Two top execs leave Radio One

ATLANTA, May 12, 2008, 9:40 a.m. - Two top executives are leaving black media giant Radio One, as the company continues to struggle.

Alejandro A. Clabiorne, vice president of marketing for the company, has given his notice and Lee Michaels, national program director for Syndication One News/Talk, has already left, three sources tell Redding News Review.

Neither Clabiorne nor Michaels could be reached for comment.

Their departures come as the company last week also lost another one of its key employees, talk radio star Joe Madison. Madison, who is ranked one of the top 20 talk radio show hosts in the nation and a recipient of Talkers magazine's Freedom of Speech Award, will now be working directly for rival XM 169 The Power starting in June.

It is not clear if he will continue his longtime show on Radio One's WOL-AM in Washington, D.C.

Earlier this year Lanham, Md.-based Radio One ended its more than six-year relationship with XM Satellite Radio's channel 169 because the company had not made enough money on advertising for the joint venture with the primarily subscription-oriented company.

Declining national revenue has forced Radio One to sell stations in non-core markets. The company's stock is now trading well under a dollar after losing more than 85 percent of its value since last year. The company also last week recorded a 2 percent dip in revenue in its first quarter and a net loss of $18.3 million.

Still, the losses did not stop the company from providing "substantial" raises for President and CEO Alfred C. Liggins III and his mother Radio One founder and Chairwoman Cathy Hughes last month.

The company - which owns and operates 53 primarily black targeted radio stations in 16 markets and is in the middle of expanding its Internet reach - did not return calls to comment.

(Editor's Note: Redding News Review's radio program of the same name is heard on XM 169 and on WOL-AM)