Don Bouloukos gains 2 more stations


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Posted by chgodave on December 05, 2008 at 19:28:17:

Those of us who recall Don Douloukos and his success at WLS toward the end of its golden era will be interested to see that the CBS Radio shake-up in New York has brought him new responsibilities - as in WCBS-FM and K-Rock. Ought to keep him busy.........
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More layoffs hit CBS Radio
Local GMs demoted as posts are eliminated.


CBS Radio isn’t done with its shakeups.

The struggling division of CBS Corp., which has cut hundreds of jobs across the country, eliminated general manager positions at two of its six stations on Tuesday. Two executives were demoted as a result, and two others got added responsibilities. One executive was fired.

The changes were not announced.

Don Bouloukos, who had been general manager of sports talk station WFAN-AM and soft rock station WWFS-FM, has taken on the general manager role for oldies signal WCBS-FM and for WXRK-FM, better known as K-Rock.

Steve Swenson, general manager of all news WCBS-AM, will add the general manager job at sister news stations WINS-AM.

CBS veteran Maire Mason, who had been general manager of K-Rock, moved down to general sales manager of the station. Greg Janoff, the longtime general manager of 1010 WINS, also stepped down to the general sales manager position.

The general sales manager for K-Rock, Steve Townsend, was let go, according to industry sources.

Insiders say that the moves will cut costs as radio goes through a severe downturn in the current ad recession, and will probably be followed by additional layoffs. According to one former executive, CBS Radio has fired more than 700 staffers in the last year.

A CBS spokeswoman declined to comment on layoffs, but said that putting more stations under one top executive reflects an approach the company is taking across the country.

“We’ve been moving more toward the cluster approach,” she said. “We’re working closer together and sharing resources across the stations.”

One media buyer who declined to be named said that the reorganization marks a further turn away from the CBS tradition of having stations compete with each for business, and ran counter to the way sales representatives think.

“Radio sales people are compensated based on what they sell,” he said. “If there’s a pot of gold out there and they have to share it,” they may not fight as hard to get it.

He added that advertising dollars have been so hard to come by lately that competition between sister stations makes less sense than it used to.

For the first nine months of the year revenues for CBS Radio declined 10% to $1.2 billion. Operating income for the division plunged 19% to $420 million.




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