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While the country (and the rest of the world) was celebrating the inauguration of our 44th president, Barack Obama, things weren't quite so joyous in radioland. Clear Channel Communications, the largest of the industry giants that's dominating commercial radio these days, laid off a reported 1,850 people.

Among the cost-cutting casualties: the Bay Area's much-loved "real" jazz DJ, Dick Conte.

Conte, an established jazz pianist and former Program Director at KCSM-FM (where he's still got a Saturday afternoon gig from 2-6 pm; that's 91.1 on your dial, folks), has hosted a Sunday night mainstream jazz program, "The Jazz Café," on the otherwise-smooth jazz station KKSF for the past 21 years.

Economic pressures, you understand.

Clear Channel owns nearly 1,200 radio stations nationally, along with SFX Entertainment, the nation's largest concert-venue owner and touring promoter. The company currently has about 20,000 employees worldwide; the layoffs total about 9% of the total workforce.

According to a report in the NY Post, the company is also likely to move toward a "national programming" model that would require less local-level staffing, despite being criticized in the past for a similar action using centralized disc jockeys that made it appear as though they were broadcasting from local stations.

(And if you don't believe that CCC is evil incarnate, check out this series of investigative reports by journalist Eric Boehlert on Salon.com)