Not long after writing last week’s column regarding the financial problems with Cumulus Media, which owns KLOS (95.5 FM) and KABC (790 AM) locally, the media giant officially, finally, declared bankruptcy.

The move comes a month after the company defaulted on a payment of nearly $24 million of principal and interest on more than $2 billion the company has in debt. If approved, the bankruptcy — pre-arranged with the majority of debtholders — will cut about $1 billion in debt, leaving the company in much better financial shape.

It will also take the heat off of president and CEO Mary Berner, at least temporarily. Under Berner, Cumulus has continued to struggle financially, but employee turnover is said to be far lower and employee morale is said to be better.

In my opinion, the best move Berner made was to give local control back to the local market management; this is a huge change that could help make Cumulus viable again.

In Los Angeles, KLOS is in a good position to become the local rock leader; programmer Keith Cunningham has revitalized the station and moved it away from classic rock to a classic-current rock hybrid. I personally hope he adds more current music, but whatever Cunningham decides, KLOS is in a far better place than it was just two years ago.

KABC is a different story. The station has some good shows with good hosts, but for various reasons it has remained stagnant in the ratings. Perhaps the time has come to move from talk to a more full-service news/talk/music approach. Regardless, the time is ripe for a KABC comeback. If it stays talk, my suggestion would be to separate Jillian Barberie from “The Drive Home” and let John Phillips do the show on his own. Dump the replays and weekend paid programming as well — it kills the ratings.

And here’s another idea: buy 100.3 from Educational Media Foundation. EMF vastly underpaid for the station as former owner Entercom found an owner that wouldn’t compete with Jack or KRTH as would The Sound. EMF could sell the station to Cumulus at a big profit, benefiting both companies at once. 100.3 could relaunch The Sound and KLOS could go mostly current. Done right, Cumulus could own the rock market in all demographics in Los Angeles.

Radio reunion

I had a chance to be in the same building as about 50 radio legends once more, as the semi-annual Los Angeles radio reunion took place last weekend at Fuddruckers in Burbank. The best story, though, came from Machine Gun Kelly, who spoke of his time at KHJ (930 AM).

It was his departure from the station, which he had joined at the age of 21, that was so great.

“John Sebastian (the new programmer) came to me about five minutes before my shift,” Kelly explained. “He told me that the station was moving in a new direction and that I had to tone it down.”

He agreed to not do his long yells of his name when he went on air.

“So as my shift starts, I turn on the mic and yell ‘3 o’clock at K-H-J Los Angeles’ followed by the longest ‘with Machiiiiiinnnnnne Guuuuuuuuuun Kelly’ I have ever done. It was probably at least 15 seconds long.

“Sebastian angrily walks into the studio and says ‘You’re fired.’ I tell him ‘That’s fine, I’ve already been hired by Ten-Q … I’ll see you on the air at six tonight.”

Kelly knew what was coming and had been hired by Ten-Q (KTNQ 1020 AM) already. Things like that happened back in the days when stations competed for listeners.

Winking on the airwaves

Airchexx.Com has a fun recording of Wink Martindale filing in on the morning shift of KFWB in June of 1965. There was lots of horn blowing to add excitement — typical for many stations of the era. Reached for comment, Martindale said, “Geeez! Hard to believe I thought that was ‘entertaining’!”

Regardless of his own opinion, Martindale sounds like he was having fun and the recording is an example of a long-gone era of early top-40 radio. One thing you might find interesting: marred only by tape hiss, the fidelity of the recording shows how good AM radio used to sound through a good AM radio. You can hear the same friendliness Martindale exudes on his television game shows, too.