Chicago Radio Spotlight

Brendan Sullivan

2012-01-28T06:30:00.001-06:00

Brendan Sullivan was a producer on the Jonathon Brandmeier show for ten years, and is now working as a creativity coach. He has also recently become the co-author of a novel (with yours truly) called "The Living Wills"

Rick: You were in radio in Chicago for ten years, but that really is almost an asterisk in your long career, isn't it? You were an actor, a improv artist, a writer, and more. Tell us about a few of those pre-radio highlights.

Brendan: Way back when, thirty years ago now, yikes, I actually had a real job selling national advertising for the New York Times. I retired when I was 28 and started doing improv, studying at Second City. I landed at the ImprovOlympic and was a member of Blue Velveeta, an improv group that did very well. Radio was never part of the plan.

Rick: We met when you started working for Jonathon Brandmeier at the Loop in the early 1990s. How did you meet Johnny and get involved on that show?

Brendan: Blue Velveeta, my improv group, was getting a lot of press at about the time "Johnny B. on the Loose" (TV show, summer of 1991) was being produced at Channel 11 studios for NBC Productions. We'd just won a national improv competition. Johnny hired a group of us including Brian McCann, Andy Richter and Kevin Dorff who all went on to Conan, Jay Leggett who has done very well in LA acting and writing, and me. We generated ideas for the show. When the TV show ended, Johnny invited me to join the radio show, at first part-time, and later full-time.

Rick: Officially I believe you were classified as a producer, but how would you describe your list of job duties during those years?

Brendan: "Producer," I have learned, is a term in radio that can mean everything from getting coffee and answering phones to making big decisions about the nature, direction, tone of the show. I didn't do any of that. And I didn't book guests. And I had no technical experience to run a board. I suggested, researched, created, generated 'bits' for the show. Hey, Johnny, there's a guy in Wyoming with three testicles. Why don't we call him and say that you've only got one. Would he be willing to donate his extra? Very high brow stuff. I also wrote pre-recorded bits that we called 'theater of the mind' and did some character voices live on the show.

Rick: I may be biased because of my heritage, but I always got the biggest kick out of the Nazi Stormtroopers bit that you did with Jeff Hoover. What was the origin of that bit?

Brendan: As I recall, we were on the Loop, and one morning the announcement was made that our AM station, which shared our space, WMVP was either going all-sports, or the all-sports concept was being dumped. It's a blur. But people were getting fired that morning and Johnny painted this picture of Nazi Germany with staffers hiding under their desks and stormtroopers marching down the hallways and cleaning out the offices. He told Hoover and me to 'do something with that.' And so we created Helmut and Wilhelm, who owned the radio stations and ruled with an iron fist. It was really more like Hogan's Heroes. Let me stress that. Helmut and Wilhelm were soulless idiots, and that's where the humor came in. For the biggest promotional error I was ever a part of, some beer company sponsor sent us in 'uniform' to some bar in Morton Grove or Skokie. No one there knew that there was a radio promotion going on. They just thought we were Nazis, and they were not happy. We drank heavily and wrapped it up quickly before the riots broke out.

Rick: Talk about fellow storm trooper Jeff Hoover. He's obviously doing great work these days working as a producer on the WGN-TV Morning News. What was it like working with that nut every single day?

Brendan: Hoover is the funniest guy I know, and by far the most talented voice actor. Tell him that we need a horny, Swedish elf and BAM! he's got the voice and he's got material. He does the legendary Jerry Lewis, from "Laaaady!" all the way to Percodan Jerry, well enough to fool other celebrities on the phone (on the air) who know the real Jerry. Working with him was a riot. I was there first, and Johnny hired Hoover a couple years later. Every day we would brainstorm bits, bounce them around and throw them back to Johnny. Hoover made my stuff better and, I hope, vice versa. We laughed a lot, and when the schrapnel was flying, we had each other's backs. It was a riot. Hoover also happens to have a heart of gold.

Rick: In ten years of working for Brandmeier you saw and did a lot of things. When you look back on those years, what are some of your favorite moments?

Brendan: Wow, there were a lot. Too too many to mention here. My favorites were probably when I cracked Johnny up. I had a bit idea where we recreated a scene from Pulp Fiction. Word for word, we recreated the "Royale with Cheese" scene with John Travolta and Samuel Jackson. Except I had Jim Volkman read Travolta's lines as Harry Caray and Hoover read Jackson's lines as Jerry Lewis. My concept, but Volkman and Hoover (and Jimmy McInerney's audio magic) made it work. Hard to explain why it's so funny unless you know the original and hear the parody. There was also a morning where Johnny's Eddie Abler interviewed a teenager who'd changed his name to Trout Fishing in America after the philosophy book. Well, "Eddie" thought the kid had named himself after a fish. The kid believed he was actually on "Eddie Abler's Good Outdoorsman Show." When "Eddie" found out it wasn't about fish, he said he oughta wrap a 50-pound line around the kid's scrotum and drag him around the lake. I happened to be in the studio with Johnny (Eddie), which was rare, and Johnny was on the ground, laughing so hard he was crying, and trying to hold down the mute button while the kid was profusely apologizing to "Eddie."

Rick: I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but how would you describe the difference between John Brandmeier the person, and John Brandmeier the performer?

Brendan: There is none. I've seen hosts who turn it 'on' and 'off.' The energy, personality, craziness and split-second thought processes that Johnny has on the air, are exactly the same off the air. Anyone else would collapse at that pace. It's not an act.

Rick: You were with Johnny at two different radio stations (The Loop and WCKG), but when that show ended at WCKG in 2001, you decided to leave radio. Was that a hard decision for you, and do you miss it at all?

Brendan: Remember, I never had plans to get into radio in the first place. I didn't apply for the job, it came to me. And I just followed it. I had a blast but it felt like time to move on and see what else the universe had in mind. By the time I left, I was married with three sons (I now also have a daughter) and the hours and the pace were wearing on me. I thought about other shows, but frankly after the wild ride with Johnny, I also thought it would be hard to replace that experience. I still had no technical skills, didn't want to answer phones or book guests, so it wasn't like I had a lot of interesting options. I got out just before I had to show up at my kid's school for career day and tell them that Charlie's dad writes fart jokes for a living. Once in a while, like when you're asking me these questions, I miss it. But it's a lot more glamorous from the outside.

Rick: Now you're working as a creativity coach. Tell us what that is and where and how you practice this art.

Brendan: I learned a lot about collaborative creativity doing improv on stage, and creating content for radio. I also had that corporate background with the New York Times. So now I help organizational teams and leaders to be more innovative, to generate more creative ideas, and to provide a healthier, more supportive work environment where talented people can thrive. Most of my clients are Fortune 500 types (Kellogg's, PepsiCo, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, etc.) but it works with any group that wants to be more collaborative, creative, healthy and productive. Usually it takes the form of workshops, seminars and keynote speeches. It's always interactive, practical and engaging. There's more at www.creativitycoach.net. I've been doing that for about 10 years now.

Rick: And finally, of course I have to ask you about our new novel "The Living Wills". We've obviously been doing a lot of publicity together on radio and television, and at appearances around Chicagoland (including 2pm this Sunday Jan 29 at the Beverly Arts Center), and a lot of people have been asking us about the process of two people writing a novel together. For you, what was the most rewarding part of writing this novel, and what has been the most surprising part of the process?

Brendan: Well, you and I used a lot of the techniques that I learned in improv and radio and other ventures, which are the things I have also been coaching in the business world for the last 10 years. So the most satisfying thing about the novel for me is that these techniques actually work. The novel is a tangible product of these concepts I've been preaching, which I can hold in my hand as actual proof that I'm not insane. And people actually like it. The most surprising part of the process is the response we've been getting. My goal was just to hold the book in my hand. But every day now I get at least one email or phone call from someone who just finished the book, and they say gushy things about how the book affected them. I guess I'm also surprised that two guys who were known for satire, comedy writing and improv would write a novel that people are calling profound and moving. Pretty weird.

Spotlight Update: Steve Cochran & Brian Noonan

2012-01-21T07:31:00.000-06:00

Before I get back to doing Chicago Radio Spotlight interviews with people I haven't interviewed already, I had to check back in with a few of my previous interviewees that have had dramatic changes in their careers since we last spoke.

Steve Cochran was unhappily trying to make it through his remaining days at WGN when we last spoke. He's now back on the air in Chicago at WIND. Brian Noonan was languishing on weekend overnights when we last spoke, and he has since been promoted to co-host of Sports Night from 7-10 PM every night on WGN.

STEVE COCHRAN

Rick: Welcome back to Chicago. Are you physically back in town too? I know you're doing two shows a day now, one in St. Louis and one in Chicago.

Steve: I never left. I was only down in St. Louis maybe once a month, if that, and now I'm here all the time. Mostly, I did the St. Louis show from a Comrex in my house, which is about the size of an old tape recorder. All you have to do is plug it right into the computer, and voila, you're in St. Louis.

Rick: How are you liking it over at WIND?

Steve: It's great. The St. Louis people are great and continue to be great, but when this came along, I told them it was something I really wanted and needed to do. They totally understood and helped make it work. Basically, I'm on the radio all day--I'm either A) A complete egomaniac or B) I need to be kept off the streets. I think I'm going with B.

Rick: But you're not ruling out A.

Steve: Good point. Let's make it A and 1/2.

Rick: Your schedule sounds slightly crazy. Take me through a typical day.

Steve: Well, I tape interviews and prep for the early show in St. Louis between 8 and 10, and then I'm on the air there from 10-12. 12-1 is post show stuff, taping promos, that sort of thing. Then I've got a little bit of time between 1-2:30 to get stuff done in my real life. Between 2:30-5, I'm prepping for and recording interviews for the other two shows. Then I'm on the air in Chicago between 5-7 on WIND. 5-6 is only in Chicago, but the 6 PM hour is also the first hour of my night show in St. Louis. That 6:00 hour is on in both cities. Then, I'm on from 7-9 PM only in St. Louis.

Rick: Is it hard to do a show for both markets in that 6:00 hour?

Steve: Well, I don't try to hide it. It's programmed for Chicago mostly, but I've never blown off an audience in my life, and I don't do it now either. Fortunately I've got a great producer here and a great producer in St. Louis too. The producers do have co-ordinate a little, but it's not as hard as it looks.

Rick: So you really are on the air all day long.

Steve: Well, Rick, let me tell you. Some hosts like to do one show and syndicate that to a hundred stations. I like to do a hundred different shows. Keeps me limber and in shape.

Rick: Are they all the same sort of shows?

Steve: Not really. No. Not at all. The morning show is more of a magazine show. It's more comedy. More my foundation. More like the old WGN show before GN went to hell. The 5-7 show on WIND is very political, but we still have our yucks. The trick is doing that show to the hard right audience here at WIND, while respecting the old WGN audience that heard me as more of a middle of the road--sometimes right and sometimes left. This show leans more hard right, but it's done with respect. The night show is a little more sports. It's comedy and sports.

Rick: Wow. That's all over the map.

Steve: This is great for my ADD.

Rick: Do you keep track of your old station and what they are doing these days?

Steve: I don't really because of my schedule. I hear Blackhawks games because I'm a big hockey fan, but that's been about it. I'm a big Brandmeier fan and sent him a congratulatory note when he got the job, but I haven't really had a chance to listen to him because I'm usually working at that time. I've got a lot great friends there and I wish them all well. I really like Garry Meier, but my job now is to kick Garry's ass. This station is the little train that could, the little station that people think "Oh are they on the air too?" But I like our chances. We're very serious about taking this thing to the next level.

BRIAN NOONAN

Rick: Things have changed a bit for you since we last spoke, haven't they?

Brian: Wow, I can't believe it's been almost 3 1/2 years since you were gracious enough to interview me the first time. To say a lot has changed for me at WGN would be an understatement. The time since last November 2010 has been the most eventful, but the two years before that need to be addressed so I'm not accused of having "selective memory".

My weekend overnight shows were doing very well. I had two great producers and news guys to work with and we were really hitting our stride and growing our audience. Some of the goofiness that I put out was really good, some was awful, but we were having fun doing it and the audience seemed to be having fun too. I was doing a lot of fill-ins during the overnight shift during the week as well. It's no secret that during that time, WGN got new management that implemented a lot of changes. For reasons known only to them, I was not part of their plans. Luckily, since I held down the last segment of the schedule they were worried about, I was able to keep my head down and avoid their wrath, except for losing all fill-in spots. Just when I had gotten some indications that the end of my run at WGN was on the horizon, all those people were sent packing, and without any exaggeration, within 24 hours my fortunes changed.

Rick: So who saw the diamond in the rough?

