• April 28, 2009

Struggling with falling advertising revenue and a huge debt from the deal to take it private last year, Clear Channel Communications is cutting costs across all its businesses. The latest round cuts Clear Channel Radio's entire corporate marketing department. The radio division also laid off a number of employees in other areas and stopped matching contributions to 401(k) funds Tuesday.

With the end of CCR's corporate marketing department, all staffers are leaving the company, including senior vice president of marketing Sanda Coyle and her top executives.

The company didn't specify how many employees were affected by the cutback. Overall, at the beginning of this year, Clear Channel Communications employed about 800 people in its corporate operations, out of a total 21,300 employees worldwide. The company laid off about 1,850 employees in January, bringing the total down to about 19,450, with 1,500 of the layoffs coming at the radio division.

The demise of the corporate marketing department was followed by a wider set of layoffs, including a number of local on-air personalities.--Erik Sass