Spark one, pour out a little liquor—whatever, but let’s take a moment and honor the media institutions and personalities that have served Bay Area residents for generations. Radio dial favorites KGO (810 AM) and KFOG (104.5 FM) both washed out some iconic on-air personalities last week in cuts that were timed to a fiscal quarter’s end but spun as some sort of reinvention. KGO let go of somewhere in the range of 20-30 editorial staffers, while KFOG dropped four of its six full-time DJs, including beloved hosts Annalisa (“10@10”) and Rosalie (Acoustic Sunrise” and “Acoustic Sunset” on Sundays). Liberal yardbarker Ronn Owens nearly got the boot from KGO to sister station KSFO, but listener outcry convinced Cumulus to reverse course and keep the human in his natural setting. One former employee described KGO’s layoffs as “a bloodbath” to the San Jose Mercury News, which underwent its own rebranding Tuesday, editing out “San Jose” from its masthead to become more regionally inclusive. Meanwhile, papers like the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and others were consolidated into the long rumored East Bay Times. A wake was held for departing staffers Monday night but it’s not known how many were forced out. Cuts are better than outright extinction, such as the October 2014 folding of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, but the loss of institutional knowledge and character is upsetting for colleagues, readers and listeners alike. KGO has been running a grating collection of sound bites declaring a “new generation,” while KFOG has terrifyingly described its shift from real people to a machine as an “evolution.” As one loyal reader pointed out to Fly, the station serenaded Friday’s 5 o’clock listeners not with the traditional Toyes classic “Smoke Two Joints,” but instead marked the end of an era with silence.