Los Angeles radio station KFI-AM suffered a massive staff reduction this month as iHeartMedia laid off 13 employees, including longtime news director Chris Little, decimating the news department of one of the city’s major broadcast outlets.
Little detailed the cuts in an Instagram post alongside a photo of a lone cubicle beside a couch and a small Christmas tree with a KFI AM 640 sign: “Layoff Correction: We had 25 staff members including me. 13 were laid off. Three were asked to stay. I haven’t spoken to 2 others. Three have not been contacted by management. Four weekday anchors are still on the job.”
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In a separate video post, the veteran broadcaster shared: “Yes, today was a tough day for KFI news members. They were all laid off. And so was I, after 24 years as News Director at KFI. But I really enjoyed my time as News Director. I met a lot of talented people and made a lot of great friends. Maybe we’ll see you again.” He captioned the video with a simple “See ya.”
The terminations represent part of a broader reduction at iHeartMedia affecting less than 5% of its 10,000-person workforce. The company spokesperson Wendy Goldberg defended the changes while highlighting market dominance per The Hollywood Reporter: “Our broadcast radio audience has more listeners than it did ten years ago, and according to Nielsen Edison, we’re even seeing Gen Z audience listening increasing. We’re the #1 podcast publisher, bigger than the next two combined, and we’re 5x the size of the next largest digital radio service.”
These cuts add to multiple rounds of layoffs since 2020 when the radio industry struggled during the pandemic’s advertising slump. CEO Bob Pittman characterized the latest terminations as part of the company’s “modernization journey” aimed at creating a “flatter organization” and eliminating redundancies, according to Billboard.
The financial stakes are significant. iHeartMedia reported a $910 million operating loss last quarter, wider than its $897 million loss in Q2 2023, reports the outlet. However, third-quarter results showed some improvement, with revenue increasing 5.8% to $1.01 billion. The digital audio group saw revenue jump 12.7% to $301 million, though traditional broadcast revenue fell 1.4%.
Station host Tim Conway Jr. addressed the human cost on air per Los Angeles Times: “You may have heard by now … a lot of people have left the building here at iHeartMedia, and it is tough. I’ve known these people my entire life here. When I started here, my daughter was 3 years old. … It just sucks.”
The company projects $200 million in savings for 2025 compared to 2024, with technology improvements accounting for $150 million. Pittman explained the strategy: “Technology is the key to increasing our operating leverage and is a constant focus for us. It allows us to speed up processes, streamline legacy systems and it enables our folks to create more, better and faster.”
One example of this technological shift involves talent deployment. “What we’re able to do now, because we’ve got technology, is we can take talent we have in any location and put them on the air in another location,” Pittman elaborated. “So it allows us to substantially upgrade the quality of our talent in every single market we’re in.”
Conway prepared listeners for programming changes, promising “a lot of voices on the air that you recognize” alongside “some voices on the air soon that you won’t recognize.” He reflected on the personal toll: “A lot of companies go through it. A lot of people make a lot of very dear friends. … You see them every day, and you think it’s gonna be like that for the rest of the time, and it’s not.”
The company has also renegotiated 80% of its long-term debt, with exchanges expected to close by year’s end. The agreement extends most debt maturities by three years while maintaining flat cash interest expenses. Third-quarter metrics showed mixed results: while free cash flow increased 8.4% to $73.3 million, net loss surged 360% to $41.3 million.
