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Name: Matt Hanlon
Age: 48
Occupation: now-EX-regional president of Citadel Broadcasting
Last Seen: Grand Rapids
Bee-otched For: having the door slammed on his ass
Age: 48
Occupation: now-EX-regional president of Citadel Broadcasting
Last Seen: Grand Rapids
Bee-otched For: having the door slammed on his ass
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I know, it's not nice to make fun of the fired, especially with one out of ten people unemployed.
But, this is the man who screwed over the likes of Bill Walters, Mark "The Head" Feurie, Rich Michaels, Howard Stern and others who actually had ratings and were liked.
It's official: Matt Hanlon is out of a job. With his old company, Citadel Broadcasting now engulfed and devoured by Cumulus with their $2.4 billion takeover of the bankrupt radio giant, he was told by Cumulus brass that he was no longer needed. Maybe because all of his stations in Grand Rapids lacked the one thing radio stations need to survive: ratings.
Hanlon was GM of Citadel's Grand Rapids cluster since January 2002, and from there on, his reign of terror began. During Christmastime of that year, he quietly moved Howard Stern's popular radio show from rocker WKLQ - then at 94.5 and covered most of west Michigan - to sports talk WBBL - then at 1340 and only covered Grand Rapids - but the move proved to be not a quite-quiet one when Stern came back from his holiday break. Rumor had it that Hanlon was out to hire Rick Beckett and Scott Winters, who were fired from alternative WGRD 97.9 because of Beckett's ongoing problems with drug and drink. Also, Hanlon wasn't pleased at Stern's lack of local ad dollars, plus the fact that he was looking to get into the same bed of the Chamber of Commerce. Hanlon hoped that putting Stern on 1340 and eventually sabotaging his show by airing ads at the wrong time and ending the show exactly at 10 a..m. would be reason to can the show.
But, that didn't help.
In the end, Rick and Scott went to WOOD-AM 1300 and KLQ was left without a morning show for months. The station finally got former Seattle Stern clones Ron and Don, and Stern on crappy 1340 still had better ratings. The show lasted only two years before being shown the door. Then came Justice and Jim and their retarded dog-drowning stunt, Opie and Anthony and the horrid Grey and Kluck show.
And yes, let's not forget the other things Hanlon did to KLQ, like moving it to 107.3, which took away its Kalamazoo listeners. Plus, the fact that he hired Michael Grey in the first place, who was not well-liked by Grand Rapids rock listeners.
Oh, and remember Man-Made Radio? Jesus...
Of course, KLQ died a sad, sad death when ESPN announced that they signed a deal with Clear Channel Grand Rapids to move its programming to 96.1 and WBBL was going to be their bitch. Not to worry, since WGRD took away all of KLQ's listeners years ago thanks to the popularity of Free Beer and Hot Wings and the fact that they transitioned away from alternative to a more-modern rock format. 107.3 became the new WBBL in 2009 and after months of simulcasting, 1340 became a sorry clone of sister station WJR Detroit as WJRW.
Thankfully, it wasn't Hanlon who canned Stern from the Grand Rapids airwaves, it was his boss, Farid Suleman because he got fed up with his talk about moving to Sirius. The last time the show was heard live in Grand Rapids was Christmastime 2004, a year before he moved to Sirus.
KLQ was Hanlon's biggest victim, although his other stations got screwed too. Even classic rocker 97 WLAV got screwed when Hanlon moved popular morning man Tony Gates to afternoons to make way for Kevin Matthews. For a while, Matthews' show was syndicated to Lansing's WMMQ, and they fired Rich Michaels to make room. Thankfully, he's now the afternoon host at WIOD Miami as Rich Minaya.
Oh, and remember a little morning duo at 105.3 Hot FM called Dave and Geri? That didn't last long...
Well, Hanlon's gone, and Cumulus has some cleaning up to do. Hot FM is the main breadwinner of their Grand Rapids cluster, and they're still getting killed by WSNX. WBBL is still beating the station that took ESPN away from them, WMAX, but that's only because the Tigers had a good year. Sean, Terp and Killer is killing Huge in the ratings. Hey! Maybe Cumulus will can him and the other local shows WBBL has! Who knows? Already, they've yanked Matthews from WMMQ and they now have a live and local morning show again.
But sadly, this is still Cumulus we're talking about. Remember, they canned Stern from their stations 10 years ago, LONG before the Janet Jackson nip slip and Sirius, they banned the Dixie Chicks because they were actually smart and they even yanked a popular liberal talk station off the air in Ann Arbor. Oh, and they air Billy Bush's awful nighttime show on many of their CHR stations.
