A month after leaving bankruptcy under Alden Global Capital’s control, the radio giant behind Westwood One is laying off hosts with decades on the air.
Bankruptcy fixed Cumulus Media’s balance sheet. It did not fix the payroll. The radio company began a fresh round of layoffs this week, its second of 2026, cutting on-air hosts, programmers and network executives from Albuquerque to Washington, RadioInsight reported Friday. Cumulus has not said how many jobs are going, and Barrett Media called the total unknown.
The names tell the story. Tammy Daye’s 37-year run at KAYD in Beaumont, Texas, is over. So is Jane Hautanen’s nearly 25 years at WMAL in Washington and Faith Rinker’s 26 years at WBWN in Bloomington, Illinois. At Westwood One, Cumulus’s network arm, George King, vice president and general manager of network formats, is out. Tom Fallon of WEEX in Allentown told listeners he was let go “for budgetary reasons.”
The cuts come one month after Cumulus emerged from Chapter 11 on Oct. 16. In that prepackaged case, filed in March, lenders canceled roughly $600 million of debt in exchange for all of the reorganized equity plus $50 million in new convertible notes, a net reduction of $550 million. The company still runs 377 stations in 84 markets, and Westwood One reaches more than 7,800 affiliates. Management stayed. The ownership did not.
Alden Global Capital, the investment firm that has made deep cuts at the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, became Cumulus’s controlling shareholder in the restructuring, according to RadioInsight. Alden president Heath Freeman now chairs Cumulus, per a San Jose Earthquakes release issued the same day the layoffs surfaced. That release announced Freeman’s purchase of the MLS club, reportedly at a $625 million enterprise value.
For local radio, the pattern is familiar. Debt goes away, and then costs follow it out the door, often starting with the most experienced, best-paid voices in each market. The question for advertisers is whether stations stripped of their longtime hosts can keep the audiences those hosts built.
Sources
- RadioInsight – Cumulus Media’s Mass Layoffs Continue – https://radioinsight.com/headlines/376614/another-round-of-layoffs-ongoing-at-cumulus-media/
- Barrett Media – Cumulus Media Begins Another Round of Layoffs Following Bankruptcy Restructuring – https://barrettmedia.com/2026/11/13/cumulus-media-layoffs-bankruptcy-restructuring/
- Cumulus Media – Cumulus Media Successfully Completes Financial Restructuring, Emerges from Chapter 11 – https://www.cumulusmedia.com/2026/10/16/cumulus-media-successfully-completes-financial-restructuring-emerges-from-chapter-11-poised-for-growth/
- San Jose Earthquakes – San Jose Earthquakes Announce New Ownership – https://www.sjearthquakes.com/news/san-jose-earthquakes-announce-new-ownership
Featured photo: Klim Musalimov, Unsplash License via Unsplash.
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