With the termination of longtime morning show host Doug Wagner late last week, 600 WMT Radio in Cedar Rapids has lost the last of its local on-air staff after more than 100 years on the air.
Mr. Wagner’s job was eliminated, effective June 25, as part of sweeping budget cuts by WMT’s owner, iHeart Media.
According to a report from Digital Music News, “iHeartMedia has triggered a broad round of layoffs across the country, affecting numerous stations and employees. The cuts are part of broader restructuring efforts in a cost-saving plan that follows the company’s bolstered tech capabilities over the past few years.”
The layoffs are connected to an expected $50 million cost-savings initiative, The Desk reported.
Many of the cuts took effect June 25, but some are reportedly continuing this week.
Aside from Mr. Wagner, who began working at 600 WMT in April 1993, several on-air personalities at other Iowa radio stations, including KXNO in Des Moines and WLLR in the Quad Cities, also lost their jobs, according to Iowa television station reports.
For their part, iHeartMedia has declined to comment on the budget cuts.
Several local leaders offered comments on Mr. Wagner’s termination via social media.
Among them was Rebecca Kopelman, chief meteorologist at Iowa’s News Now (CBS2 and Fox 28) in Cedar Rapids, who was a regular part of “The Doug Wagner Morning Show” on WMT.
In a post on her public Facebook page, Ms. Kopelman expressed disappointment with Mr. Wagner’s termination.
“I feel for Doug, who poured over a decade of work into the station and was not given a chance to give a proper goodbye to his audience,” Ms. Kopelman wrote. “I feel for all of my colleagues in the media space dealing with these layoffs as we attempt to adjust with the ever-changing landscape of this industry.”
According to Music Business Worldwide, the cuts, which have numbered in the dozens nationwide, come as iHeartMedia manages the debt it has carried since emerging from bankruptcy in 2019.
The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2018 and cut its debt through restructuring from $16.1 billion to $5.75 billion, and it still carries around $5 billion in debt.
