Putting the Listener First – Deliver the most compelling and engaging audio content, regardless of where it originates
·Continue to Deliver the Best Local Programming – Quality local content remains at the heart of our business and we remain committed to delivering the best local programming with the best and most popular local personalities and deep local community engagement
·Exclusive, New, Curated Content – Tap into our leading radio, podcasting, and digital platforms to generate additional outstanding, unique content to better serve our listeners
·Unique, Exclusive Artist and Superstar Content – Capitalize on our format leadership to create regular exclusive listener content with labels, artists, and influencers, such as superstar artist features, behind-the-scenes access, and other special, must-listen elements.
·Elevate Our Best Programmers and Personalities into Larger Roles – Give our most talented programmers greater responsibilities to reimagine and elevate our content while amplifying some of our top shows across larger regional and national audiences.
Tomorrow, we will host a company-wide town hall and will hear from some of our Brand Managers about the new plans for the Country and Alternative formats and why they are so excited about the enhancements to the listening experience.
In addition, I want to make sure that there are no misunderstandings about the actions we are taking. To be clear, ENTERCOM will remain local, first and foremost. As the industry’s #1 home for premium, original audio content, we will continue to make the industry’s largest investment in local talent. From our iconic local news brands, to our top-ranked music channels, to our unrivaled sports stations – our engaging and compelling personalities remain the heart of our original local programming. We will continue these large investments in our local product and talent, as well as new local features across our brands. In addition, every station will continue to have its own unique playlist driven by a continued commitment to heavy local research.
TODAY, we are also announcing that we will be restructuring our national sales teams to enhance our effectiveness in serving our national customers. We have operated with multiple national teams calling on the same accounts, limiting our ability to focus our communications and hindering our ability to execute as seamlessly as possible on behalf of our national agency and client partnerships. Effective immediately, we are aligning and unifying our national sales teams to make it easier for clients to do business with us while creating more flexibility for national client integration with our brands – locally and at scale across our platform. Our goal is simple: super serve our national clients and agency partners. This will significantly increase our overall value for our partners while accelerating our growth.
While this is an exciting time of growth and transformation and we look forward to the creative opportunities that lie ahead, we also recognize that change is hard. As we make the necessary changes to best serve our listeners and customers, it is difficult to part ways with members of our team who have made significant contributions to our company over the years. We are grateful to them for their service. In order to assist in their transition, we are providing enhanced benefits for each affected individual and wish them the very best.
At the same time, we are excited by the new professional growth opportunities that these changes are enabling across the organization. Many members of our programming and national sales teams, including a significant number of brand managers, personalities, content creators, producers, sales executives and more will be stepping into new, expanded roles. Congratulations to all of those who are being promoted or growing their responsibilities as part of these changes.
With these bold moves, we are taking an important step forward to enhance how we serve our listeners and customers. We are embracing the future and continuing to move forward aggressively to fulfill our potential as a dynamic, growing, world-class leader across every important segment of audio including broadcast radio, podcasting, digital, network, and live events. I am truly excited about our ample opportunities and look forward to continuing our strong progress in the months ahead.
All best,
DAVID
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