The Loop

Some big news on the work front. The company I work for, Emmis, has announced a very significant deal today. They purchased one of the big stations here in Chicago (the Loop), in exchange for three Phoenix-based stations (KTAR, KKLT, KMVP) and $70M.

This is huge, as the Loop is what is termed a “heritage” station here in Chicago. Combined with Q101, this gives us a pretty strong hold on the “rock” format in a major market, allowing us to potentially force our competitor (the Zone) out of its current format.

This is a pretty big shake-up. We’re losing almost the entirety of our Phoenix market, but gaining enormous ground here in Chicago. This has also been the first big sale/acquisition that’s impacted the Interactive group directly. From here on out, we’ll be effectively starting to shut down two major websites (and relaunching a third).

Here’s a weird thing. From time to time, I do the financial updates for our corporate website. Typically, these updates happen during the start of each quarter (and are required legally). They’re for our investors, and there are strict parameters as to when they can (and can’t) be made available to the public.

I was told of an “announcement” that I needed to post on our website, but I wasn’t given anything more than that. Last week, I was told that I needed to update the corporate site at 11:00 AM. I would receive some news, but it couldn’t be posted before 11:00 AM and needed to be posted as close to 11:00 AM as possible.

This morning, about quarter till 11:00 AM, the General Manager of Q101 interrupted our Monday meeting and pulled me aside. I went in to his office and he broke the news to me. He wanted to fill me in because I was about to receive some emails, and was going to be the one updating the corporate site. This was just prior to the big staff meeting that was announced via email to everyone at the start of the day. I walked back in to the meeting knowing the skinny on what was happening, and had to keep my mouth shut until I received the updates.

On walking back in, everyone tried getting me to spill. And as tempted as I was, it felt wrong to say anything (particularly when I was specifically asked not to say anything). So I kept my mouth shut.

It’s weird, knowing information and not being able to share it. It’s doubly weird when you know information, and others who don’t know know you know.

You know?