Clear Channel Cuts 590 More Jobs, Five In OKC

Clear Channel Communications, one of the nation's largest radio station owners, said Tuesday it is cutting 590 jobs, including some on-air personalities, in its second round of layoffs this year due to reduced budgets by major advertisers. The cuts brings the total of jobs cut by the company this year to 2,540.

There's no immediate definitive word on how the company's Oklahoma City stations, including the news/talk flagship KTOK, is affected, if at all. The company also operates several FM stations. Word from industry sources, however, indicates that five employees were cut, including two FM on-air personalities. There's been on official confirmation of that, however.

Clear Channel's parent company, CC Media Holdings Inc., also said it will suspend its 401(k) match for all employees for the rest of the year, starting Friday. However, if the company hits 90 percent of its budget goals at the end of the year, the matches will be retroactively restored, a company spokeswoman quoted by The Associated Press said.

The latest cuts represent 2.7 percent of company's total work force of 22,100. They affect operational jobs like engineering, accounting and customer service, all in the radio division. The company also has an outdoor advertising division, which sells items like billboard space and wasn't affected by the job cuts.

The previous cuts of 1,850 jobs came in January; that was 9 percent of its workforce, and were also in the radio division, mostly in sales. In Oklahoma City, two veteran KTOK producers with 40 years of service between them were among those who lost their jobs.

Clear Channel didn't break out the latest cuts by geography or job function, but said they do include some on-air personalities, whose identities weren't disclosed. Employees were notified of the cuts Tuesday. In Oklahoma City, the word came from Market Manager Bill Hurley during a hastily-called all-employees meeting late this morning.

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KTOK Cuts Veteran Producers

Clear Channel Radio in Oklahoma City today dismissed several veteran KTOK producers as part of the company's nationwide $400 million overhead reduction plan.

Developing....

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Clear Channel Cuts Could Impact Oklahoma

From The New York Post ~ The new owners of radio giant Clear Channel Communications will next week begin implementing a massive restructuring plan that seeks to cut $400 million in costs at the company, The Post has learned.

According to three sources with knowledge of the plan, the restructuring will include layoffs across the company's radio, outdoor advertising and international divisions as well as cuts to programming budgets and consolidation of back-office operations.

[Clear Channel holds about 20 FM and AM licenses for radio stations in Oklahoma, the most prominent of which locally is KTOK-AM 1000 in Oklahoma City.]

A precise headcount for the layoffs could not be obtained. Clear Channel has about 30,000 employees worldwide.

The company is also likely to move toward a "national programming" model that would require less local-level staffing, despite being criticized in the past for a similar action using centralized disc jockeys that made it appear as though they were broadcasting from local stations.

Sources said an initial round of layoffs is expected to commence next Tuesday.

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Clear Channel Gig Lucrative For Watts

Four years ago, in February 2003, immediately after leaving Congress, former Congressman J. C. Watts embarked on his career as a Washington-based power broker, forming his own companies and joining the boards of directors of numerous companies. Among the boards of directors he joined was that of San Antonio-based media giant Clear Channel Communications, Inc.

The four years on Clear Channel's board of directors have been good to Watts, a new notice of a shareholders' meeting reveals.

The document lists Watts as the owner of 5,700 "aggregate shares of company restricted stock," the value of which is placed at $214,320.

In addition, Watts is listed under "amount and nature of beneficial ownership" with 19,657 shares of common stock, with 12,532 of those shares "subject to options held by Mr. Watts." While no value is placed on the Watts stock in the company document, the per-share price is established elsewhere in the document at $37.60.

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