Mick Anselmo Bounced at Clear Channel

Mick Anselmo, GM of all thing Clear Channel in the Twin Cities — specifically radio stations KFAN, Cities 97, KOOL 108, K102, KTLK, KDWB and 690 The Score was fired today. His departure puts an end to one of the more remarkable success and survival stories in radio management in this market. Anselmo had managed to elude the blade through six or maybe seven previous management/ownership purges/changes.

Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, is notorious both for being by far the world’s largest radio group — in excess of 1200 stations coast-to-coast — and ruthless about profit delivery to its investors, primary among them being Lowry Mays his family, including son, Mark, Clear Channel’s CEO. The Mays family and other shareholders recently concluded a deal with private equity and hedge fund groups to take Clear Channel back to private, a move that netted them another fast fortune but has saddled the company with significant new debt which in turn has placed even greater pressure on managers like Anselmo to cut costs.

I’ll add more to this post as I work my three rings of gossip. But it would seem reasonable to expect the new GM, reportedly Mike Crusham a Clear Channel VP from Boston, to take very tough looks at under-performing Twin Cities stations.