Brian: The day after the changes, WGN's GM Tom Langmyer asked me to fill-in on some of the newly vacated 7-10pm shifts. He had a vision for a show that was "sports focused, but not exclusively an X's & O's sports show." One that would cover a wide range of topics, while still being true to WGN's sports tradition. I did that show for about six week's and then it was announced that David Kaplan would be returning to that spot to do the new show "Sports Night" with a group of rotating co-hosts. I was asked to be one of the group, which was great since I was the only "non-sports" guy in the rotation. The show would also include Andrea Darlas in a combination role of news anchor and co-host. Kap and I had never worked together before the first show, but something happened, and the chemistry was perfect. By the end of February it was decided that there would be no more "rotating hosts" and that the lineup of Kap, Andrea and I would be the faces of the franchise, to put it in sports parlance. We've been together for a year and the show seems to be doing very well. Most people really seem to enjoy the fact that we can talk sports, but also go wherever we want. Each of us brings something different to the program, and the combination seems to be working.

Rick: And I'm also hearing you a lot in other dayparts as well...

Brian: My new role on "Sports Night" combined with new management that seems to value what I do, has lead to other changes as well. I'm doing a lot more daytime fill-ins during the week, and on December 31st 2011, I did my final overnight show. Starting January 22, I will be on Sunday evenings from 6-9. I'm looking forward to the new spot and bringing some of the "Radio Irreverence" that we had in the overnights to a new audience. Leaving the overnight slot was a little bittersweet. While it will be nice to sleep at normal hours, the audience during the overnight is very loyal and diverse, and I will miss the interaction I had with many of them. Oh yeah, I also got an office that I share with our "Sports Night" producer. I'm like George Jefferson, movin' on up.

Rick: And if a man can say this to another man, I have to say, you look fantastic these days. You're a shell of your old self. What's going on there?

Brian: For a number of reasons, not the least of which is that because of "Sports Night" we're doing more remotes and I'm in the presence of professional athletes, I've lost nearly 100 pounds. I've still got a way to go, but watch out. Soon, I'll be in nothing but leather pants and mesh t-shirts. With that horrifying visual, I'll thank you again for asking me to do this and apologize for being so long winded. It might have something to do with filling a six hour overnight shift for the last few years.

Spotlight Update: Spike O'Dell, Robert Murphy, and John Records Landecker

2012-01-14T06:30:00.001-06:00

Before I get back to doing Chicago Radio Spotlight interviews with people I haven't interviewed already, I had to check back in with a few of my previous interviewees that have had dramatic changes in their careers since we last spoke.

John Records Landecker is now once again saying those famous call letters (WLS), Robert Murphy is now back in Chicago doing mornings on Rewind 100, and Spike O'Dell is now living the good life of retirement.

JOHN RECORDS LANDECKER

Rick: So one day you're doing a talk show on WIMS in Michigan City, and then suddenly out of nowhere, it's the John Records Landecker Music Explosion! How did that happen and why?

John: (laughs) I was doing the afternoon show with Paula Griffin as a talk show and one day she had to go somewhere, and it was just going to be me by myself, so as a joke I brought in a bunch of songs and did the John Records Landecker Oldies Extravaganza! Well, it got a huge reaction. People really loved it...and you know what? I loved doing it. The owner of the station, Ric Federighi, was chatting with me in the hallway afterward, and I said "What if I did that all the time?" He said "We've been waiting for you to do that!"

That's how it started. I re-named it the John Records Landecker Music Explosion, and I played songs off my iPad, and people e-mailed me songs from all over the country--because they were listening online, and it really took off. Radio guys started sending me jingle packages, and customized things, and I played it all. It was a blast!

Rick: Is that when WLS came calling?

John: Yes, but that's not why. The WLS thing was something I had put in motion a year ago or so. I heard that all the Citadel stations had been purchased by Cumulus, and one of my good friends--someone that I had worked for years ago in Chicago, Jan Jeffries--was the guy that ran their programming. I called him up and said: "Look I want back in." I knew that I never should have been let go from there in the first place, and now they were even using the call letters W-L-S again, and it seemed so natural for me to come back.

Rick: But it took quite a while for the sale to go through.

John: It took over a year, and this was no ordinary transaction. We're talking multi-billion dollars. Jan was doing a million things during that time, so I didn't want to bother him, but eventually the sale went through--and then he let me know he was moving to Chicago. And now, amongst his bazillion or so responsibilities, he was actually going to program WLS-FM! We finally met up not too long after that, and hit it off just like we always did. He said, "Why don't you try it out quietly over the weekend to see if you like it, and if you still sound good we'll let you do a weekend shift." And it went great! Now I'm doing weekends and fill-ins. I've been on for Scott Shannon quite a bit over the last few weeks.

Rick: So you're working seven days a week now?

John: Well, that's not going to work, unfortunately. I was on the air last week on WLS, and on Facebook I gave everyone the wrong call letters to listen online. I thought to myself, I can't do both anymore. My last show at WIMS was Thursday.

I loved being on WIMS. I really did. I loved working with Ric Federighi and Johnny Rush and Paula Griffin. They are great people and great broadcasters, and I'll miss working with them. But the opportunity to come back to WLS, working for someone like Jan Jeffries was too good to pass up.

Rick: I can hear how happy you are through the airwaves. Just hearing you say those call letters...it just sounds right.

John: It feels fantastic. Unbelievably cool. Just way beyond anything I could conceive of. It's like somebody built a radio station for me to work on. And Jan and I get along unbelievably well. This is his concept, and he's the driving force behind it, and I'm there to have a good time and be the icing on his cake from the WLS music era.

Ever since I left nights at WLS in the 70s, everything has been a challenge. I did different shifts. Afternoons. Mornings. Talk radio. I sought out those challenges, but in all of those situations I never would describe it as being in a comfort zone. I'm glad I did 'em, but this is a party. This is the best thing I've done since coming to WLS since 1972, and I think Chicago is going to eat this station up. I consider this a new beginning.

ROBERT MURPHY

Rick: It was great hearing you back on Q-101 last summer...obviously I wasn't the only one that thought so. Rewind 100 snatched you up.

Robert: After my brief (but totally rockin') stint last summer at the transitioning Q101 (thanks to John Gehron & Joann Genette), the Commandants of Hubbard Broadcasting decided I would be a great fit for 100.3's 80s and 90s format. I had to agree.

Rick: Any trouble climbing back into the saddle?

Robert: Since I had been professionally hibernating for several years, there were some new "teachable moments" but I quickly remembered how much I enjoyed having a daily interaction with Chicago via radio. It's all I have ever done and I was thrilled to get "back in the saddle". I've been provided with a clear set of goals and a great and supportive staff. The only drawback: When I first started getting out of bed at 3:30am to do a morning show, I was in my teens. Now that I am just slightly older, it is just a bit harder. Okay, I'm a lot older and it's a lot harder.

SPIKE O'DELL

Rick: Spike, every time I check out your facebook page it makes me smile. People are supposed to enjoy retirement, and it's so obvious that you're in hog heaven.

Spike: Life is good! We really like living here in Dixie Land. We are in the Nashville area. It is such a fun town with everything you want in a big town, but packaged up in a small town feel! I'm even listening to some country music nowadays! Yee-Haw!

My children live here and they keep us busy with grand kids and going places. (we have 3 grandsons now with a 4th arriving in the spring) I spend my time golfing and doing a lot of photography. Tennessee is such a beautiful place to take pictures.

Rick: Have you been following what's going on at your old station?

Spike: A lot of changes at the 'ol "Love Pump" I see. Change is always going to happen and I know it takes some people a little time to get used to it.

I'm glad the powers that be are returning the station to more of a personality approach and pulling back the elements a little for the talent. It's the right thing to do. I fought the "traffic and weather on the 7's" hard, but to no avail. It was very restrictive and limited your ability as a host to do much of anything but get ready for your next "traffic and weather on the 7's". There were already a couple of stations in town that were doing that...why try to sound like them? I never understood the thinking there.

It will be fun to sit back and watch how the station progresses over the next year or so. Strong personalities are in place...you've got the Cubs and Hawks and great college sports on the radio. Sounds like a pretty solid mix to me.

Spotlight Update: Rob Hart, Charlie Meyerson, and Lise Dominique

2012-01-07T08:37:00.001-06:00

Before I get back to doing Chicago Radio Spotlight interviews with people I haven't interviewed already, I had to check back in with a few of my previous interviewees that have had dramatic changes in their careers since we last spoke.

All three of these radio pros are part of the radio experiment known as FM News 101.1. I've been listening to it quite a bit recently to see how it sounded and it sounds quite different than it did during its rocky start up a few months ago.

ROB HART

Rick: When I last spoke with you, you were a member of the WGN Radio news staff. Now you're the morning co-anchor at FM News 101.1. How has that transition gone for you?

Rob: One day I'm going to write a book about the early days of Merlin Media. Because I've got plenty of good stories. I left WGN at the end of June. I spent the first two weeks at my new job working out of conference rooms. I arrived at the Merchandise Mart on a Friday morning....eight hours after the Q101 DJ's, past and present, signed off with a wild party. The studio was awash in empty liquor bottles, beer cans, beer bottles, and bottles of champagne. I wasn't at WGN anymore. It was a sign that my new gig was going to be....different.

It's been a hell of a lot of fun. The station's early growing pains have been well documented. But what can I say? News/talk radio stations are complex entities that take a long time to gel. Thankfully, we had the right manager to keep us positive. The first couple of days of the format were so bad, they are best heard through a pinhole in a paper plate. Even so, Andy Friedman (our supervisor, for lack of a better word) told the troops they were doing good work, and that things would only get better.

You know what? Things did get better. An ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt at "lifestyle news" was jettisoned in late September. Our technical capabilities and procedures came together in a matter of weeks...and now we have ourselves a darn fine radio station. We are first on breaking news more often than not. We had dozens of guests during our three hours of commercial-free coverage of the Blagojevich sentencing hearing. I'm looking forward to flexing our muscles during the first big snowfall.

We don't have much of an audience - yet. But we all know news/talk formats take a long time to build. We have managers who know this. Andy Friedman was around for the first days of the talk format at KFI in Los Angeles. Our executive producer, Diana Bodkins, helped launch the talk format at WLS in 1989. In both cases, it took years to catch on with the audience. It will take time. Thankfully, everyone involved in Merlin has plenty of patience.

I love this job. I love the fact that you have the opportunity to do great things every day. I love the idea that we are building something that could be around for a very long time. I'm well aware of the fact that some people in the industry are rooting for us to fall on our asses. That would be a very bad thing for radio in this town. If Merlin is successful, it will demonstrate to the world at large that local radio is a worthwhile investment. If not...we're back to where we were: tired music formats, syndicated talk shows, and a radio environment that punishes risk. Who wants that?

CHARLIE MEYERSON

Rick: When we last spoke the new WGN program director Bill White had just replaced you as the news director of WGN (with himself), but you weren't out of a job for very long. How are you liking this new station?

Charlie: In my job as Chicago Bureau Chief for FM News Chicago, it’s been a joy to get back to reporting the news. My main role is to explain politics and policy, giving me a daily ringside seat to the unfolding of Rahm Emanuel’s administration. But I also have freedom to cover stories about consumerism, tech, the arts, lifestyles, human interest -- anything that makes great radio. I’ve been encouraged to break out of the connect-the-dots reporting routine. I’m having fun, every day -- something I hope comes through in our coverage, including a series I've called "Who’s Mayor Emanuel Ridiculing Now?"

Rick: This has been a little different experience than WGN, hasn't it?

Charlie: FM News is a work in progress. But, boy, that startup mindset's exciting. This organization is fulfilling a prediction I made in 1998: "There's a real place on the FM dial for an all-news format station that presents a hipper, more intelligent, more innovative approach to news."

We have a talented and energetic team, encouraged every day to try doing things differently. That prompted three hours of commercial-free discussion and analysis when Blagojevich was sentenced, and more than an hour talking about Steve Jobs the night he died.

We want to hear how listeners think we're doing. I hope people will share story ideas, suggestions and criticism. I'm at cmeyerson@fmnewschicago.com, and tips or feedback for the whole station are welcome at our Web site or by email at tips@fmnewschicago.com.

LISE DOMINIQUE

Rick: Lise, you've been there since the beginning too.

Lise: I joined FM News in June as an Anchor and Reporter. I saw it as a terrific opportunity to work full-time in radio as I had been working part-time at WLS-AM and WILV-FM for the past couple of years.

Rick: Rob and Charlie have both talked about the bumpy early ride. What have been some of the pros and cons of being part of this radio experiment.

Lise: Pros: The people that I work with are hard-workers, and dedicated professionals. There are no egomaniacs. It's just a really great group of people. Also, when reporting, I have been given an incredible amount of creative freedom to pursue the stories that I am passionate about. That makes it so much fun! Andy Friedman has been a positive and motivating force who has challenged us to do our best. (Photo: Lise with Sam Sylk on the left, and Andy Friedman on the right. From GazeboNews)

Cons: The confusion about format was stressful and the constant changes were exhausting. The only saving grace was that we were all in it together. This is a start-up and I didn't know what to expect since I've never been involved with the 'birth' of a station before. Starting from bare bones has been a tremendous learning experience and I wouldn't trade what I have learned the past six months for anything.

