Big Al Sams, Paul Robins, other Sacramento radio hosts laid off in iHeartRadio ‘bloodbath’
Three prominent Sacramento-area radio personalities are no longer with their stations, apparent casualties of a round of mass layoffs by radio powerhouse iHeartMedia, which this week announced a restructuring that is expected to cut a large number of jobs nationwide.
Popular morning personality Big Al Sams confirmed to The Sacramento Bee on Friday that he is no longer at KHYL-FM V101 Sacramento after years of hosting “V Mornings with Big Al” on the hip hop station.
KFBK-FM/AM anchor Mike Hagerty and KBEB-FM 92.5 The Breeze afternoon host Paul Robins announced Thursday over social media that their time with those stations had also ended. Hagerty, co-host and anchor of KFBK’s afternoon news broadcast on 93.1 FM and 1530 AM and since late 2016, wrote in a Facebook post that his seven-year tenure with the station had ended. Robins, the former Fox 40 anchor who began hosting an afternoon drive show on 92.5 The Breeze in early 2019, wrote on Facebook that he’d been “booted” from the station.
Sams told The Bee by phone Friday “it is confirmed” he was laid off by the iHeartMedia station, but he said he could not comment further on specific details at the time.
Sams had been an on-air personality with iHeartMedia since March 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile, DJing for classic hip hop station V101. He studied communications with an emphasis in mass media at Sacramento State, according to his Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
Robins entered his role with 92.5 The Breeze last February, shortly after starting a full-time faculty position at William Jessup University, where he leads the digital communication and design degree program. He kept an optimistic spirit as he shared the news of his layoff.
“Across the nation, many hundreds of my colleagues joined me in turning in their key cards,” Robins wrote in a Facebook post. “I enjoyed my afternoon escapes to the radio studio, but for me this is not a crisis.”
Robins continued: “Yesterday I called my wife for the fourth time in our 40 year marriage to let her know that I’d been booted from a radio station. Bridget laughed, and immediately began thinking of summer vacation plans.”
Hagerty, who according to a bio page held numerous several titles at KFBK including editor of morning news, managing editor, assistant news director and news director, also had a bittersweet tone to his farewell.
“From November of 2013 to January of 2020, this was my home and these people — as well as the people listening — were my family,” Hagerty wrote on Facebook. “Thanks for the love and laughter! The next chapter awaits.”
Hagerty, a prolific automobile reviewer, encouraged his followers to keep up with his reviews on his other page, “Mike Hagerty Writes About Cars.”
Journalist Judy Farah, former news director at KFBK, first reported Sams’ and Hagerty’s layoffs Wednesday night on Twitter.
“The nationwide @iHeartRadio mass layoffs hit Sacramento today,” Farah began. “Sadly, @BigAlSams of @v101fm, a great guy and ambassador to our city, was let go. A huge loss. Also let go was Mike Hagerty, afternoon co-host on @KFBK.”
Why is iHeartMedia laying people off?
iHeartMedia, which owns about 850 local radio stations across the country under its iHeartRadio umbrella, in a Tuesday press release announced a “technology formation and new organizational structure for its markets group.”
The company’s announcement touted “significant investments it has made in technology and artificial intelligence,” and said iHeartMedia would now group its markets into three divisions, titled “region,” “metro” and “community.”
iHeartMedia also said its technology, including AI, will be used to “consolidate functional areas of expertise” and enable markets “to take advantage of the company’s scale and shared resources.”
The exact number of layoffs is unknown, but a large number of local DJs have taken to social media to announce they’ve been laid off by iHeartRadio stations. One Rolling Stone headline called the cuts a “culling,” and another by Billboard referred to them as a “bloodbath.”
iHeartMedia, the largest radio company in the U.S., owns and operates eight stations in the Sacramento area. Prior to this week’s layoffs, the San Antonio-based company formerly known as Clear Channel had employed about 12,500 people, Fox Business reported.
