Connoisseur Media employees were impacted by a round of staffing cuts Tuesday, Sept. 8, as the company continues reshaping the enormous radio operation created by its acquisition of Alpha Media. On The Dial is working tonight to determine the full scope of the reductions, including which markets, departments, programmers, personalities and other employees have been affected.
And we’re going to say something increasingly rare in the race to be first:
We don’t have every name yet.
We’re not going to invent them.
We’re not going to turn rumors into a body count.
We’re not going to publish somebody’s name because somebody’s cousin’s former afternoon-show producer put a cryptic emoji on Facebook.
But we are hearing that cuts occurred today, and we’re digging.
THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY
As of Tuesday evening, On The Dial has not located a public statement from Connoisseur detailing today’s reductions, nor have we independently established a companywide number of positions eliminated.
That means we’re going to be careful.
It also means we’re asking the radio industry for help.
If you were affected today, if someone in your market was affected, or if you have reliable information about changes inside a Connoisseur cluster, contact On The Dial confidentially at:
info@onthedial.net
Tell us the market.
Tell us the station.
Tell us the position.
Tell us who exited.
Tell us what changed.
If information needs to remain off the record or on background, say so clearly. We will respect that.
Because behind every corporate phrase like “restructuring,” “realignment” and “operational efficiency” is something considerably less sterile:
A PERSON.
A morning host who doesn’t know what happens tomorrow.
A programmer who spent years building a station.
A seller who has relationships all over town.
A producer.
An engineer.
A promotions person.
A traffic employee.
A digital staffer.
Somebody who walked into work Tuesday expecting Tuesday—and got something entirely different.
CONNOISSEUR HAS BEEN REMAKING A MASSIVE PORTFOLIO
The context matters.
Connoisseur completed its acquisition of Alpha Media in September 2025, creating one of America’s largest commercial radio operators virtually overnight. At closing, the combined company said it controlled 216 stations across 47 markets and reached roughly 20% of the country’s radio audience.
That was an extraordinary transformation for Connoisseur.
It was also an extraordinary amount of radio to digest.
Since then, the map has continued changing.
Stations have been sold.
Markets have been exited.
Programming structures have been reorganized.
Leadership responsibilities have shifted.
Formats have changed.
And the company itself now says its portfolio stands at 173 stations across 37 markets.
That is a substantial amount of movement in approximately one year.
Just last month, Connoisseur announced an agreement to sell its Austin and Albert Lea, Minnesota properties to Hometown Broadcasting, describing that transaction as part of the strategy that followed the Alpha acquisition.
In July, the company also reorganized portions of its West Coast programming operation, expanding responsibilities across Northern California and Oregon.
None of those moves, by themselves, establishes the size or reasoning behind Tuesday’s cuts.
But they establish something else:
Connoisseur Media is still very much in the process of deciding what the post-Alpha Connoisseur Media ultimately looks like.
And apparently, that process isn’t finished.
RADIO HAS SEEN THIS MOVIE TOO MANY TIMES
This is the part that hurts.
Anybody who has spent more than about 11 minutes in this business knows what happens when the word “cuts” starts bouncing through a radio company.
Phones start buzzing.
Group texts light up.
People start checking station websites.
Someone notices a personality page disappeared.
Somebody else hears that a programmer’s email bounced.
Then the question travels from market to market:
“Did your building get hit?”
Radio people know that feeling.
Far too many of us know it personally.
And that’s why On The Dial isn’t interested merely in counting names.
We want to know who these people are.
If somebody spent 25 years serving a community and suddenly finds themselves looking for work tonight, that career deserves more than a sentence buried underneath a corporate restructuring headline.
If somebody needs the industry to know they’re available?
WE WANT TO KNOW.
If somebody landed somewhere else?
We want to know that, too.
AND LET’S REMEMBER SOMETHING IMPORTANT
There has been a tremendous amount of conversation in radio about localism.
Local personalities.
Local programming.
Local advertisers.
Local relationships.
Local community service.
Those words matter.
But local radio doesn’t happen because a transmitter has coordinates inside a market.
PEOPLE make radio local.
The receptionist who knows every advertiser.
The morning personality who has been waking up the town for 20 years.
The seller who knows every business owner on Main Street.
The programmer who knows that one song absolutely works in this market even though the national research says it shouldn’t.
The engineer who gets called at 2:13 in the morning because something stopped transmitting.
Those people aren’t overhead on a spreadsheet.
THEY ARE THE RADIO STATION.
That’s why cuts matter.
SO TONIGHT, ON THE DIAL IS OPENING THE PHONE LINES — FIGURATIVELY
If you know what happened inside Connoisseur Media today, talk to us.
If you lost your position and want the industry to know you’re available, talk to us.
If you know of a colleague who was affected and believe their story deserves recognition, talk to us—but please distinguish firsthand information from rumor.
If you’re inside the company and can help us understand the scope of the changes, talk to us.
info@onthedial.net
We are specifically looking for confirmed information involving:
Stations. Markets. On-air talent. Programming. Sales. Digital. Promotions. Engineering. Management. Corporate positions.
And yes, we’re interested in understanding whether this is a concentrated restructuring involving particular markets or departments—or something considerably broader.
WE’LL UPDATE THIS STORY AS THE PICTURE BECOMES CLEARER
Tuesday’s reductions arrive almost exactly one year after Connoisseur completed the Alpha acquisition that transformed the company into a major national radio operator.
A year later, the transformation continues.
Tonight, unfortunately, that transformation appears to include people losing jobs.
On The Dial is digging.
We’re reaching out.
We’re watching the markets.
We’re checking the stations.
And we’re going to do something especially important when people’s livelihoods are involved:
We’re going to separate what we KNOW from what we’ve HEARD.
If you’ve got a piece of this story, our inbox is open.
info@onthedial.net
And to everyone who got an unexpected phone call, Zoom invitation or office meeting today:
We see you.
Your career is bigger than today’s decision.
Your work mattered before the meeting.
It still matters after it.
Stay with On The Dial. This story is developing.
— On The Dial
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