Idolator

I spent a few days in Los Angeles last week and spent most of the time tuned into V100, the latest version of what used to be "The Beat," which for the last year has specialized in the Urban Adult Contemporary format. Frankly, any station that features Shalamar prominently in its playlist is likely to have my ear, but V100 pulled off a difficult genre well, mixing newer tracks by Raheem DeVaughan and Keyshia Cole with familiar tracks from The Deele and Maze. It seems I caught the station a little too late—V100's parent company, Radio One, sold the station to the Latter-Day Saint Church-owned Bonneville International Corporation, whose focus on "values-oriented programming" seems to exclude anything in the urban format.

Bonneville is flipping the station's format sometime after the station changes hands to a exciting blend of news and talk, which seems to be their pattern when purchasing stations. In 2004, Bonneville traded Chicago's WLUP to the Emmis Corporation for three stations in the Phoenix area, including what was Power 92.3, an Urban Contemporary station, which is now a FM news/talk station featuring the loathsome Glenn Beck program and former House Republican J.D. Hayworth. Looking through the Bonneville station lineup, there's not much that isn't dominated by whiteness, unless you count the occasional spin of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" on Phoenix's "we play whatever we want" station The Peak.

The Los Angeles Sentinel's take on the situation references some of the troubling facts appearing in the midst of this seemingly everyday business transaction:

The official final airdate for the station is scheduled for April 11 and this week all of the 60 employees were notified of their fate and severance packages.

One thing that is for certain and that is the new format will not be urban or targeted to the African American populace according to Craig Haslam, Director of Communications for Bonneville International.

"We don't even know yet what the format will be," Haslam told the Sentinel this week. "There are three or four that we are thinking about but we will hold those close to the vest for right now."

When asked if the station would continue to be an urban station he emphatically stated, "Most likely not."

There was a subdued mood among the employees who were coming and going from their traditional lunch hours on Tuesday, but none were allowed to make any comment about the impeding change of ownership.

However, one of its own the outspoken and candid [V100 personality Michael] Baisden took difference to yet another Black station being sold to a White owned establishment during his show on Tuesday, but before his listeners could hear his comments he was silenced by music.

According to one published report, Bonneville prefers to have canned shows instead of local talent and is profit driven.

As someone who can't take much talk radio, I'm probably not the prime candidate for most of Bonneville's lineup, but is there some conflict in a wholly church owned conglomerate making these sort of moves in the radio marketplace, replacing what little diversity exists on the traditional radio dial with more "traffic on the 10s"?

Radio One Sells V100 for $137.5 Million [Los Angeles Sentinel]