Emotional Week For Saga Portland
• The team at Saga’s Portland Radio Group in Portland, ME experienced the full gamut of emotions this week, as 1) Market icon Chuck Igo did his final broadcast on Classic Hits WYNZ (Rewind 100.9) on Friday before heading into retirement after a successful 40-year radio career; 2) Market veteran AJ Dukette was tapped to succeed Igo in mornings on Rewind, and 3) the cluster was rocked by the departures of Operations Manager Jeff Pierce, WGAN morning co-host Ken Altshuler and three salespeople, presumably the unfortunate byproduct of industry-wide belt-tightening, due to the growing coronavirus pandemic.
• Naturally, the good news of Dukette’s hire was tempered by that budget-related personnel realignment that resulted in the exit of Operations Manager Jeff Pierce (left), 18-year WGAN morning co-host Ken Altshuler (right) and three salespeople.
Pierce is a longtime New England broadcaster whom previously spent two decades with iHeartMedia — the first 11 years as OM of the company’s Bangor, ME cluster, followed by an eight-year stint as SVP of Programming for iHeart’s eight-station group in Portsmouth and Manchester, NH. Pierce, who posted about his departure on Facebook, can now be reached at jefferypierce@me.com.
The departure of Altshuler, also a prominent local attorney, was extensively covered by The Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News.