Now that the format is close to gelling, it's time for the station to put some money into promotion and let Chicagoland know that we're here!

Coming next week: An update from a radio legend that has retired since we last spoke, another radio legend that has unretired since we last spoke, and one more radio legend that is back on the air in Chicago on the station that made him famous.

Thank You!

2011-12-01T10:39:00.001-06:00

The radio community has been very kind about helping me get the word out about my new novel (co-written with fellow former radio guy Brendan Sullivan) "The Living Wills"

Larz at Chicagoland Radio & Media was particularly kind.

So was Larry Shannon at RadioTVDaily (December 1st edition), Tom Taylor at Radio-Info.com and Don Anthony at the Morning Mouth/Jockline Daily.

Thanks to everyone for your support! The book is officially available here, as of today. I know a lot of readers of this site have already purchased a copy. I greatly appreciate it.

The Living Wills

2011-11-22T08:34:00.001-06:00

I've been getting e-mails for the past few months wondering why Chicago Radio Spotlight has been on hiatus this long. Robert Feder explained it well this morning in his Time Out Chicago column...

"Two former Chicago radio producers, Rick Kaempfer and Brendan Sullivan, have co-written The Living Wills, a novel about “a split-second decision made 30 years ago and the ripple effects it caused.” Harnessing the power of collaborative creativity, the two improvised the book’s three interweaving story lines. Set for release December 1 by Eckhartz Press, it’s available online at eckhartzpress.com. Kaempfer, whose previous novel, $everance, was a brilliant satire about the radio business, also writes an impressive series of blogs, including the Chicago Radio Spotlight."

That was very kind of Mr. Feder to write.

For those of you not familiar with my co-author Brendan Sullivan, he was a producer for Jonathon Brandmeier's show for many years. He has had a very interesting pre-radio and post-radio career, and I'll be featuring him here on Chicago Radio Spotlight in 2012. Also, one more radio connection to this book is the cover design. It was done by artist Jon Langford, a frequent contributor to WXRT.

Back in 2012

2011-09-14T07:12:00.001-05:00

It pains me to report that Chicago Radio Spotlight will not be back until after the first of the year.

I've been preparing my latest novel "The Living Wills" for publication (it comes out around Christmastime this year), and I haven't had the time to conduct any new interviews.

After the book comes out my plan is to bring back Chicago Radio Spotlight as a monthly feature. Thanks for all of your e-mails asking about it.

Penny Lane

2011-06-11T08:16:00.001-05:00

Penny Lane was part of the all-female WSDM-Chicago (97.9 FM) lineup in the 1970s, but has been in the advertising/voice-over world for many years.

Rick: I have very fond memories of listening to WSDM radio in the days before it became the Loop, but I confess that it wasn't for the music. It was for the all-female on-air lineup, including of course, Penny Lane. How did you end up getting the job there?

Penny: I graduated from Goodman Theater School of Drama, which is now the theatre school of DePaul University. I worked in their box office after graduating while looking for work. My boss had WSDM-FM radio on all the time. It was known as "The Station with the Girls and all that Jazz." One day I heard them announce a contest. They were looking for the most creative letter written answering the question: "Why I want to win a week on the air." So I submitted my letter and won. After the week was up, they liked what I did and offered me a regular time slot.

Rick: Last year I interviewed Connie Szerszen, and she told me that each of the girls were asked to come up with an air name. She chose "Dawn" because she was doing mornings. You chose "Penny Lane" because...

Penny: Our program director, Burt Burdeen, who had an incredible ear for choosing music and comedy bits for the station,asked me what name I wanted. I hadnt given it much thought and the next track that played on the air was, "Penny Lane". He said, "Why dont you use that?" It has been a great name for me because everyone remembers it because of the Beatles tune.

Rick: What are some of your favorite memories from those days?

Penny: The creative spots and promos the station wrote. I loved performing them! The parties for launching new artists and records. So much fun. Being the first to play a new record and playing so many new releases when they first came out, before anyone else. I liked hearing from listeners who enjoyed my work as well as the station. It was, as they say, all good!

The perks: Being invited to The Playboy Mansion and Bill Cosby opening the door to greet the guests! Being able to ask listeners to send in money to buy recording equipment for the handicapped children at Children's Memorial Hospital in the name of Jim Croce (the recording star, who had recently been killed in a plane crash). I knew Jim. A very close friend of mine who was also a radio personality, Morgan Tell, introduced us. Morgan became his road manager and was killed with him in that crash. I wanted something good to come out of this sad event. We raised enough money to put 3 players and audio systems in the hospital.

If you want the one memory that was by far the best and most important to me...it was meeting my future husband Wayne Juhlin. He was writing a comedy album on the late Mayor Richard J. Daley (photo). He needed a female on the "CHICAGA" album and since he was also a record promotion man and knew (WSDM PD) Burt, he asked him for a suggestion. Because of my theater background, Burt suggested me. What fun! It also led to me leaving the station and going on to WFYR with Wayne as the morning duo. We also did many commercials and syndicated radio shows first for Dick Orkin ("Chicken Man" and "Tooth Fairy") and then we went out on our own.

Rick: I know the whole idea of the all-female lineup was sort of a take-off on the Playboy Club. You were even called "The Den Pals." But despite that sort of sexist (by today's standards) approach, there really were quite a few very talented radio personalities that worked there. I think people that aren't familiar with that station, might be surprised by some of the names that later went on to become famous.

Penny: You are so right! The famous journalist Linda Elerbee. Danae Alexander, who only recently left radio after a long career on the smooth jazz station (WNUA). Mary Dee of WGN-TV. Cindy Morgan who went out to L.A. and did movies like "Caddyshack" and "Tron." Wanda Wells who was on (and may still be on) WFLD TV. You mentioned Connie. There were quite a few but I don't know what happened to them all. (Photo: The Den Pals. Back Row, Yvonne Daniels, Connie Szerszen, Danae Alexander, Jan. Front Row: Cheryl, Penny Lane, Janice)

Rick: I know one of your former colleagues at WSDM was Yvonne Daniels, who died way too young. When the Radio Hall of Fame honored her posthumously a few years ago, several of the former WSDM jocks were there, including you. What was that night like for you?

Penny: Yvonne, who went on to be the first female DJ on a major rock station, and whose father was the great singer, Billy Daniels, was in a class by herself. What a voice, and smooth as can be. Her upbringing and knowledge of music and the performers was amazing. That night, I felt lucky to have worked with her and so happy she was honored!

Rick: As you already mentioned, after your WSDM days you later worked at WFYR with your husband, Wayne Juhlin. What are some of your favorite memories from your stint at WFYR?

Penny: Oooooh gosh! A whole different ball game! We had to do promotion after promotion! We got up at 4 am, were on the air from 6 to 10, then had meetings, and then we were expected to go all over the suburbs and city to do promotions in the afternoon and night! Clubs, clubs and clubs! Going to clients and giving away prizes and emceeing events for them! Crazy promotions, like the station hiding gold bars and giving clues as to where in the city they might be. They had a "FYRE" truck that lugged us all over the city to make appearances at both nightclubs and clients. Once they made Wayne into a human ice cream sundae! We judged "Miss Nude World Contest"...everyone was without clothes...even little kids...a whole way of life I had never been exposed (so to speak!) to.

Sadly, one client was a resort in Lake Geneva. They were hoding a hot air balloon race. We were expected to go up in a balloon, and we decided to go up with a lady who was an experienced balloonist. Because of Wayne's fondness for pinball machines (he saw one in the lobby of the resort and kept playing and winning games), we were late for the event, so they took off without us. 20 minutes later the balloonist hit a wire. The basket turned over and she was killed.

Rick: You've stayed in the business since your on-air days through your company Penway Productions. Tell us a little about the company and some of things you've done.

Penny: After working with Dick Orkin (photo), we fell in love with the art of doing funny commercials. We opened the company in about 1977 and have freelanced for some of the biggest agencies. Our commercials have been heard nationally, and we have won Addys, Clios and Windys. We have written for trade shows and performed for them as well. Wayne still writes commercials and has written and adapted plays in Chicago. I do publicity on a freelance basis and enjoy meeting new people and learning about products, places, and events that need exposure and media placement.

Rick: I know you've been doing this now a lot longer than you ever did radio, but do you ever see a way that radio could lure you back in someday, or is that chapter of your life officially closed in your mind?

Penny: I feel like I'm still on the radio part time because of the commercials. I just recently did a a spot for the National Soybean Association. But to answer your question, if, as so many ex jocks and talk show hosts like to say, it was an interesting offer...sure. I would consider it.

Jim Moran

2011-06-04T11:25:00.001-05:00

Jim Moran is a long-time traffic reporter for Metro Traffic in Chicago.

Rick: You've been doing traffic in Chicago now for nearly a decade. What are the best and worst parts of being a traffic reporter in this town?

Jim: I think the best thing is the fact that traffic reports are such an important resource in Chicago. There are very few cities that have the traffic, and the traffic reporting technology that Chicago has - it's exciting to be a part of that. Another great thing about reporting traffic - is we're usually at work during the worst traffic times, it's much more fun to talk about traffic, than to sit in it. (Laughs)

I don't think it's the worst thing, but sometimes the most difficult is trying to touch on everything going on. During the summer, it feels like traffic is bad nearly 24/7. Trying to fit everything in during a :60 to :90 report can be a challenge....but that's keeps it fun!

Rick: Working at a place like Metro you literally have gotten to know every other person in Chicago that does traffic. Do you have a traffic mentor, someone that you look up to, and try to emulate?

Jim: One of the things I've been very grateful for is the opportunity to work with some of the most talented people in our industry. When I first started Bart Shore (photo) and Joe Collins helped me out quite a bit. I still turn to them for advice and as a radio listener, I love to hear them deliver traffic reports - they are two of the best in the business! Someone who also served as my mentor and a close friend is Mark Nepolean. As far as others that had helped me in the begining - Ric Federighi and Rick Sirovatka - I wouldn't have lasted long at all without their help.

I am also grateful for the chance to work with some outstanding news folks - I have always thought Mike Scott at WIND-AM is one of the best in the business. When I was a program director at WKRS-AM in Waukegan, I would instruct my interns/aspiring news people, to listen to Mike's reports (he was doing sports for WBBM at the time). He has such a great delivery!

Rick: Just from a traffic perspective, are there any days that stand out to you as particularly memorable broadcasts?

Jim: The day before Thanksgiving is generally the worst of the year. One year in particular, I remember a young Mike Pries and Jeanette Ditzler had just started with us - (Mike is now the evening reporter for WBBM and Jeanette spent a good amount of time as an airborne reporter for WGN) - they were both at our editor's desk, and a snowstorm came through and created what has been one of the single worst traffic days in the past decade. Both handled the situation like pros...it was fun to see these guys take charge and kick ass. It was such a crazy day for everyone, and it could have been much worse if Mike and Jeanette didn't pull through like they did.

Rick: The other thing that is fascinating to me about doing traffic, is that you get the opportunity to work with radio personalities from all different formats on many different stations. Of the many you've worked with, who were some of your favorites?

Jim: I can't even begin to think of everyone - over the past nine years, I've had a chance to be on almost every radio station in the market. Some of the top names I can think of are from my days as the evening news/traffic guy for WLS-AM. I was able to work with some personalities that I'm still starstruck to be around - Jay Marvin, Don and Roma, Roe and Garry, Steve Scott, Cisco Cotto, Jim Johnson, Jennifer Keiper, Deb Rowe...this list can go on forever.. (laughs). WLS' current PD is another person who I think is one of the best in the business, I can't say enough about Drew Hayes - great guy! I was also fortunate enough to work with two other great WLS program directors - Mike Elder and Kipper McGee.

I also spent time as a reporter for several NextMedia stations - I loved working with Alison Gerard, Todd Thomspon and Todd Boss at WCCQ, Tom Keif at 95 WIIL Rock is always fun to work with, and he's someone I consider a close friend. Big John at WIND-AM was great to work with - I've listened to him since I was in high school - it was outstanding to share the WIND airwaves with him. I think the most inspiring person I've had a chance to work with is Drew Walker (photo) at US99 - he is the epitome of what people in radio should be - a fan who loves their job and is grateful to be working in radio, in the greatest city in the world.

I currently provide traffic for WBBM-AM - I've had the opportunity to work at the station as a sales rep, and also work on air for the station for the past four years. From Rod Zimmerman and Ron Gleason, all the way to the newest intern - that station is a well oiled news machine. Every member of the air staff is tremendous at what they do. Plus, it's a fun place to work - the personalities and skill sets of the staff are perfect!

Rick: Of course, as you've already mentioned, you're not just a traffic reporter. You've been a sales rep, a newsman, and a program director. You've also branched out into other areas. For one thing, you're a published author. Tell me about the origin of your book about Libertyville.

Jim: I love my hometown of Libertyville! The Arcadia Publishing book I was able to publish back in 2006 was an opportunity for me to share some photographs and postcards from my personal collection, plus help share and spread my passion for my hometown. The book is available through most online book sellers - Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.

