Emmis shakes up team that manages Indianapolis radio stations

Emmis Communications Corp. has a new market manager for its Indianapolis cluster of radio stations for the second time in 16 months.

Gone from Emmis is Chuck Williams, a long-time Indianapolis radio executive who came to Emmis from Radio One’s Indianapolis operation in August of 2016. Williams replaced Charlie Morgan, who left Emmis’ Indianapolis operation to take over its New York cluster of radio stations.

It is not clear why Williams left or where he has gone. Williams could not be reached for comment. Emmis spokeswoman Kate Snedeker would only say that Williams "is no longer with the company."

Sources said Williams was ousted Friday because performance at the local stations has been down this year.

William has been replaced by Bob Richards, who has been with Emmis in various management roles since 2009. 

Richards joined Emmis as operations manager and was named vice president of programming for Emmis-Indianapolis in March 2014.

Richards began his career in radio as programming director of Indianapolis’ WFMS-FM 95.5, which was owned by Susquehanna Radio at the time. He was promoted to operations manager of WFMS, WJJKFM 104.5 and WRWFM 93.9, which were previously owned by Susquehanna and later purchased by Cumulus Media in July 2006. Richards worked for Morgan at Susquehanna/Cumulus and followed him to Emmis.

“Bob’s leadership has been instrumental in building our dominant position in the Indianapolis market,” Patrick Walsh, president of Emmis Communications, said in a statement. “His reputation for building great teams and winning content strategies is legendary. We look forward to Bob applying his ample skills to fortify our culture and performance in the coming years.”

Emmis’ Indianapolis cluster includes sports-talk WFNI-AM 1070 “The Fan,” light rock WYXB-FM 105.7, news-talk WIBC-FM 93.1 and country station WLHK-FM 97.1. 

Also on Friday, Emmis announced that Taja Graham, director of sales for music for the Emmis-Indianapolis cluster, has been promoted to vice president/director of sales for the cluster.

Graham has been with Emmis-Indianapolis since June 1996, except for a short stint working in marketing for a CPA firm. She has been with Emmis consistently since June 2003.

“Working alongside of Taja over the past eight years, I have seen her reach some amazing goals on our music stations,” Richards said in a statement. “I’m thrilled she’ll now have that kind of impact on all of our stations.”

Graham and Richards begin their new roles immediately.