Since January 13 Winer had been relegated to a vaguely defined role as director WXRT music initiatives and special programming. The job of program director was eliminated, and Winer’s former duties were divided between operations director Mitch Rosen and music director Kelly Ransford.

Winer, 67, never publicly embraced his new position and declined to comment when it was announced in a statement by Rosen. Sources said Winer was unhappy with the change and chafed in the diminished post under Rosen.

Didn't the already show him the door? Unlike Kenny Williams I guess he took the hint.

Winer, 67, never publicly embraced his new position and declined to comment when it was announced in a statement by Rosen. Sources said Winer was unhappy with the change and chafed in the diminished post under Rosen.

That was bad. I expect more out of you.

Who in their right mind even wants to work until 67?

I assume I will die at my desk, hopefully around 90.

I said it at the time. It's a classic corporate move to make somebody quit instead of just firing him. So they eliminated his position, gave him some bullshit job and probably cut his pay. It took a while but he finally decided to just quit.

they brought in BRIck to ask him exactly what he does.

From having read up on it, I know that Norm made the decision in the early to mid '90s to "grow old with the listeners," or in other words, giving up the ghost in the modern-alternative wars with Q101 to effectively create the AAA format. It worked, inasmuch as XRT endured while Q101 turned into butt-rock and died, but I can see where it wouldn't work forever.

The thing is, when it comes to the crap the station cranks out, most of that is, again, modern alternative: Black Keys, Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, that Vance Joy/George Ezra/Hozier shit I complained about. None of it feels particularly artistic or interesting. It doesn't introduce you to new music you wouldn't find elsewhere, it doesn't flow with the rest of the library. It just is. It's a perfunctory nod to say "hey, we're still hip and with it" that fools no one. It certainly doesn't fool the jocks; I once heard Johnny Mars intro the new Adele song with all the despair of someone who just found out his dog got hit by a car. With a link to the station's roots gone, doesn't it stand to reason that there's going to be more of this?

Haha, his last day is a Talking Heads feature.

Their billing went down 22% this year.