An Audacy Station. – New tagline for Entercom stations after legal Top of The Hour Station ID.
This post is pretty “punny”.
Entercom, the second largest radio group (or third depending on the whole Cumulus/Townsquare/threesome is… I honesty lost track) has basically been a poorly run company. While Boston bad boys like Howie Carr and Kirk Minihane (where the latter is nothing but a prick, a pretty-boy, and is an Arbitron addict, and only cares about ratings) piss on Entercom by name and personally attacking, harassing and the upper level management at the company, Entercom traditionally has dual personality disorder, one wants to make profit, the other cares about the content, or should I say “cares” in air-quotes.
If you got fooled on the week of April Fools, it’s not a joke. The company rebranded into Audacy (rhymes with odyssey – like John Sculley’s 1987 memoir!) I am not making this up; there’s even a YouTube clip of the Top of the Hour airchecks indicating the station is owned by a company that rhymes with a title of a memoir; and WCBS radio had the audacity to interview David Fields, the long time CEO of Entercom to talk about horrible rebrand.
Living in a “legacy” Entercom market, (pre buyout of CBS Radio), the lack of corporate intervention or chose to intervene (when it fit their narrative) in their “sports” station and their talk station, WEEI and WRKO respectively. The suits in Philly told their regional clusters to be provocative, but not tell them when that line would be crossed. For the case of WEEI, they had men that would talk about insensitive subjects they were never subjected to; and then talk about them in a racial undertone in the midst of Red Sox playoffs (of which WEEI is still their flagship station.) WEEI would for many years be under pressure of the public, and Entercom being in a bind to ensure they would make the most money possible with WEEI. Both WEEI and WKRO were acquired in the late 1990s after another similar major buyout that had FCC overlap concerns, and Entercom would set up shop from basically a piecemeal deal; WRKO did not really insult the inner Boston community, but was gawking at the bankers trucks that Howie Carr brought in from affiliate stations; as well as the advertisers. Entercom never really liked Howie’s crass opinions, but at the same time, it was claimed he was bringing in tens of millions to the Guest Street studios, on a leased floor to the New Balance headquarters in the western part of Boston. Entercom was obviously drawn by the cash, but obviously lost it when Howie went alone in 2014.
This was also Entercom’s SOP, be outrageous for dollars, then when SHTF, the company’s heads would roll. In late 00s, an Entercom cluster in California had a Pee for Wii contest, that taught people that you can drink too much water, and it can kill you. A contestant at a remote event would die. While the FCC and Entercom’s lawyers would respond, it wasn’t until 2017 where Entercom felt empathic for the victim and surrender the license. But that was because they were buying CBS-owned stations that would spill over to their cap per stations per market, and as a result that was their meaning for getting rid of a station and put if off the air.
Right after the CBS Radio deal closed, Entercom put together a new logo. While it wasn’t that bad looking, it only lasted 4 years.
“Radio.com” was a CNET property till when CBS bought the cyber news platform in 2012. A few years later, it was known in the highly competitive world of digital news companies focusing on digital tech; that just before domain names had to be paid for and be registered differently; CNET took almost every noun in the dictionary (remember News.com?) Radio.com was one of them. Whole CNET radio was no longer, and they didn’t do much podcasting; CBS Radio took the domain and used it along with the app and platform for the owned and operated stations. Entercom gets radio.com, and now with the corporate name change they’re ditching it so, does that mean that CNET can get radio.com back?