Sadly, in the end, terrestrial radio's still going to be a slow race to the edge of the cliff.
---
But, this is the man who screwed over the likes of Bill Walters, Mark "The Head" Feurie, Rich Michaels, Howard Stern and others who actually had ratings and were liked.
It's official: Matt Hanlon is out of a job. With his old company, Citadel Broadcasting now engulfed and devoured by Cumulus with their $2.4 billion takeover of the bankrupt radio giant, he was told by Cumulus brass that he was no longer needed. Maybe because all of his stations in Grand Rapids lacked the one thing radio stations need to survive: ratings.
Hanlon was GM of Citadel's Grand Rapids cluster since January 2002, and from there on, his reign of terror began. During Christmastime of that year, he quietly moved Howard Stern's popular radio show from rocker WKLQ - then at 94.5 and covered most of west Michigan - to sports talk WBBL - then at 1340 and only covered Grand Rapids - but the move proved to be not a quite-quiet one when Stern came back from his holiday break. Rumor had it that Hanlon was out to hire Rick Beckett and Scott Winters, who were fired from alternative WGRD 97.9 because of Beckett's ongoing problems with drug and drink. Also, Hanlon wasn't pleased at Stern's lack of local ad dollars, plus the fact that he was looking to get into the same bed of the Chamber of Commerce. Hanlon hoped that putting Stern on 1340 and eventually sabotaging his show by airing ads at the wrong time and ending the show exactly at 10 a..m. would be reason to can the show.
But, that didn't help.
In the end, Rick and Scott went to WOOD-AM 1300 and KLQ was left without a morning show for months. The station finally got former Seattle Stern clones Ron and Don, and Stern on crappy 1340 still had better ratings. The show lasted only two years before being shown the door. Then came Justice and Jim and their retarded dog-drowning stunt, Opie and Anthony and the horrid Grey and Kluck show.
And yes, let's not forget the other things Hanlon did to KLQ, like moving it to 107.3, which took away its Kalamazoo listeners. Plus, the fact that he hired Michael Grey in the first place, who was not well-liked by Grand Rapids rock listeners.
Oh, and remember Man-Made Radio? Jesus...
Of course, KLQ died a sad, sad death when ESPN announced that they signed a deal with Clear Channel Grand Rapids to move its programming to 96.1 and WBBL was going to be their bitch. Not to worry, since WGRD took away all of KLQ's listeners years ago thanks to the popularity of Free Beer and Hot Wings and the fact that they transitioned away from alternative to a more-modern rock format. 107.3 became the new WBBL in 2009 and after months of simulcasting, 1340 became a sorry clone of sister station WJR Detroit as WJRW.
Thankfully, it wasn't Hanlon who canned Stern from the Grand Rapids airwaves, it was his boss, Farid Suleman because he got fed up with his talk about moving to Sirius. The last time the show was heard live in Grand Rapids was Christmastime 2004, a year before he moved to Sirus.
KLQ was Hanlon's biggest victim, although his other stations got screwed too. Even classic rocker 97 WLAV got screwed when Hanlon moved popular morning man Tony Gates to afternoons to make way for Kevin Matthews. For a while, Matthews' show was syndicated to Lansing's WMMQ, and they fired Rich Michaels to make room. Thankfully, he's now the afternoon host at WIOD Miami as Rich Minaya.
Oh, and remember a little morning duo at 105.3 Hot FM called Dave and Geri? That didn't last long...
Well, Hanlon's gone, and Cumulus has some cleaning up to do. Hot FM is the main breadwinner of their Grand Rapids cluster, and they're still getting killed by WSNX. WBBL is still beating the station that took ESPN away from them, WMAX, but that's only because the Tigers had a good year. Sean, Terp and Killer is killing Huge in the ratings. Hey! Maybe Cumulus will can him and the other local shows WBBL has! Who knows? Already, they've yanked Matthews from WMMQ and they now have a live and local morning show again.
But sadly, this is still Cumulus we're talking about. Remember, they canned Stern from their stations 10 years ago, LONG before the Janet Jackson nip slip and Sirius, they banned the Dixie Chicks because they were actually smart and they even yanked a popular liberal talk station off the air in Ann Arbor. Oh, and they air Billy Bush's awful nighttime show on many of their CHR stations.
Sadly, in the end, terrestrial radio's still going to be a slow race to the edge of the cliff.
---
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