Philly's Power 99 WUSL Fires Jonesy

Power 99 and its parent company Clear Channel Radio has parted ways with their controversial morning host Tarsha Jones, better known on the air as "Jonesy."

Her termination comes less than a week after a lawsuit was filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court by Tracey Parson, owner of the Kiddie Kare day care center. In the suit, she claims her business was repeatedly defamed by the radio host in October. In a post we ran last week, Jonesy allegedly did not do her due dilligence and let a caller make inflammatory statements about Parson that resulted in death threats and lost customers. The statements that went out unchecked over the air allegedly stated that Parsons had beaten up two teenage girls.

Tarsha Jones was hired back in Philly in 2009 to host mornings at Power 99 after working for Radio One Philadelphia from 2002 to 2004. She was matched up against Charlamagne Tha God over at rival and her former station "The Beat" until his firing in November 2009. Almost a year later, The Beat eventually settle on Jonesy's New York on-air nemesis Troi Torain, the "Star" of the Star and Buc Wild Morning Show. However, those two never engaged in an on-air verbal battle. A potentially volatile situation never materialized on the airwaves, as was the case quite frequently when the two hosts went back and forth in their days in NYC at Hot 97 and Power 105.1 respectively.

The search for a new morning host at WUSL is on as Clear Channel Radio looks for someone to compete mainly against Rickey Smiley on Radio One's Hot 107.9; but also to connect to the large percentage of African American women listeners in the 18-34 and 25-54 demos that were Jonesy's core audience.