Nervous Central at Cumulus SF; John Dickey, COO to visit 55 Hawthorne Tuesday; Layoffs the Talk at KGO/KNBR, Other Outlets; KGO Moves in to New Building; Friday Breeze

There are a lot of nervous people at KGO and KNBR. As a matter of fact, the entire Cumulus human factory are probably going to have a few extra pops later at Grumpy's. After all, angst and anxiety is a virtue for the Dickey brothers.

Oh, one of the Dickey, brothers, John, the COO of the Cloud company that has destroyed a few radio stations in town, is set to come to 55 Hawthone and hold a dog and pony show. That's on Tuesday, a day after the ratings are released, and right smack around the time KGO will abort its studios and offices on the Embarcadero and move into the Cumulus Hawthorne Center.

Trouble.

"Nothing good happens when a 'Dickey brother makes a visit. In fact, bad things usually happen," said a source close to the goings-on. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the affair(s).

Ratings. Trouble Part 2.

KGO has been a mess and the mess will be messier come Monday when the trends, (the int. ratings), are announced. The once-newstalk giant has been in the toilet in recent months; the overalls are bad, the cume is even worse, and come Monday, will be worser. My, what timing, a Dickey visit and the ratings are in the shitter, can you imagine that? Nothing good will come of that--well, it could, if you're a Dickey and you're fast-pacing the consolidation route with radio stations in markets like this one.

Put it this way, the rank and file, the "little people"--engineers, traffic people, the folks that essentially mind the store and make the bigger little people sound good are nervous. Hella nervous. Some of the veterans are far too put off by all this bullshit and have taken early retirements and said to hell with the Dickheads. Some have not, be it that they have families and rent and food to pay for, you know, those especially sensitive things that are vital to life.

But I digress: Trouble Part 3.

The general feeling of gloom around the building centers on this: layoffs. How many? No one knows, but it's highly likely come next Friday, (the 15th, payday), that some engineers, accounting people, the traffic dept., (commercials/spots) will be trimmed down. For one, according to the source, "they don't need a lot of people they had over there at Embarcadero--they'll be in one building and they can chop." It's never pretty when they, (Cumulus) chop." Yeah, they are the Morton's of choppers.

Keep in mind that for the Dickey dudes, this (SF acquisitions) is a big deal. True,  these guys, that company--are.not.radio.people. They are content whores, but that's a whole big issue for another posting down the road. Let's get back to basics and understand some things.

Dickey will meet with KGO staff Tuesday. He'll probably have lunch with all the managers; definitely Bill Bungeroth, the market, (SF) mgr. who will tell him that KNBR is doing fine, (thank you Giants and 49ers), KSFO had a decent bump, (thanks, election) KFOG? (oh hell, we just fucked them up too); and that KGO Radio is in the toilet. Which shouldn't surprise anyone with half a brain who has witnessed what's transpired the last six months, but we do have certifiable morons out there. Some of them work for the company. Some are given titles and 100 square ft. offices with nice business cards emblazoned with the logo so they can tell their girlfriend that "I'm the assistant program director of KGO Radio--will you fuck me now?" And then they wake up in the morning, go to work and get their name mentioned by the morning host, you know, things like that. Between writing this blog under anonymous posts, they build up quite a resume for themselves. They are the radio equivalent of birthers. They're in denial, really, and that's both good and bad. Good, because they'll work for cheap as long as they get that title; they'll be loyal too and because they're young and foolish, you get 'em on the company missive until they get tired and let 'em go. By that time, the company will, (probably) have new owners. That is, after all, the ultimate Cumulus end game. Buy low, sell high. It's ingrained in the system--these guys are no different, only they are far more evil and deranged. The usual suspects? They don't even have a clue.

WHAT'S COMING....PART OF THE BIG SURPRISE...

This is just a part of an on-going story. It dwarfs, by comparison, what's been told to me and I can't go into detail now because I'm still gathering data and facts. I want to be right and I want make sure on THIS ONE because THIS ONE, not the above account, is a biggie. It's potentially the mother of all bad things put forth by the Cloud people.

*RICH LIEBERMAN 415 MEDIA EXCLUSIVE

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