Riverside-based radio station KGGI has lost its last local on-air hosts.
Longtime radio personalities Evelyn Erives, Nick Nack and Garrison King were all cut from the Inland Empire station last week as part of iHeartMedia’s latest round of national layoffs. In an internal memo, the media giant said it would restructure its radio programming to better “leverage” the company’s technology.
iHeartMedia declined to comment on how many people lost their jobs, but dozens of on-air and other staff positions have reportedly been cut across the country.
The memo — attributed to Chief Programming Officer Tom Poleman and Ann Marie Licata, the chief executive of the company’s multiplatform group — framed the changes as a way to “move faster and operate with greater precision across markets” and to “position us not just to adapt to the future, but to lead it.”
The cuts are part of a broader push to reduce costs. In May, iHeartMedia launched a new savings program, set to begin in the second half of 2026, aimed at trimming an additional $50 million on top of the $100 million in savings the company had already announced.
iHeartMedia is the nation’s largest radio operator, with more than 850 stations across 160 markets and a sizable presence in Burbank. Its Los Angeles-area stations include KFI-AM, KLAC-AM, KOST-FM and KIIS-FM.
As the media landscape continues to evolve, the company has leaned harder into podcasting, home to hallmark shows such as “Stuff You Should Know,” “Questlove Supreme” and “Las Culturistas.”
Last year, iHeartMedia introduced its “Guaranteed Human” campaign, an ongoing pledge that no iHeartMedia station or podcast will feature an AI-generated personality or AI-generated music.
How that promise squares with the layoffs is unclear. With stations such as Riverside’s KGGI now stripped of their local hosts, the company has said nothing about who — or what — will replace them.
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