Mixed Signals at Clear Channel

"If you're the sort of person who's uncomfortable with a fraternity house and the silly stunts, you probably wouldn't have been comfortable in their corporate culture," said Robert Unmacht, former publisher and editor of radio trade magazine M Street Journal, who sold his firm to Clear Channel several years ago.

At Clear Channel, Michaels installed a management team drawn from Jacor's ranks and presided over the company's emergence as the most dominant force on the airwaves. But he clashed frequently with record label executives, and sources say Clear Channel's corporate management began to view his style as a liability.

The Mays family ousted Michaels in an abrupt shake-up last year, but industry experts say much of Jacor's ethos still runs thick.

"The Mays are conservative people," said Ron Rodrigues, a former editor of Radio & Records magazine. "I still know there are a lot of guys in the programming ranks who still see the Mays as not really being part of their culture, which is still a pretty fraternal group of guys."

Rodrigues, who works for a satellite radio company that competes with a firm in which Clear Channel is an investor, added: "There is definitely a sense of brotherhood and a sense of the wild and crazy."