Month: May 2014

Today was quite a newsworthy day for WGN-AM 720, the venerable Chicago news/talk radio station. As first reported by Chicago media blogger Robert Feder, a series of changes will impact its Monday through Friday lineup, starting Tuesday, May 27. The most prominent changes are the return of John Williams, who left the station in Dec. 2012, and the moving of afternoon host Garry Meier to WGN’s online-stream station, WGN.FM.

I’m super excited with the news of Williams’ return. While I’ll probably never get to listen to his show live, I look forward to listening to the podcast, either during lunch or on the way home from work.

I’m not as happy about the moving of Meier from AM 720 to online-only. While station management is attempting to portray Meier’s move as being a catalyst to jumpstart WGN.FM, it is very surprising that they opted to move their highest paid (according to Feder) and one of their highest rated personalities to a forum that may as well be “dead man’s land.”

Currently, WGN.FM houses Jonathon Brandmeier’s morning show –which simulcasts on WGN’s sister station, 87.7 The Game/WGWG-LP — a midday syndicated business show, and a weekly real estate/mortgage talk show. Talk about a real garbage dump of a station. I hope WGN does indeed show new commitment to WGN.FM, otherwise the Meier move is obviously just a convenient way to rid of him from the 720 AM until his contract expires towards the end of 2015.

While I’m bummed about the Meier move, I admit that such feelings stem from nostalgia. I probably haven’t listened to Meier for more than five minutes in about a year. Part of the reason is because I feel his act has gotten stale. Not helping are my new listening habits, which includes a lot more online-only podcasts and SiriusXM, at the expense of terrestrial stations, including WGN. After listening to such alternatives for any length of time, going back to terrestrial and dealing with excessive interruptions (long news segments, constant traffic and commercials) becomes harder to deal with.

One more note regarding the decision to move Meier to WGN.FM… is station president Jimmy de Castro really that down on him, or is that a vibe I get by reading Feder? Hmm.

Larz at Chicagoland Radio and Media nicely articulated that the way WGN has gone about moving Meier to WGN.FM is a huge slap in the face to him and his fans.

If they wanted to promote WGN.FM, why not have Garry Meier simulcasted on it for the past month, leading up to this move? Give fans of his (which are many) the chance to find how to access it and be prepared for the switchover. Instead, they yank Meier off the air, essentially flipping the bird to one of the largest portions of the station’s audience.
This may be a promotion for WGN.FM, but make no mistake about it, this is a slap in the face for Garry Meier, his team, and his fans. This cannot be spun in any other way.

Meanwhile, the current mid-morning hosts Bill Leff and Wendy Snyder move to Meier’s spot in afternoons. I’ve heard that the two of them together are laugh out loud hysterical. They had a good reputation dating back in the early to mid 1990s while at Q101. I haven’t had a chance to really sample them since they started on WGN together this past fall. While I haven’t been enamored in the small sampling of them thus far, I look forward to giving them a chance in afternoons.

Then again, even when attempting to listen to them live while driving home from work, I’ll probably still only hear a small sample of them — around WGN’s constant flow of news and commercial breaks.

Erin Kennedy

Today marked yet another new beginning for the WBBM-TV/CBS 2 morning news program with the debut of Erin Kennedy as co-anchor — exactly 367 days after the (unnecessary) firing of Susan Carlson. In that time, CBS 2 has rotated midday anchor Roseanne Tellez and weekend anchor Marissa Bailey as fill-ins while searching for Carlson’s permanent successor.

In the year since, I’ve come to enjoy Bailey’s contributions to the morning show and had hoped she’d win the job permanently. Even though she was only working three days a week (in addition to anchoring her weekend morning newscasts), I thought she fit in nicely with co-anchor Kris Gutierrez, meteorologist Megan Glaros and traffic reporter Derrick Young.

Marissa Bailey

CBS 2 has been stuck near last place, ratings wise, for as long as I can remember. While it is extremely hard for a bottom feeder to climb its way up, CBS 2 would put themselves in a better position to do so by building a brand on the merits of outstanding journalism along with familiar and likeable faces. Instead, CBS 2 insists on playing musical chairs with its on air team seemingly every other year, essentially starting from scratch. While changes sometimes are necessary (i.e. Steve Bartelstein’s brief time as morning co-anchor was a colossal failure), CBS 2 unnecessarily rocked the boat one year ago with the firing of Carlson. CBS 2 had finally had a foundation to build upon, with Carlson and Gutierrez in the morning, and Rob Johnson and Kate Sullivan at night.

After disrupting what was a outstanding morning newscast by ousting Carlson, CBS 2 spent a year re-training viewers to get used to Bailey and Tellez, only to rock the boat a second time.

I should make it clear that this isn’t about Kennedy. She may very well prove to be worthy of the job. This is about CBS 2’s management squandering a full calendar year when it is consistency they need most. They’ve essentially shot themselves in the same foot twice, in the span of one year and a couple of days.