Take Him At His Word

Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey, in an interview with Billboard Radio Monitor, referring to recent layoffs, stated: "There were virtually no changes in sales and programming unless they were upgrades..."  While Jimmy Baron has done a fine job of arguing that Lew Dickey is, again, lying,  I would like to take a different approach:  take Lew Dickey at his word.  I would suggest that if Lew Dickey is lying, then he's a CEO cynically spinning a round of layoffs, i.e. par for the course.  If Dickey believes what he's saying, then he's just incompetent.

Lew Dickey and John Dickey, his brother in charge of programming at Cumulus,  believe that the current  99X Morning Show is an "upgrade." Just to be clear--Lew and John Dickey believe that "Everything Alternative Morning Show with Axel and Leslie (and Mitch)" is a better show than "Toucher, Jimmy, and Leslie (with Crash, Wally, and FatKid.)"  The decision to let Toucher and Crash go to Boston, the decision to let Jimmy's contract expire, the decision to take Wally off the air, and the decision to lay off Fat Kid had nothing to do with saving money.  The changes were made because, in the opinion of the Dickeys, they were an upgrade. 

I'm sure that AT&T management considered razing the Fox Theater to build the Southern Bell headquarters to be an upgrade as well.  The ultimate test of the quality of the Dickeys' "upgrade" will be the Spring Book.  So we wait until July 26, 2006, the date for the Atlanta Spring Quarterly Arbitrends.