Rick: And now you've even become an elected official in Libertyville. What made you decide to run for Village Board Trustee, and do you think your name recognition from the radio helped get you elected?

Jim: My world of covering politics and my love of Libertyville finally collided this spring when I was elected to the Village Board in Libertyville. I can't even begin to describe how honored I am to have been elected by my neighbors to serve our awesome community!

It's funny - I don't think a lot of people in Libertyville associate me with my radio career. I think more people associate me through my family or my work in the community.

Rick: How has it been going so far?

Jim: So far, it's been great serving on the Village Board. My experience working with various municipalities throughout the years as a news/traffic reporter has already allowed me to provide some valuable insight and perspective to our board.

Rick: I know you've also dabbled in doing your own talk show at WKRS (AM 1220). How are you enjoying that experience?

Jim: Being back home at WKRS has been fun - so far, I've been joining Jerry and Nick on Monday mornings on WKRS. We'll see where this grows to - it's a chance for me to talk local politics and be on the air at a great local radio station. Early in my career I was the program director and morning host at WKRS, plus this is the station I was on the air at, the morning of September 11th. It will always be a special place for me.

Rick: You and I share an affliction too. We're both Cubs fans. As Mr. Burns says on the Simpsons..."Oh Ziggy, will you ever win?" Jim, are we doomed to a lifetime as Ziggy, or is there hope?

Jim: Rick, I wish I could say there was hope. As a Cub fan, we're supposed to be the foolish optimist that thinks, "we'll do it next year for sure!" I wish I could say I was smarter than this...(laughs). The Cubs are the only team in the world who could be 20 games out by the end of June, then put together a six game winning streak - then have fans start talking playoffs. I love it!

Ron Smith

2011-05-21T08:57:00.003-05:00

Ron Smith is the author of five books including the most recent "Eight Days a Week." He's also a long time Oldies music programmer, including in Chicago for WJMK (104.3) and Real Oldies (AM 1690).

Rick: I just got my hands on your excellent new book "Eight Days A Week," which is the printed version of your Oldies calendar from your excellent website www.oldiesmusic.com. What inspired you to put this out in book form?

Ron: It was always my intention to put it out in book form someday. But it seemed like the chart books were a higher priority. I’m glad I waited, though. First of all, imagine how much smaller the book would have been 15 years ago. Plus, my experience in publishing the other books allowed me to create what I think is not only an informative, but attractive volume. I guess that judgment’s up to the general public, though. Your readers can get a day’s sample (along with a link to buy the entire book) at www.oldiescalendar.com.

By the way, I’m especially proud of the rock ‘n’ roll caricatures in the book which I had drawn by a 25 year-old woman from the Ukraine! This music is truly universal.

Rick: In your Introduction you describe the way misinformation appears on many "This Day in History" sites on the Internet--something I've found to be true. I was burned several times during my producing days. What are a few of the most egregiously incorrect facts you've spotted over the years?

Ron: I once saw the birthday of George “Spanky” McFarland of “Our Gang” comedies listed as that of Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane from the group, Spanky & Our Gang. The 14-year difference in their ages was a dead giveaway. I mention in my book how, for years, half the sources you read said October 13 was Paul Simon’s birthday and the other half said it was Art Garfunkel’s. I asked the visitors to my web site to give me definitive proof and each anecdote I received made it clearer that Paul was born in October and Art in November. That’s now accepted as fact. I’ve had DJs all the over the country help me sort out discrepancies with birth dates for artists like Bobby Lewis and Len Barry. And with the Internet and email, I’ve been able to ask Ben E. King and Nick Gilder for their help directly.

Rick: I know this whole Oldies calendar concept goes back to your days as the music director of WJMK (in the 80s and early 90s). I just missed working with you there (I started in 1993, you left in 1992), but people still talked about you and the calendar you provided for the jocks. How did that come to be?

Ron: The calendar actually goes back to my college days but really got started when I was the morning personality at then-Oldies WCCQ-FM in Joliet. I simply presented it to the jocks at WJMK (and later Real Oldies 1690) as show prep. That’s what Music Directors are supposed to do-- help the air talent sound their best. What’s not well known is that I was eventually asked to stop distributing the calendar at WJMK because mentioning events from the past “just makes people feel old.” For a long time they wouldn’t say the word, “Oldies” for the same reason.

Rick: The Foreword to your book is written by the legendary Dick Biondi. You're a Chicago radio historian. Where you would you place Biondi among the all-time Chicago radio greats?

Ron: We’ve been so fortunate to be able to listen to Dick almost every day for the last 28 years (and for eight years in the ‘60s and ‘70s) that we tend to take him for granted and forget how influential he was even before coming to Chicago. Dick Biondi’s appeal is truly national. He’s better known across the country, I’d say, than any other jock to work in this town. In their own way, Larry Lujack, Howard Miller, Steve Dahl and Jonathan Brandmeier also influenced the course of radio but Dick certainly belongs on, if not atop, that list.

I should also add that, having known Dick for decades now, he is the most honest and loyal friend anyone could have. He’s been there for countless people over the years. I’m so glad to see him get the recognition (like the dedication of “Dick Biondi Way” last year) that he richly deserves.

Rick: I have your other books (Chicago Top 40 Charts 1960-1969, Chicago Top 40 Charts 1970-1979, Chicago Top 40 Charts 1980-1990, WCFL Chicago Top 40 Charts 1965-1976) in my archives and find them to be an invaluable resource. What I've always found interesting about the Chicago charts from that 60s and 70s era is how much they differed from the national charts. That's not really the case anymore. You've obviously studied this subject matter in great detail. How and when did that change?

Ron: There were over 150 songs in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s that made the top ten in Chicago without cracking the top 40 nationally. That’s a credit to people like Sam Holman, Gene Taylor, Art Roberts, Clark Weber, Ken Draper, John Rook, Jim Smith, Steve Perun and John Gehron who made these stations unique to Chicago. Part of the reason for my writing my chart books was to document the music we grew up with in Chicago that’s been lost as Oldies radio relies on the top ten from a Joel Whitburn book for its playlists.

You ask how things changed. That’s the same answer. Radio gradually started taking the safe approach-- shorter playlists, over-reliance on research and cookie-cutter consultants. I’m not pointing fingers here. Program Directors used to play “You Bet Your Desk” four times a year when the ratings came out. Now it’s twelve times a year. Ratings used to cover 16 weeks a year. Now it’s 52. The big national chains have too much money invested in their stations to wait for long-term results. They want quick fixes. There’s a certain safety in always watching your behind.

Rick: You've been working in the Oldies format/genre now for nearly 40 years. What is it about that era's music that makes it so timeless?

Ron: Obviously, the music’s been groundbreaking. The rock revolution of the mid-‘50s and the British Invasion of the mid-‘60s were earth-shattering sociologically as well as musically. And the personality radio of the times had a lot to do with it. The two were intertwined and synergistic (am I getting too intellectual here?). Most of all, though, it was “our music.” We went out and bought those 45s and made them hits with our hard-earned allowances. Nowadays, stations play the latest tunes the record labels are “working” and the audience has little say in the matter. Often they can’t even buy the tunes. There’s nothing “timeless” about music you’re force-fed.

Rick: There are really two Oldies stations, or at least Oldies-like stations in Chicago now, WLS-FM and K-Hits (WJMK). I know as a Chicago-area resident you check both of those stations out. What's your take on their current formats?

Ron: I’m not sure I would classify either station as “Oldies.” K-Hits is clearly intended as a Classic Hits station. It plays a smattering of late ‘60s music, but the focus is on the late ‘70s and ‘80s. It reminds me musically very much of the Drive ten years ago. And the air sound is not unlike that of B-96 in the early ‘80s. Those, by the way, are good things. But not “Oldies.”

WLS-FM has been very successful as an Oldies station but is now trying to lower its demographics by playing music into the ‘80s. While the variety is staggering, this is leading to “whiplash” in both era and timbre. The strangest segue I’ve heard was going from the Platters to Foghat. If I had to predict, I’d say they’ll eventually solve this by phasing out the earlier music and becoming more of a Classic Hits station, as well. In the immortal words of Johnny Cash, “I don’t like it but I guess things happen that way.”

Both stations are fortunate in having excellent on-air personalities-- Eddie and JoBo, Gary Spears and Tommy Edwards on K-Hits and Dick Biondi, Greg Brown and Scott Shannon on 94.7. That’s a real plus.

Rick: You were also a pioneer in internet radio world, and continue to program channels for Slacker.com (50s hits and 60s hits). Do you think that internet radio will ever overtake terrestrial radio?

Ron: I think Internet radio has a lot going for it-- low (or even no) commercial loads, deep libraries, specialized genres and true audience interaction. I’m very proud of the channels at Slacker. Compared to the computer-algorithms that come out of the competition, our radio experts (actual human beings like you and me) are creating high-quality listening experiences and we’re adding cutting-edge features like personalized news and sports and-- just added this week-- songs on-demand. The future is truly limitless.

Having said that though, I have to admit that Internet radio has a way to go before it really competes with terrestrial radio. The programming tools are still a bit primitive, songs don’t actually segue and there’s very little personality. Plus I’d kill for a good jingle package. The good news is that each of those faults is easily overcome. And as the channels grow in listenership and profitability, they will be overcome. That’s when the fun begins.

Rick: The acknowledgments section of "Eight Days a Week" reads like a Who's Who of Chicago radio. You've obviously been inspired by and worked with some of the best. Let me put you on the spot here. If you could put together a dream line up (with an unlimited budget), who would it include?

Ron: You do want to get me in trouble, don’t you?

Certainly Larry Lujack would be doing mornings. I doubt that there’s any disk jockey in the last 45 years who hasn’t been influenced by Old Uncle Lar’. Even on his worst days, he outshone every other jock. And Tommy Edwards is the perfect complement to Larry. Separately they’re both outstanding. Together, they’re damn near perfect.

The late Art Roberts is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mentor in the business. His sage advice is still a part of who I am. He was a thinking-man’s DJ who never overthought anything and was totally relatable to his audience. Whopper waffles, I miss him.

I never had a chance to work with either Bob Sirott or John Landecker but I’ve met them both and stay in touch with Bob by email. They’re a study in contrasts-- Bob is the local-boy-made-good, approachable, with easygoing charm and natural intelligence while John is quick-witted, hard-working, often sarcastic and at times quite bombastic. They were and are true personalities. I so wish radio was developing talents like these today. Television, by the way, has really expanded my perception of Bob. He’s proven to be an outstanding interviewer and I don’t think Channel 11 has ever really recovered from his loss.

Of course, I’ve already mentioned Dick Biondi. But here’s a name that might prove surprising-- Kris Eric Stevens. I loved his rapid-fire style, humor and “talk-up-to-the-post-without-ever-stepping-on-that-vocal” delivery. If the others I’ve mentioned taught me how to be a personality, Kris taught me how to be an announcer. I was fortunate to have worked with him when he filled in for a week on Real Oldies 1690.

And how about letting Bob Stroud go nuts and “roots salute” all night long?

I’d still have to find a place for such unique individuals as Fred Winston, Jerry G. Bishop, Robert Murphy and Connie Szerszen. But then, weekends during the ‘60s and ‘70s were always manned by top-notch talent who were every bit as good as the full-time staff. Why not on my station? In addition, Dick Orkin would have to be creating features.

Now, can I cheat and create an HD-2 channel for out-of-towners and fill it with guys like Don Imus, Charlie Tuna, Gary Burbank, Dick Purtan and Dr. Don Rose? And how about an HD-3 channel for talk hosts like Howard Miller, Clark Weber, Dave Baum, Bill Berg and Eddie Schwartz? Okay, I think I’ve spent enough money.

UPDATE: Ron just sent me the following via Facebook..."In reading the interview I realize I made a big mistake. After talking about Chicago's top 40 jocks, I meant to bring up its R&B talent. But I got sidetracked. My apologies to Herb Kent, Richard Steele and the late Al Benson for the glaring omission. Especially Herb, who I loved working with for 3 years. Mea culpa."

Tommy Edwards

2011-05-14T09:03:00.004-05:00

Tommy Edwards is a Chicago radio legend. He can currently be heard on K-Hits (WJMK), and he is the operations manager of several channels of AccuRadio's Chicago Radio Online.

Rick: First of all, good to hear you back on WJMK. This is actually your second go-round at this frequency, isn't it?

Tommy: I guess you could say it's my third go around. The first occurred in early 1986. My WLS contract expired in November 1985 and I was offered a 10 year deal but decided it was time to move on. I took the month of December off and shortly after the first of the year I went to New York and was offered a prime position at WCBS-FM. I decided it wasn't right for me so I came back to Chicago and had discussions with a couple of stations.

