Jeff Littlejohn, one of the U.S. radio industry’s best-known and most influential engineers, is retiring. The company announced on Monday that Littlejohn is stepping down from his role as executive VP of engineering, though he will continue in a consulting role.
Steve George succeeds him, effective immediately.
The development brings an end to what iHeart described as an “extraordinary 32 years” that began in 1992 with a job as chief engineer for Cincinnati.
“He rose through the ranks as he helped expand the company after the 1996 Telecom Act. He was part of the team that created the first version of the iHeartRadio App and worked with Toyota and Ford on the first integration of iHeartRadio.”
More recently, it said, he helped spearhead a modernization of iHeart’s studio facilities and conversion to cloud-based audio systems.
Littlejohn received the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award in 2008 and the NAB Radio Engineering Achievement Award in 2014.
[Read our 2014 profile of Littlejohn upon his receipt of the NAB award.]
He also chaired the NAB Radio Technical Committee. This summer Littlejohn and his iHeart olleague Alan Jurison were among the engineers who met with FCC officials to discuss virtualization of the EAS system, in a meeting facilitated by the NAB.
Hartley Adkins, president of the Markets Group at iHeart, was quoted: “There are few people in the industry with the expertise and longevity that Jeff has and we’re grateful for the incredible work he’s done for iHeart.”
George will manage the overall technical operations, systems and engineering teams that support iHeart’s 860 broadcast stations in 160 markets.
George began his career at iHeart in 2001 as chief engineer for the Sioux City, Iowa, market. He has been regional director of engineering in Omaha, Neb.; regional VP of engineering for the Midwest; and, most recently, VP of engineering and systems.
In the last few weeks iHeart has carried out a number of job terminations to cut costs, as has been widely reported. But Littlejohn told us this move was at his initiative and that he would support the transition.
The circle of engineering executives at commercial U.S. radio companies is fairly small, and this is the second notable departure of a top-level engineering executive in the last three months. As we reported in August, Mike Cooney left Beasley Media Group in August when the company eliminated his position.
Separately, Radio World learned today that Alan Jurison, iHeart senior operations engineer for the Technical Operations group, was let go last week. The company did not immediately reply to our request to comment on that, and Jurison declined comment.
