A post on Rocky Knight’s blog reveals that Mainline Communications, owners of WLRS 105.1 FM, terminated all the on-air staff at the staff on October 13. Apparently, the company did the same elsewhere in their chain. The WLRS website lists no on-air staff.

The problems radio is having continue; the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) reports that total radio advertising fell below $4.5 billion in the first quarter of 2008, a drop of 5%. The splits were reported this way: “Local revenue dropped six percent in the quarter, with national revenue off by 11 percent. Meanwhile, network ad revenue grew by seven percent and off-air revenue was up an impressive 15 percent.” FQMB.com has the story.

After all the suits and countersuits and claims and counter-claims, the deal to sell Clear Channel Communications to Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital has been finalized. It’s a case of negotiating via the judicial system - the lawyers get their money upfront instead of after the fact? You can read all the dreary details at FMQB.com. Just don’t expect any changes out on Radio Drive, other than more staff cuts.

In the era of mega-merger, it’s not uncommon to find the wold-be merging companies swearing that their union will benefit the consumer, even when the merger results in a monopoly in the business they’re in. Often, these same businessmen will also have been noted earlier to have sworn undying allegiance to the fundamental importance of competition. In the case of the impending merger of XM and Sirius satellite radio, however, even some U. S. Senstors are not persuaded by the spin that the merger will be of benefit to radio listeners. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) have both called for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a man for whom no media merger has been a bad idea, to not approve the merger. Given that the Bush Department of Justice has okayed the idea, don’t hold your breath.

The radio industry has decided it’s time to fight the steady decline in radio listeners, so they’re going back to playing new and interesting music, putting real, live, local DJs at every station and cutting back on the number of commercials per hour.

Okay, I’m joking, they’re not doing any of that. They are, however, firing up an advertising campaign called “Radio Heard Here,” which will be “a far-ranging ad campaign aimed at consumers; a multifaceted industry and trade outreach to connect industry members online; public relations efforts and viral communications projects involving online video shorts.” In short, the usual answer American businesses have to loss of customers. FMQB.com has the details

WFPK is giving away a couple of tickets to see The Dave Matthews Band and Willie Nelson at Slugger Field On August 1. Winners will be announced on April 10.

The Clear Channel deal continues to set standards for business oddness: the firm, plus Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners are suing the lenders who initially promised to lend the money necessary for the deal to happen. They are blaming it on “lender’s remorse.” There are several reports about this: Radio Ink is thorough.

The rumor mill has been abuzz about the Clear Channel deal for some time. Lately, the rumors have been running to the bad side, as the collapsing credit markets may have doomed the deal. It’s hard to know who to root for or against in this deal, given Clear Channel’s horrible rep among music fans. Private equity firms usually buy a company in order to break it up and sell of the parts, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for Louisville radio listeners. Then again, to have a company of bean counters and financial gunslingers running the radio stations here would definitely be a downer.

Digital Music News has the story.

Clear Channel Communications has offered a set of condsessions that it thinks the FCC should extract form XM and Sirius before it approves the XM-Sirius merger, including such things as not offering ‘local’ content, that Sirius-XM should be prohibited from receiving local advertising revenue and more such shackles. FQMB.com has the story.

Unless you are an artist associated with SoundExchange or some other, more formal music publishing and marketing company, then this might not be of immediate interest to you, but the recently announced Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision on Internet radio royalty rates just might result in many music websites going away, as by some accounts, the rates amount to roughly 100% of site revenue for most webcasters. The Radio and Internet Newsletter website has a commentary about it.