One day Harvey Pearlman, GM of WJMK, called and said he needed someone to fill in for Joel Sebastian who was ill and all he needed was a couple of weeks of work. I agreed and tragically Joel passed away during that time. So Harvey asked me to stay permanently and I wasn't sure that's what I wanted to do. I decided after the Bears won the Superbowl to resign and program WKQX. After a couple of years Harvey invited me to lunch and convinced me to come back to do mornings at WJMK. I did that until late 1989 or early 1990 and left for Boston to program WODS for CBS Radio. That lead to two years in Boston and I was transferred to Los Angeles to program KCBS-FM for about 12 years.

Rick: I interviewed Gary Spears a few weeks ago, and he agreed with me that this format is very reminiscent of WLS back in the late 70s or so. You were part of that powerhouse lineup in those days, and you've started doing this format now too, so I suppose I should pose the same question to you. Does it feel similar?

Tommy: K-HITS feels a lot like WLS in some ways. I guess the music is most associated with my days at The Big 89. The jingles and the encouragement of the programming staff to have a clear Chicago personality in our delivery which also reminds me of those days at WLS.

Rick: You've worked at many stations in Chicago, but people probably remember you the most from your time at WLS. There aren't many people that can claim quite as much of authorship of that memorable era than you; as program director, production director, and of course, air personality. Looking back on that era now, what do you think was the secret to Music Radio WLS' tremendous success?

Tommy: I feel very proud of the time I spent at WLS. It was a time of great AM radio between WLS and WCFL. I believe the secret to WLS had many elements. I hired Bob Sirott (photo), Yvonne Daniels, Steve King and music director Jim Smith. I changed the moniker of The Rock of Chicago to MusicRadio WLS. And when I left the programming position and went back on the air, the station had a very unique environment. John Gehron was the new PD and our whole staff was very tight. We would socialize together, dine together and we spent a huge amount of time in the production studio creating terrific promos and spots. Remember we had American Federation of Musicians record-turners - the only people that could play the actual records. So production was always a fun challenge.

But the huge promotion we created while I was PD was "What's Your Favorite Radio Station - - say WLS and Win!" That carried us a long time and provided the mechanics to the biggest promotion we ever did - "Track On Down To Walt Disney World". The Disney execs came to us and said that their research showed east coast people vacationed in Disney World, west coast people visited Disneyland and they wanted to tap the huge mid-western market. So WLS was the first radio station they ever did a promotion with outside of Orlando, Fla. We were very honored and we built a giant promotion of sending three trainloads of people on Amtrak to Disneyworld - all expenses paid.

That major contest was followed by the Forty Ford Giveaway - Forty Fords to forty winners! The Disney World promotion set the bar extremely high. WLS had exceptional talent on the air, exceptional talent in the promotions, engineering, marketing, sales and every other department of the radio station. It was a very unique experience - and you know what? We didn't realize how influential it was to the rest of the industry. That became evident later.

Rick: Do you have any favorite memories from that time?

Tommy: Along with having fun in the production studio, we did cause some mischief. The time we spent calling listeners to ask them about their favorite radio station, we used the outgoing news telephone lines. Our special studio for that was small and located in the isolated area of the station. We could hear our news people making outgoing calls to news sources. Well on more than one occasion after our news person was put on hold, I'd pick up the phone and say: "Peacock. This is Ted Peacock can I help you?" The news person would identify themselves and we'd chat - not knowing it was actually me and my production engineer Al Rosen. They'd ask for a statement and I'd start to come up with something until I heard a click on the other end and stop talking. The real news source would start the conversation and our news person would say: "never mind, I got what I need from Ted Peacock". Well, then it would get very funny when everyone would be searching for this guy Peacock. We eventually got caught by the news director. But we were all known for causing mischief and having fun. (Photo above: Tommy Edwards in the WLS Studio, from Scott Childers excellent WLS History site)

Rick: Of course, you were also the co-host of what may be the most famous bit in Chicago radio history; Animal Stories. I listened every day when I was a kid, but I don't remember how it started. Is there a good story there?

Tommy: I'd spend about a half-hour in Studio A next to Larry preparing for my 10am-2pm show. We did a lot of True Value Hardware live 60" spots and sometimes I'd chime in and make comments and he and I would start laughing. Management wasn't all that happy about that until True Value mentioned they loved the spots.

WLS' FCC License required one minute of agriculture news each day for several years and Larry would find stories about farm animals. I'm not sure when that requirement ended. One day Larry mentioned that he had a couple of stories about animals and he was going to intro it as "Gather the moppets around the radio, Moms and Dads. It's time for Uncle Lar's Animal Stories with his little friend, Little Tommy". I said "OK, call me Little Snot Nose Tommy". So he did and that's how it started.

The first T-Shirts WLS created had artwork of a rooster with a hat on with "press" on it and a wrap of "Larry Lujack's Animal Stories". It evolved into the Uncle Lar and Li'l Tommy beavers and became the main promotional identity of the radio station including re-painting the promotion van from the "Magic Bus" to the "Animal Stories Mobile Unit". We did movie trailers for the Plitt Theatres and we even had a flavor of ice-cream named after us one summer.

Rick: When I was producing Landecker's show on WJMK we had both you and Larry on the show for John's 50th birthday, and I believe that was your first time on the air together in something like ten years. At the time you were preparing to release Animal Stories on CD. I see that they're still available now.

Tommy: Larry and I own the service mark of the name "Animal Stories" and the recordings. We released them on vinyl discs a number of years ago and since that time we have made them available on CD. Plus, there are recordings made after we left WLS. So there are five volumes now with Volume 1 out of print at the moment. But they're all available at www.animalstoriescd.com

Rick: If you don't mind, I'd like to take you back even further. What was it about radio that drew you in the first place, and how did that journey eventually bring you to Chicago?

Tommy: I was in a lot of theater in school. As a sophomore in high school, I had a part in a school play where everyone else in the cast was a senior. One cast member was also a DJ at the local radio station in Topeka, Kansas. I asked if I could visit him at the station, KTOP-AM, and I eventually got a job as a "go-fer". I'd prepare newscasts, update the weather, run and get food and drink for the jocks and anything else they wanted me to do. And I didn't get paid a dime. Eventually I got a paying job watching the Associated Press teletype machine and listening to the police radios. And from that I started reading news on the air and when the all-night DJ called in sick, I volunteered to do the show and the manager liked it and gave me a weekend shift. Years later I worked in suburban Washington, DC, at WEAM-AM while serving in the Pentagon in the U.S. Navy. And after a few years I was offered a weekend shift in New York City until I was discharged from the Navy and then began a full time midday shift on WOR-FM. From there I came to Chicago and WLS.

Rick: You've actually been in programming many times in your career--and you continue to program portions of Accuradio's Chicago Radio Online. Do you actually prefer it to being on the air?

Tommy: Honestly I enjoy both a great deal. I am Operations Manager of 9 Chicago Radio Online channels. At radio stations I love working with talent and the other departments to create promotions and spots and enjoy listening to the end result 'out of the box'. And I really enjoy working on-air where the talent is encouraged to be creative like it is working at K-HITS.

Rick: I also can't let you go before I ask you about your time with the Bulls. You've been the PA announcer for the Bulls for the past five years, but you also did it for many years before that (1976-1990). Unfortunately for you, you missed the championship years in that window you were gone, but you must have a few favorite Bulls memories from your front row seat.

Tommy: I love basketball and I feel very fortunate to be able to go to every Bulls' home game and sit at center court. Mary Lou and I have made friends with colleagues and players including being godparents to a former player's daughter. I haven't been fortunate enough to enjoy a championship season at the table, but I have a great deal of respect for the Bulls organization. It's a very classy bunch of professionals. Watching great players up close like "Pistol" Pete Maravich, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Derrick Rose and Jerry Sloan has been a highlight in my life.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

I'm not posting a Chicago Radio Spotlight interview this weekend or the following two weekends because of family commitments (Easter, First Communion, and Mother's Day), but Chicago Radio Spotlight will return on May 14th with an interview of a Chicago radio legend that I've never interviewed before. I'm really looking forward to it.

Gary Spears

2011-04-16T10:55:00.002-05:00

Gary Spears is the midday host at K-Hits, WJMK-FM (104.3 FM)

Rick: First of all, welcome back to Chicago. You’re certainly no stranger to this town. What did you miss most about it when you were gone?

Gary: Deep dish pizza.

Rick: Wow, no hesitation.

Gary: (Laughs) Has to be the deep dish pizza! I grew up in Lafayette Indiana and listened to Chicago radio growing up, and came up here to visit once in high school. I had my first deep dish pizza then, and I was hooked. It’s amazing that I’m still relatively thin because I love it that much.

Rick: It must be nice to come right into a situation there at K-Hits with people you already know, people that you’re comfortable with; PD Todd Cavanaugh, Eddie & Jobo, etc...

Gary: You’re so right about that. Todd and I were good friends. We lived in the same apartment building and everything. I talked to Eddie and Jobo (photo) about this when I first got into town. When you start up at a new radio station, you have a tendency to feel a little insecure—stations can be a little cliquey. You usually go around and meet everyone, shake their hands and say hello, but in this case I went around and hugged everyone. I knew Todd, and Eddie, and JoBo, and George. I didn’t know Bo—I believe I took over for him when I came back to B-96 in 1990, but he’s a great guy too.

This really is a great atmosphere. No huge egos trips. We’re all in it to win it, and we’re all in it to have fun. By the time you get to this point in your career the ego thing is definitely tamer than it might have been earlier in your career.

Rick: If memory serves, you actually pre-dated those guys at B-96. You were one of the original jocks in that format, and now you’re one of the original jocks in this new format. How are the two experiences similar or different?

Gary: You’re showing my age, thanks a lot. (laughs) Yes, I was one of the original jocks of the Hot Hits format, and there are quite a few similarities. If I’m not mistaken, that was also in the springtime. Same time of year, brand new station, and even the on-air approach is similar. This station is getting back into personality with energized air talent. That was also the case back in 1982. Mike Joseph was the consultant that owned that Hot Hits name back then, and that was his approach. Lots of jingles, sweepers, and high energy.

Rick: I’ve been listening to K-hits the past few days, and it’s an interesting blend of music. It’s more contemporary than the old WJMK (Full disclosure: I worked there for ten years), but it’s not quite the mix that you played early on at B-96. It’s sort of in between. To me it’s like listening to the format on WLS-AM in the late 70s, early 80s. Would you agree with that assessment?

Gary: It does have a retro feel to it. The music and the on air feel. That’s my take on it—I’m not speaking for management. I listened to that station growing up, and I absolutely loved those guys on WLS at the time; Bob Sirott, Larry Lujack, Tommy Edwards, and especially John Records Landecker. Loved John Records Landecker (Photo). He had the ability to communicate, entertain, and inform in short energetic bursts like nobody else.

Rick: How would you describe your on-air approach in this format?

Gary: I’ve always looked as personality as the icing on the cake. This is my first time being judged in the PPM world, but I always felt that my style was they very well suited to what the PPM tells us people want—short bursts of personality. People’s attention spans are like 10 seconds. If you can get the point across in that amount of time, you’re really accomplishing something. That’s my approach. Every break has to have something interesting, informative, or entertaining.

Rick: But get right to the point.

Gary: Exactly. I’ve had discussions with other jocks about it that don’t like it, that aren’t adjusting well to it, but I honestly believe it’s totally doable. You just need to think about what you’re going to do before you get on the air. You need to edit, to squeeze 40 seconds into 20 seconds. It takes work, but I’m here to tell you it can be done.

Rick: I was listening to you the other day, and you did a quick bit about the government shutdown over a fifteen second Bee Gees intro. I thought "Wow, actual content over a record intro."

Gary: (laughs) That’s what I mean. Exactly.

Rick: It’s been more than 15 years since you were last on the air in Chicago. In the meantime, you’ve mainly been out in LA—most famously working for Kiss-FM there. I understand that you also really got the acting bug while you were out there.

Gary: I did, but not while I was doing radio. When I was still working in radio I was totally focused on that. I’m not one of those guys that get involved in a million different things at once. But I was part of the budget crunch at Clear Channel in ’07, and after that, I did begin to focus more on acting and voice-overs. I did lots of commercials—and a few of them are still on the air. I just got an e-mail from Bobby Skafish the other day because he thought he saw me in a Party City commercial. Yup, that was me. I also did some ads for Panda Security. I was in one Hallmark movie “Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith.” I did some Grey’s Anatomy. In the background, but definitely on camera.

Still, it was all small stuff. It takes so long to break into that business. It’s really a struggle. I must admit I had a hard time adjusting to it. I was used to getting a paycheck every two weeks, and now I was waiting for the phone to ring—just for an audition. And then the economy fell apart, and one of the first things to go in a recession is advertising. Commercials were cut back, and some agencies started going non-union, and the other ones were hiring big name stars. I’d go to auditions, and see these big names there. They had to do it too. It became a struggle for them too.

Rick: When you were at Kiss-FM you followed Rick Dees every morning.

