Battle appears to be victim of Audacy cuts
August 16, 2022PBRTV received a tip that KDKA-AM (1020/W261AX 100.1) morning co-host Kevin Battle was the local victim of Audacy’s latest round of personnel cuts happening around the country. While no official announcement has been made at the time this report was filed, it appears to be true. Often the first sign of a host being let go is the immediate removal of any and all website material featuring that person. It appears Battle no longer has a presence on the station’s website.
According to Radio Insight in the last day or so, the cuts were imminent. The move will reduce the Philadelphia-based company’s workforce by 5% at the minimum.
A spokesman for Audacy told the Philadelphia Business Journal, “Over the past few years the company has undergone a ‘transformation journey’ that included growth through acquisitions, platform enhancements, and the addition of hundreds of employees. We remain committed to this exciting transformation which has made us a much stronger organization, but in light of current macroeconomic headwinds, like so many other companies, we have been proactively taking actions to mitigate against the impact of any downturn. These include evaluating budgets, reducing expenses, and also reducing our workforce.”
Battle joined the KDKA morning show on March 9 2020, just one week before the COVID-19 lockdowns.
https://www.audacy.com/kdkaradio/hosts/the-kdka-radio-morning-show-with-larry-richert Kevin’s name is all over the content page… Not that Larry can’t handle the show solo (he can), but it’s always a lot more fun with more than one. The CBS/Audacy (Entercom) merger isn’t going quite as well as expected, all these years down the road.
Fascinating. KDKA still has for all intents and purposes games of musical chairs for both its noon-to-3 talk show and its 6-10 p.m. show, and now apparently it’s about to go down to one host in morning drive (Battle was still on today). One does wonder, what’s next?
Radio Insight, RAMP, and Country Aircheck are all reporting that Kristen Buccigrossi is out at Y108.