WLNE‘s vice president and general manager Steve Doerr, who has been with the Providence ABC-affiliate since 2007, is set to exit the station as Citadel Broadcasting revamps its recent acquisition.
Doerr announced his departure in a memo to staff on Tuesday, saying that, “after discussions with Citadel over the last week,” he is stepping aside at the end of April.
Last month a superior court judge approved the sale of WLNE to Citadel. At the time, Citadel CEO Phil Lombardo said that he was going to visit the station to meet with Doerr and evaluate his leadership as well as “crawl all over the place.”
“They clearly have a sense of the direction they want to go,” Doerr told WPRI, assessing Lombardo’s company following their meetings.
Doerr will stay in his current position until May 1st, after which time he’ll remain involved with the station as a consultant.
Doerr’s departure was announced on the same day that WLNE unveiled a new programming lineup. The station was under scrutiny last month for splitting its 7:00 p.m. time slot between paid programming and local news, at one point airing the now-infamous Genie Bra infomercial. Beginning April 25th, WLNE will broadcast the syndicated celebrity news show “The Insider,” ending the “unfortunate” programming split that occurred under Doerr’s leadership.
In a recent email to TVSpy, Doerr pointed out that WLNE was unable to purchase syndicated programs while the station was in receivership. “It is what it is,” Doerr said about running local news and paid programming in the timeslot.