Gary: Yes, and Rick Dees (photo) is an amazing guy. One of the nicer guys I’ve met in the business. He was a huge success there from 1982 until 2005 or 2006 or 2007, I forget the exact year the change took place. He wasn’t just a radio guy, obviously. He was also on television with Solid Gold. He had a line of cigars and golf clubs. He’s very diversified, and has done very well for himself, but at heart he is a radio guy, and a trailblazer at that. I remember hearing his early stuff and it was really impressive, amazing stuff. He still does great radio. I was lucky enough to co-host his countdown show with him a few times, and he has this beautiful studio out there. I believe he just signed a deal with Cumulus.

Rick: Did your tour of duty at Kiss cross over at all with Ryan Seacrest?

Gary: Yes it did. He was there the last couple of years I was there.

Rick: And what is he like?

Gary: Well, I’m not sure exactly how to describe him. Ryan’s Ryan. At that time he already wasn’t doing the show from where the rest of us did. He was located in the E! building. But I’ve known him for a long time. When I first got to LA, I worked at a place called Star 98.7. He was doing nights at the time, and was a nice enough guy back then. I don’t know what he is like now, but I do know this; he sure is rich. (laughs) Guys like Ryan do a service for radio because they bring recognition to the medium, so that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is that they also take away jobs from other people after they’re syndicated nationwide.

Rick: You had two tours of duty at B-96, one in the 80s and one in the 90s. Do you have any favorite memories from both of those eras?

Gary: I worked for some really impressive guys. Buddy Scott. He’s a brilliant programmer. And then I worked for another brilliant guy the second time I came here, Dave Shakes. I was lucky to work for people like that. Professional, smart, in it to win it. Todd Cavanaugh is the same way. He’s always been very hungry, and I love that about him. I think it’s going to be a good run.

Rick: I read that you had just bought a house in Florida and were planning on retiring down there when you got the call to come to K-Hits. Is that true?

Gary: Yes it’s true.

Rick: But aren’t you too young to retire?

Gary: Yes, yes, let's go with that. Yes I am. (laughs) It was weird how all this came down. I was in LA and getting tired of the acting thing, and I found this great house in Florida CHEAP, so I bought it and relocated there. This was only in December. But living in this area of Florida was like being in a tropical Chicago because it’s filled with Chicagoans. They even had Chicago bars. When the Bears were playing, you could see all their games.

Only a month later, the phone rings, and it was Todd Cavanaugh, calling from Chicago. I had just moved across the country, but this offer was Chicago, and I wasn’t going to say no to that. So that house in Florida is going to have to wait. I’m living in downtown Chicago now and loving it. I’m looking out the window right now. I live just north of Millennium Park, and this view is just incredible. The Chicago skyline is the most beautiful in the country.

Matt DuBiel

2011-04-09T09:31:00.001-05:00

Matt DuBiel has been in the news recently because of his Save The Loop campaign. I previously interviewed Matt when he was the program director of The River.

Rick: First of all, it's been three years since I last interviewed you and you've done a lot of different things since then. Could you get us caught up on what's been going on with you in the past few years, and what you're doing right now?

Matt: Man how time flies, huh Rick! If you believe what you read on the internet, I am "unemployed." I could bore you with the inconsequential details of my career I suppose...but the Reader's Digest version is simple: I am free from the shackles of corporate radio!

Over the last 3 years Mike Noonan and I built a nationally syndicated show from scratch, hosted by Donny Osmond. We built the network to 75 stations including WLS FM in Chicago and sold the show to McVay Syndication last year. Building a business is an experience in and of itself, but selling one is a wild ride!

I’ve been experimenting a lot with my personal and professional life over the last year or so especially and chronicling some of it at MattDubiel.com. You could almost define the last year more by what I am NOT doing.

For the last 3 years (even as early as my 9 FM days), I have immersed myself in the fusion of audio entertainment and internet marketing. I stopped listening to radio people and going to radio conventions and started paying attention to the people trailblazing the internet media movement. I have been studying and engaging with people like Leo Laporte, Chris Pirillo, Alex Jones and Gary Vaynerchuk. I have put lots of what I have learned into practice, and the results are paradigm shifting.

We’ve cracked the code for making money on the web, powered by radio. Leo is doing it. Alex is doing it. We know how to do it, and the weird thing is, no one cares. They’re still caught up in paying Arbitron ridiculous amounts of money, to define the rules of radio advertising, and then suffering at the hand of those very rules, which in the long run are killing radio.

Meanwhile Arbitron is realizing profits and radio is transferring wealth to Groupon, Google, Youtube and Facebook.

Rick: You were in the news recently because of the "Save the Loop" campaign. Robert Feder wrote a column quoting Loop GM Marv Nyron. Nyron outed you and your partner Mike Noonan as the brains behind the operation. I've seen a few quotes from you since that story came out, and you kept saying it wasn't just the two of you. Who else was (and is) involved?

Matt: Well now…in fairness to Marv, I don’t think he used the word “brains." I KNOW Feder didn’t. (laughs) This whole Save The Loop thing blew my mind. Here’s Emmis openly saying OUTLOUD, “We’re not cutting it in Chicago…we’re gonna move on….we’d like the industry and the world to know we’re totally open to selling WLUP and WKQX”. They weren’t pussy-footing around the issue at all. It was in corporate conference calls and reports…industry trades, you name it. The Loop and Q101 all but had shiny for sale signs in their front yards!

We happened to launch the video online right after they did a format tweak at The Loop. Incidentally, we bought SaveTheLoop.com over a year ago! Naturally, we knew some folks would be disenfranchised by the format change. The timing was right. We finalized the script, the audio, and the video and pushed the button. Within a week we had thousands of people signing up. We documented everything by the way. We knew we were going to get bombarded with naysayers and a negative response, but we also knew we’d get some buy in and we might make some good contacts or start some interesting conversations.

Unfortunately, somehow…someway…Marv and a few others took this as a negative and an attack. The tenor of this was nothing but to elevate and edify the institution that is WLUP Chicago. You don’t want it Emmis? Cool…no sweat. We think it would be radical if we could put together a group of Chicagoans to make this a Chicago thing. We spoke to some radio pals and we had some buy in from some names we thought would resonate with Chicago.

The plan all along was to appeal to real Chicago people who are passionate about WLUP, if in fact anyone is passionate about an FM radio station anymore in 2011. The fans were the coolest. Some of the radio folks were the coolest too, but sadly many of the radio people who said “I’m in!” never made good on any follow up whatsoever.

Two people made good on the videos as promised. I don’t want to mention the first name because I don’t want to ruffle any feathers at his day job. The second was Jeff Schwartz. Those two guys are men among men. They just get it.

As far as who else said they’d be on board, and who else said they’d talk and so on… It would be sour grapes for me to name them and list them as they did not come through. I will say this, throw out a name of a person who you wish would have consider this and we either heard from them…once, or they heard from us and declined.

No matter though…and here’s why, the list of people who have opted into the email list for SaveTheLoop.com is growing every day. The people, or “folks” as Bill O’Reilly would say, are responding favorably. They believe in the concept. So do a few merger and acquisition experts we’ve met with.

Rick: Are you still working on it?

Matt: We’re going to continue to engage with the people who are part of the SaveTheLoop.com community for sure. These people are awesome. The open rate of the emails we send to them is better than 70%. These people are plugged in. They will decide how far SaveTheLoop.com goes.

I will say, I expect Emmis to hold out longer now that their finances are looking up. Combine that with the fact that those stations aren’t worth what they want to sell them for…and I think Emmis is going to be in Chicago for a while.

Rick: A few years ago you programmed the first "we play anything" station in the Chicago area, 9-FM. That same general format was used by CBS for "Jack-FM". In the light of Jack-FM's demise, I'm curious about your opinion of the entire format/genre.

Matt: Here’s the hi-comedy. Radio kills oldies. Radio gives birth to variety hits. Radio kills variety hits (even though listeners love it if done right). Radio revives oldies? It should be noted I missed the Jammin Oldies birth and death in there too. The bottom line, radio knee jerks at different paces like clockwork.

Now if you flip around the dial in Chicago you have Rewind, K-Hits, The Drive, The Loop, and WLS FM. You can even throw in Lite FM, The River….all shades or degrees of Classic Hits. K-Hits and Rewind remind me a lot of 9 FM. When I left 9 FM, the cume was 750,000. Newsweb killed it anyway. Anyone want 750,000 cume, raise your hand? WSCR? WMVP? WIND?

Everyone’s got the PPM sweats and it’s sad. The problem is what’s good doesn’t matter. What matters is which format can appeal to the 2,500 people carrying PPMs in Chicago. It’s crazy, because it’s directly counter to what serves advertisers.

So radio’s target is satisfying 2,500 PPM carriers, while their sales reps are talking to advertisers about targeting hundreds of thousands, even millions. The kicker is, advertisers don’t actually need to reach millions of people who will ignore them. They would MUCH RATHER reach thousands or just hundreds of people who will buy, or at least engage.

Now radio managers play this shell game with stations and formats to make it feel like they know what’s going on, and Robert Feder calls me a hoaxster!

Steve Dahl, Mancow, Brandmeier, and Mike North should all be on the air daily in Chicago. Don’t fire the talent, fire Arbitron and cultivate sales talent who can sell personality based radio. Chicago retail needs it. Suburban retail needs it.

Rick: Do you think there's a hole in the Chicago radio market that still needs to be served?

Matt: Well I think we’ve got classic hits pretty much locked up. (laughs)

I am 34 years old. I am a “professional” Gen X husband and father of 3 living in the suburbs. Sports radio isn’t my thing. I’ve got nothing to listen to. There is no rock station. There is no station super serving men 25-54 or 18-49. I am at the age where men cross over to talk radio. It’s too angry for me. It’s too left vs. right for me.

I’d be less worried about format and more worried about generation programming. The Drive programs to a generation. It’s a station for Boomers. They own it. XRT used to say they were growing old with their listeners, but I am not sure they have it on lock down like The Drive.

The Mix is the closest thing to a generation station for my g-g-g-g-generation….but it’s not made for me. I think that’s why their male numbers are higher than you’d expect for a Hot AC.

There’s a hole for a Male driven format in Chicago, especially targeted to Gen X, whether that be music or talk. I think there’s room for another country station in Chicago, especially male leaning. Noonan and I have long believed our Blue Collar Radio format would do very well in Chicago.

Another non-format specific niche is no one owns the suburbs like they could. The suburban stations don’t own the suburbs, and the Chicago stations don’t own the suburbs. There’s a lot of money out there, but they don’t care about ratings. They need to move the register.

There’s a hole for rock now of course. I also have long been a believer in the Movin’ format which Rewind dabbled in for a bit but never really jumped all the way in on. At some point I think a business talk station with regular Bloomberg updates and financial talk mixed with real estate talk would do very well.

If I had an underperforming suburban station I’d throw Jack FM on off the bird asap. CBS spent millions marketing that station over 5 years and people know what it is. It wasn’t a bomb, it just wasn’t good enough for CBS. That’s what people don’t realize. A lot of these shows and formats are NOT failures. Steve Dahl is NOT a failure. He just doesn’t fit into the formula corporate radio is forcing themselves to use. The mind job is this: Corporate Radio can change the formula anytime they want. Someone needs to shake them and say YOU DON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW THESE RULES. Make your own like Google did, and Facebook, and Groupon, and Craigslist and Drudge.

Rick: People that haven't seen you in awhile may be surprised by your appearance. You're a shell of your former self. How much weight have you lost and how did you do it?

Matt: Well that’s sweet of ya Rick. I'm blushing. I recently lost 70lbs. When I did afternoons at WLLI my on air name was Fat Matt. It was a playful name given to me by Rob Halford (Singer of Judas Priest) off the cuff, but at the time I was about 205. From there I ballooned up to 240!

It was pretty disgusting frankly. I was a fat mess. (Photo: Matt before weight loss)

Last fall, I lost 30 lbs in 40 days. Then I took a break and lost another 30 in 40. Over the last few months I’ve paired down another 10-15 and I weighed in at 168 this morning.

The secret….is women’s urine. I am serious. If I took a pregnancy test right now I would fail. Dr. Oz just did a whole show on the HCG Diet, and that’s what I did. In fact, Nina Chantelle from Kiss did it too, although she did the holistic drops which don’t actually have any hormone in them. I did the injections which are much more effective and require Doctor supervision.

It sounds like a pretty radical undertaking, and it is somewhat. But when you’re 30 pounds overweight or more, you need to do something radical. I did it with a local Doctor and it has changed my life forever. No more heartburn. No more high cholesterol (they wanted me to take crestor!). My jeans are a 32 inch waste and they are hanging off of me!

There’s a certain larger than life radio guy I turned onto the diet recently who’s doing very well with it. His results are going to be very exciting.

If radio personalities want to talk to Dr. Tom about how the diet works, drop me an email. I might even be able to get you “taken care of” if you’re willing to do a testimonial for their website! It’s life changing!

