Chicago local of SAG-AFTRA<\/a> had been pursuing the case since May 2014 \u2014 shortly after Cumulus Media took over the two stations from Merlin Media, which had widely expanded the use of voice-tracking around the clock.<\/p>\nAt issue was the company\u2019s right to use the recorded voices of its air personalities seven days a week or on holidays while paying them only for a standard work week. The arbitrator sided with SAG-AFTRA that the practice was a violation of the union\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n
The ruling marked the only time in Chicago (and one of the few times in the United States) that the issue of payment for voice-tracking had been challenged in arbitration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are extremely pleased with the outcome of this arbitration,\u201d said Eric Chaudron, executive director of Chicago SAG-AFTRA. \u201cIt has vindicated the position we have taken from the start regarding voice-tracking at our stations.\"<\/p>\n
Peter Bowen, vice president and Chicago market manager of Cumulus Media, declined to comment Friday.<\/p>\n
Still licensed to Merlin Media, The Loop and 101WKQX have been operated by Cumulus Media under a local marketing agreement since January 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An independent arbitrator has ruled against Cumulus Media over the company\u2019s use of voice-tracking \u2014 the practice of recording a disc jockey\u2019s words and playing them back on the air later \u2014 at classic rock WLUP FM 97.9 and alternative rock WKQX FM 101.1. About a dozen current and former employees of The Loop and... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7405,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401\/revisions\/7405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}