<\/p>\n Several local radio hosts lose jobs in iHeartMedia corporate layoffs<\/a><\/p>\n
It’s a trend across radio. The local DJ’s are let go, replaced by hosts from out-of-market in other cities. It’s cost effective, but not necessarily fan-friendly.<\/p>\n
“What if the next host isn’t as good as they were? Or what if they’re not as in touch with the community as the former DJ’s were. You know what I mean?” said Joe Szertag of Bethlehem.<\/p>\n
It happened again this week, and left three local DJ’s in its wake, including the B104 morning show team of Mike Kelly and Becca Lynn, and WZZO midday host Joel Shimer.<\/p>\n
“I love listening to (Shimer) on ZZO. it’s really the only station that I listen to,” Szertag said.<\/p>\n
All three hosts declined on-camera interviews, with Shimer telling 69 News by phone he loves what he does.<\/p>\n
According to the Hollywood Reporter,\u00a0iHeartMedia let go of dozens of hosts across the country this week as part of staff reductions and cost-cutting.<\/p>\n
Experts say the local connection is being lost, and it will likely lead to more out-of-market DJ’s filling shifts in the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
“That’s lost now. That’s going to be replaced by voices from an unknown place,” said Margaret McConnell, Executive Director of WDIY-FM in Bethlehem.<\/p>\n
McConnell says local radio provides content you can’t get anywhere else.<\/p>\n
“Radio will continue to exist is if it’s hyper-local. That’s the important part,” said McDonnell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People are still talking about a major shakeup in the Lehigh Valley radio scene. This week, three DJ’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232],"class_list":["post-228278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}