Megan Reed

2011-04-02T08:03:00.004-05:00

Megan Reed hosts the midday show on Rewind 100, WILV.

Rick: Did you really play a DJ in an 8th grade play, and did that really make you want to do this for a living?

Megan: I always had an interest in the media, and I was in plays because I wanted to get into show biz, but I couldn’t sing, dance or act. (laughs) So I tried out for West Side Story in 8th grade and I was assigned “Glad-Hand the DJ” role, and I thought that was a lot of fun. And I listened to WLS all the time in those days, and they made the DJ job sound so fun too. I thought, hmmm, I may just have to pursue this.

Rick: You must love this midday gig you have right now. In a lot of ways, for the life you lead outside the station—as a mom of three kids, it’s perfect, really.

Megan: You got that right. It’s absolutely perfect. I can drop them off at school, but still be home in the afternoon to monitor them doing their homework, and put out whatever fires have been started.

Rick: Which is also the typical life of the Rewind 100 demo. You are living their lives, which I think helps you be relatable to the audience.

Megan: Well, thanks. Yes, I agree. It does help. And this format really does feel right to me. It’s a perfect fit. It’s the kind of stuff that I listen to myself.

Rick: I enjoy the Class Reunion lunch show you do. For those that aren’t familiar with it, what’s that all about?

Megan: We basically celebrate your senior year of high school. People write in, via Facebook or e-mail, and tell me the year that they graduated, and pick out three songs from that year. Every weekday at lunch we go back to someone’s senior year of high school. I also test your pop culture knowledge from that year. It’s fun to go back.

Rick: To Rewind?

Megan: (laughs) Yes.

Rick: Rewind 100 is a station that nobody is really talking about, but it’s quietly doing extremely well in the ratings. So well, you just got a new competitor down the dial. What do you think is the secret to your station’s success?

Megan: I think it’s really smart programming. First of all, it’s a good company. We have very smart people running the operation. They’ve been doing this a long time, and they really know what they’re doing. That’s who should get all of the credit for our success. After all, they pick the music. Plus, I think the 80s era really strikes a chord with people of a certain age. It’s just very comfortable for those of us that grew up with it.

Rick: Bonneville (owner of Rewind) really is a different animal, isn’t it? It’s not like the other radio companies. I worked for them briefly, and in a lot of ways, they were a breath of fresh air compared to the faceless corporate behemoths that own every other station. Now that a new owner (Hubbard) is taking over, have you noticed any differences?

Megan: You’re right about Bonneville. They really are great. As for the new company, I haven’t really seen any changes at all yet, and I really don’t anticipate any. Things are going pretty well right now. But to be honest, that’s sort of beyond my pay grade. I’m not in that end of the business at all.

Rick: You grew up in the area. Who were some of your radio heroes growing up?

Megan: I grew up in Batavia, and I LOVED WLS. Loved it. I listened to just about everybody at the station. Bob Sirott, John Records Landecker (photo), Tommy Edwards. You know who else I really liked was Amy Scott. I listened to her when I was in college. I went to school at Iowa State in Ames, and we could get WLS at night—and in the early to mid 80s, she was doing the night shift at the time. WLS was a clear channel station, and it came in pretty well. We listened to it when I was in working in Canada too. We could only pick up one English station and one French station during the day, but at night we could hear WLS.

Rick: Before coming to Bonneville, you worked at the Lite for many years during their heyday. How does this current experience compare to that one?

Megan: Actually in a lot of ways it was very similar. At the time I started at WLIT in 1989, it was relatively new, and it was owned by Viacom at the time, which was still run like a mom and pop organization. We had a great general manager, and a really great programmer, Mark Edwards. They really knew what they wanted to do and stuck with it. I was there for almost twelve years and I really enjoyed it.

Rick: Was it a big shock when they let you go after all those years?

Megan: They let everybody go, so no, it wasn’t a shock. But it wasn’t pleasant. That’s for sure.

Rick: They say that you aren’t really in radio until you’ve been fired at least one time.

Megan: (laughs) Yes, that’s true. So I guess I’m really in radio.

Rick: For awhile there it really looked like the job of radio disc jockey itself was in peril. Big companies were hiring people to voice track multiple stations, and some stations tried to compete directly with iPods by going jock-less. That approach hasn’t really worked out for them. They may have saved money in the short term, but there are precious few success stories of stations that used that approach. What edge do you think a live and local jock gives a radio station?

Megan: A real live person gives a radio station warmth. That’s what it boils down to for me. It’s like the difference between calling somewhere and getting a live person instead of a recording. It really does make a difference. The entire vibe is different. You can relate to a person. It’s hard to define because it’s such an intangible. I don’t think people walk around thinking, “Oh, I like having a real person there,” but it’s more of a feeling they get.

I’ve been hearing these stories that radio is dying, or that radio isn’t any fun anymore, and that nobody cares about it, but I don’t buy that for a second. I don’t think radio is going anywhere. As for me, it’s still great fun. I think you get out of it what you put into it. It’s what you make of it, and I choose to make it as fun as I can.

Rick: Another common complaint I’ve heard from female broadcasters is that there simply aren’t a lot of women in important roles in radio. Do you agree with that, and if so, why do you think that’s the case?

Megan: I don’t know that I totally agree with that. I mean, yes, it’s a male dominated field, but I don’t necessarily think there is anything wrong with that. There’s a place for everyone. I understand some of the complaints that women have, but I also know a lot of women in the business, and a lot of them have been in it for a very long time. Including me. I’m going on twenty five years.

I’ve always struggled with this subject matter, because I understand why some women would be upset, but I think in the long run the right person gets the job—male or female. It’s different if the station is targeted to women, and doesn’t give women a voice. If there’s a station that’s targeted to men, I certainly don’t have a problem with men having those jobs.

Bill White

2011-03-19T09:18:00.001-05:00

Bill White was recently named the program director of WGN Radio.

Rick: You've only been on the job now for a few weeks. I know you were born in Oak Park, but you haven't lived here in a while. How have you managed to settle back in to the city?

Bill: Chicago is such a great city. Every day, I discover something new to do, another place to go or a great place to eat. Everybody I meet is friendly, helpful and they’re passionate about being here. So that’s also what’s great about this opportunity.

Rick: I'm sure you know all about what happened here before you arrived. I think it's safe to say that the management style of the previous regime was rather brash and bold--big changes made quickly and decisively, for better or for worse. How would you compare your own management style to that?

Bill: WGN requires a lot of care and attention on the macro and micro levels, since we’re live and local 24/7 - and Chicagoans expect excellence from us. So it’s about having a vision for where the station needs to go, a plan and day-to-day execution. Each show and talent is unique and requires a different approach. Relationships and constant communication with talent and the news, sports, sales and support staffs is critical.

Attention to detail is crucial on a station that has lots of moving parts, like WGN does. This station is like no other, and it requires global vision and hands-on leadership. I listen to the radio station nearly all the time, give feedback and get directly involved as I need to. (WGN VP/General Manager) Tom Langmyer leads that way from the top as well, and he’s worked very hard to successfully lead people through some very challenging times of transition and he guides an excellent staff at WGN. So my intent is to build on that in the programming department.

Rick: Talk radio has been dominated nationally by political talk, and more recently sports talk, but nearly all of it is driven by confrontation. There really aren't a lot of talk stations like WGN that have traditionally focused less on confrontation, and more on conversation and information. Do you think that style of station is still viable today?

Bill: It’s actually more viable than ever. Trusted information and genuine dialogue are vital elements, and that’s what WGN does best. Staged arguments don’t work for WGN -- and on the other hand, polite directionless chatter and small talk doesn’t work either anymore. It comes down to meat and substance supported by an entertaining style, not the other way around.

So if we’re bringing the story home to Chicago on the earthquakes in Japan, or the latest tie-up on the Eisenhower or other things happening in Chicago, our talent’s got to present in a conversational, respectful, informative and entertaining way – and of course direct things through the lens of what Chicagoans expect from us. So yes, issues of the day can be tackled in an engaging way without confrontation, just for confrontation sake.

But it seems that much of talk radio out there still follows the old-school playbook developed in the 1990s and copied everywhere, where each hour is based in heated argument, and it follows a formula. Nobody learns anything and nothing ever reaches any conclusion. That old radio model is where confrontation is the show. What’s funny on top of that is, talents in that world often really don’t even believe in what they’re saying. It’s just a fake world of confrontation. But most radio listeners today are way too sophisticated for an old circus act, so it makes that old thinking so easily parodied. On the other hand, what WGN does is genuine and real. You can enlighten, be entertaining, compelling and smart, but still be real.

Rick: Real or imagined, WGN has always had a perceived demo issue, meaning that it skews slightly older. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day about how television is now actively targeting an older demo because the Baby Boomers are now between the ages of 47-65, and they still make up the biggest segment of American society. Do you think radio will follow suit? Is 35-64 realistically the new 25-54?

Bill: WGN has always been an adult station. The thought that all radio revenue is tied to the 25-54 demo is more driven by old thinking or less enlightened people commenting on media because they heard it somewhere in the past. Of course it still exists to a degree in the media buying world and also typically by those managing transactionally sold radio stations. But the two top revenue producing radio stations in Chicago happen to be AM stations, which debunks some of that old thinking. A look at the demographics in this country and an enlightened view of marketing also bares out the fact that products produce revenue based on superserving their own specific targets. Bottom line results for advertisers are what counts, not CPMs.

Of course, competitors and some media writers continue to hold WGN up to demos that have never been WGN’s specific target and also continue to use the clichéd “money demo” description. It’s like asking a music station why it doesn’t do more talk shows. It makes no sense. Fact is, WGN usually delivers a million people or more, each week. And they’re engaged listeners because WGN is foreground, live, local and vibrant. Because of that, advertisers get results. That’s what it’s all about for us.

As far as adding audience, we continue to drive new listenership to WGN through our high circulation talk shows, news and our sports partnerships with the Cubs and Blackhawks. This keeps people coming to us and allows us to expose what WGN is today. Our mobile and digital delivery platforms do skew younger, because the product is made available to younger people where they want it – and yes, WGN’s content is relevant to them.

Rick: You've obviously listened to your entire lineup by now. What do you perceive as WGN's weaknesses, and how are you planning on addressing those weaknesses?

Bill: (Laughs) I’m not going to give the competition our playbook, but I have been a student of WGN my whole career, studying WGN’ strengths, its connection to the community, its heritage brand and the magic of being a real radio station - while others tend to be more formulaic. WGN is a real and genuine station that touches people on a personal level. It’s fun too. While there are other great stations to listen to, many tend to be formulaic or homogenized. We have an opportunity not to be that, and that’s an important point of difference. So I’ll continue to build on WGN’s strengths and believe we have the line-up in place to accomplish great success, and we’ll add to it in the years ahead.

Rick: When I looked at the numbers for the individual shows on WGN, I have to tell you, I was a little bit surprised. When you break it down by show instead of looking at the traditional time slots (because WGN has unusual time slots), it looks to me like Greg Jarrett has the highest rated morning show in Chicago (12+). Am I looking at that correctly, and if so, that's a pretty good base to build on, isn't it?

Bill: That’s absolutely true. The morning show with Greg is the highest rated show in Chicago overall. And since talk stations don’t follow the traditional Arbitron daypart model, thanks for being thorough in your research. Of course people don’t use stations the same way at 6:00 am that they do at, say, 9:45 am anyway.

In Greg’s case, he works hard with his producers and with the news department to identify the most important news stories for Chicagoans each morning. I have been particularly pleased with his work on bringing the Japan Earthquake story home and connecting it with Chicago angles. His experience as a world correspondent also gives Greg keen insight to stories and our overall team finds new angles to connect the relevance to Chicago.

And yeah, Greg has the strongest ratings the station’s had in mornings in quite a number of years. Greg works extremely hard to involve himself in the community and he doesn’t turn into a pumpkin when he gets off the air. You just can’t afford to do that anymore, no matter how long you sit in that chair and could think you’ve earned your way to laziness. Greg’s a very interested person and he gets out - and that’s what makes him appreciate Chicago. And there’s sure lots to be interested in here.

The morning show is now more targeted to today’s busy lifestyle - and it’s more relevant now. Most people use radio in the car, and obviously more so during mornings and afternoons. And to a great extent, we talk with busy people who are getting ready for work and school and they’re commuting. That’s why I’d shake my head when I heard talent here actually complaining on the air about having to give listeners what they needed and wanted.

Of course it’s important to have a good combination of warmth, personality lightness and fun from an ensemble cast. But again, it’s about added relevance with strong information elements. Listeners in the morning do want a mix of personality and fun, yet they want and need to be informed; and Greg leads that in the morning. And the ratings show that the station’s doing a better job now in that area.

Rick: The other show I was curious about is your afternoon show, and Garry Meier's numbers are very solid. He was #2 in Chicago in January (12+), Do you think WGN has already started to turn it around?

Bill: The station’s getting great ratings traction in afternoons too. It’s very important to also measure Garry’s performance year-to-year for comparison, and you’ll see that the growth is tremendous. You peel baseball away and look at what hosts deliver on their own, and that’s where you get the real story.

WGN has different elements, unlike a station that does the same thing year-round, so it’s very important to be more sophisticated in the analysis of WGN. Garry is a natural talent who works hard at winning and we’re pleased with his success. Overall the newer people in place at WGN have improved the ratings, and veteran people like John Williams have grown the ratings too.

Rick: What about the shows that have recently left WGN? Some of those divorces were pretty acrimonious. In the past, WGN has always welcomed back its previous stars (like Roy Leonard, Wally Phillips, etc) for occasional visits--which I think was a nice way of transitioning from one era to the next. Will you reach out to some of the previous hosts, or are those relationships irreparably damaged?

Bill: We’ve already met and communicated with many of the WGN family, from over the years. Those relationships are important to our listeners and to us. Everyone from our great history will always be part of what’s made WGN what it is today.

Rick: I know you can't really talk about changes you plan on making to the WGN lineup (if any), but there is one big name in Chicago, Steve Dahl (photo), that will become available later this year, and the rumors have been swirling that WGN might be interested in talking to him. I thought I would give you the opportunity to either confirm or deny those rumors.

Bill: I don’t deal in rumors, but will say that we’re talking to several major well-known talents that are currently working and a few that are on hiatus too. Regardless, it’s important to understand that a truly great talent is one that gets great ratings in today’s world that we can convert into revenue. WGN can’t change that model for any talent. It’s tricky, and it’s important to have the right talent – although being successful on another station or in another era doesn’t always translate to being successful on WGN or in the PPM world overall, for that matter. In general, a big name alone isn’t a rite of passage.

There are success stories like Garry Meier. Garry has re-invented himself over the years to keep relevant and that’s why what he does works today. Bottom line, no matter who it is, it’s about performance.

Rick: And finally, I'm going to give you the opportunity to speak directly to the WGN listeners out there. I know you're probably hearing from many of them, but is there anything you'd like to say to those listeners that don't call or e-mail or write?

Bill: In the last 3 to 4 months, the tide has turned on listener feedback thanks really to the moves Tom Langmyer (photo) made. During that period where he did double-duty as GM and the PD, he made smart, quick changes to move the station forward to set up WGN for the future. Getting things off the air that didn’t fit WGN, fixing evening programming, creating the new WGN Sports Night concept from 7 to 10 pm, rebuilding weekends, hiring talent, fixing fundamentals, bringing in Keith Moreland to the Cubs broadcasts and other things. That was all done in a very short period of time. Listeners have noticed the difference and the positive feedback and the increased ratings speak for themselves.

Tom and I are on the same page in vision and style and we believe that WGN is the neighborhood meeting place for Chicago. We’ve got to be relevant, informative, and entertaining. It’s about being a trusted and familiar friend. We’re both always listening to the station and working with the staff to find better ways of doing things to meet that expectation. And it also comes down to leading by being respectful to our staff and listeners.

We still have work to do, and WGN is a great place to work. Tribune Company has great resources, and that’s also what makes this such a cool opportunity. I’m very lucky to be at WGN and it’s unbelievable to get to return to the city where I was born.

Judd Sirott

2011-03-12T08:23:00.003-06:00

Judd Sirott is part of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Chicago Cubs broadcast teams for WGN Radio.

Rick: I’m talking to you right after a Blackhawks practice, in the midst of a great hot streak. Do you think this Blackhawks team has what it takes to repeat, or at the very least, scare some of the teams that are seeded higher than they are?

Judd: I don’t think there’s any question. All they have to do is get into the playoffs, and after that, all bets are off. Philly is a great example of that. They got in last year as the eighth seed, and took the Blackhawks to six games in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Now let’s look at some of the other teams in the same conference as the Hawks. Even if the Blackhawks fall back a bit, and end up as the #8 seed, and the Canucks are the #1 seed—do they really scare you? Vancouver is a very good team but the Hawks have beaten them in the playoffs the past two years. Whether it’s the Canucks or the Red Wings or anyone else they have to face, there’s not a team they don’t have a chance against. It’s a wide open conference and anybody can win it.

Rick: I know you’re a hockey guy—before the Hawks, you were the play by play guy for the Chicago Wolves for twelve years.

Judd: And I did hockey games for HD Net for two years. I left the Wolves after 2006 and broadcast hockey games for Mark Cuban’s network. It was a terrific gig. Every week we would broadcast the best team, the best game we could get. It was fabulous and it was a great package. Unfortunately, Cuban opted not to renew with the NHL—he shifted his direction. I loved working there, but when the network didn’t renew, I was fortunate enough to land with the Hawks on WGN. I had actually gotten wind of Mark not renewing before it was officially announced, so I had called Dave Eanet, and told him I would be available. He called back and we managed to find a fit.

Rick: Before the last couple of years, when the Blackhawks were, let’s be nice about it, underperforming, a lot of people were saying Chicago isn’t a hockey town. That must have frustrated you. I mean, here you were, doing the games for a minor league team that was drawing almost as many fans as the NHL team. If that’s not a hockey town, what is?

Judd: I think there were about two million fans at the rally downtown that would disagree about Chicago not being a hockey town.

And you’re right, the Wolves were a tremendous success during the down years for the Blackhawks, and they still are. That started with the ownership. The Wolves ownership didn’t run it like a minor league team. They ran it to be the best possible franchise it could be. The Blackhawks have that now with Rocky Wirtz and John McDonough. When ownership commits to the product it makes all the difference in the world.

Rick: I’m sure you grew up a Hawks fan in Arlington Heights. What does it mean to you to be a part of this Blackhawks experience; hosting the pre and post-game shows?

Judd: I was a die-hard fan. I saw Denis Savard for the first time in like ‘82, and he’s still my favorite player of all-time. 18 is still my favorite number. I wore his number when I played baseball.

I always loved listening to Pat Foley on the radio too going all the way back to his time on WIND. He had that phenomenal voice. When I listened to him I thought—I want to do this. Ken Wilson was good too, and he was doing them on TV at the time, but I always preferred listening to Pat on the radio. It’s hard to put into words how much of a thrill it is to be doing what I’m doing now, not only with the Hawks, but also with the Cubs.

Rick: How do they work that with you when the Hawks and the Cubs are both playing? Does one team take precedence over the other?

Judd: If there’s a conflict, the Cubs take precedence.

Rick: Even during the playoffs?

Judd: Well, there usually aren’t too many conflicts. Last year during the playoffs, I would do both. Say, if the Cubs were on during the day and the Hawks at night, I could do both, and I did several times. But if the schedules conflicted, and both games were on at the same time, or I was out on the road with the Cubs, the Cubs took precedence. I’m guessing it will be the same way this year.

Rick: I interviewed your uncle (Bob Sirott) for Shore Magazine a few years ago and asked him if he could be doing any other job in the world, what would it be? He said it would be your job. As far as he’s concerned, you have the dream job with the Cubs.

Judd: (laughs) Yeah, I’ve heard him say that. It’s a great gig. No question. It’s a phenomenal gig. Granted the team hasn’t had the success, but this is still an incredible privilege. To work with Pat and Ron the past few years was incredible. To be able to do play by play for the Cubs—c’mon, that’s beyond my wildest dreams. If somebody told me a few years ago that I’d be able to work for both of these franchises doing what I’m doing now, I never would have believed it.

Rick: I love listening to Cubs games on the radio. I’ve always wondered about the job that you have—namely that one inning during the game that you get to do play by play. That must be rough to get a flow going.

Judd: I think you figure out a way to jump right in. With Ronnie in the past, it was a treat. He was so much fun to work with. It’s really just a matter of being a conduit to the game. Do it accurately, descriptively, and provide some banter. Every game is different. I used to joke that nobody could call three up and three down like me, but then all of a sudden it would go the other way, with an eight run inning and three pitching changes. I think the key is that I always prepare myself as if I am doing the entire game.

Sitting shotgun, watching Pat Hughes do his thing has been an incredible help. Ron used to call him the professor, but to me that’s really what he was. I watched and listened to him, how prepared, how quick, how descriptive, how mellifluous he is. He’s got the whole package--his timing, his wit, his description. Every day it really was like watching the professor. I watched every lecture. Every game was a learning experience.

Rick: Last year I interviewed Pat Hughes for this blog, and asked him what the worst part of the job was. He didn’t hesitate. For him, it’s the travel. I suspect that with two young kids at home, that’s a difficult part of the job for you too.

Judd: It’s tough, that’s true. It’s not just tough on you; your whole family inherits this schedule. My wife is an absolute saint; I couldn’t do this without her. The travel itself doesn’t bother me, and the work is something I really enjoy, but I do miss being with my family. It’s a hardship on them even more than me.

Rick: Before you got involved with the Wolves, you worked at the Score during its early years—if I’m not mistaken, producing for Dan McNeil.

Judd: Yes, that’s true. I was there on Day 1 of the Score. I was the executive producer of the Dan McNeil (photo) show, which at the time, had Terry Boers and Brian Hanley switching off as co-hosts at first. Eventually Terry was brought in full-time.

Rick: That original stable of Score producers was very strong.

Judd: No question. We all started together on the first day. Mike Greenberg, Jesse Rogers, and I were all producers there. The program director Ron Gleason eventually moved Greenberg to anchoring and reporting. I think he started covering the Bears beat, if I’m not mistaken, and then got the television gig at CLTV, and then to ESPN. He does a great job on that morning show with Golic. But we had a great time in those early days at the Score.

Rick: Do you still listen to sports talk in Chicago (other than the shows on WGN), and if so, what are some of the shows that you think do a good job?

Judd: Oh definitely. I listen to them all. I think there are a ton of quality shows out there, Mully and Hanley in the morning do a great job, and McNeil and Matt have a good show too. I listen to Boers & Bernstein. But I also check out the guys on ESPN. I really think that Waddle and Silvy have a good chemistry together, and I’ll tune in the Afternoon Saloon from time to time too.

Rick: At this point of your career, even though you’re still a relatively young guy, you’ve really done it all in sports radio; reporting, anchoring, hosting, producing, and play-by-play. Of all those roles, which is the most rewarding and why?

Judd: Oh man, I think what I enjoy the most is the play by play. That’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, and what I’m doing now has exceeded all of my wildest expectations. That’s at my core. But at the same time, I enjoyed all the other jobs too. I still do a fair share of anchoring, and I still do reporting, but the play-by-play job—that’s special. It really is.

Michael Damsky

2011-03-05T08:51:00.000-06:00

Michael Damsky is the GM of WLS-AM (890 AM) and WLS-FM (94.7 FM).

Rick: You’ve been the GM of WLS now for a little over a year. When you took over the station wasn’t exactly in a great place. What was your assessment of the problems at that time, and are you satisfied with the steps that have been taken to address those issues?

Michael: I was so frustrated watching this place come unraveled in 2009 when I was still the director of sales, so I had a clear vision of what the problems were. I saw this from an insider’s perspective. The story I always tell people to help explain what was wrong happened around the time Chicago lost the Olympic bid. In the days leading up to that, I kept asking the PD how we were going to handle it--the biggest story in Chicago. He had no idea and no plan of attack for dealing with it. As a station we lacked vision and urgency. I kept pointing that out to the GM; pointing out that the PD was an issue. He had systematically dismantled the Roe show, got rid of Ron Magers and Christina Filliagi and brought in Cisco Cotto. Cisco, who I have a great respect for, and love in his current role, was a terrible fit for that show. Also, as the director of sales, I watched research being misinterpreted. All of those factors together led me to the same conclusion--the PD had to go.

I also knew who the new one had to be—Drew Hayes. I’ve known him for years, and knew he would bring a sense of urgency, but more importantly, Drew instinctively knows what the big story of the day is, and what needs to be the topic of conversation on our station. He was the right man for the job all the way. (Photo: Damsky & Hayes)

Rick: You mentioned that the former PD misinterpreted research. How so?

Michael: We did a research project with John Parikhal, and he’s the very best, but I thought that the wrong lessons were taken from his presentation.

Rick: Which were?

Michael: Crudely speaking, that we needed to bring in more right wing elements. But that’s not the way I heard the research results. Yes, the station has that right-leaning perspective, but it’s not right for every show, and it certainly wasn’t the right thing to do to Roe’s show.

Rick: I’ve actually been very impressed with the new Roe and Roeper show.

Michael: I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t. That sort of fell into our laps. I hired Drew within seven days of taking over as GM, and had Parikhal come in to re-do the research presentation so we could get a better read on what it was really telling us.

And from there we made some moves. We eliminated the Mancow show. As much as I like him personally, and I’m actually eating some food that he gave me right now (laughs), it wasn’t the right fit for us. The pairing with Pat Cassidy just wasn’t working. In one day we made some pretty dramatic moves. We put Cisco into the midday slot, and then brought back Ron Magers and Christina Filliagi to Roe's show.

Rick: So did Drew go after Richard Roeper?

Michael: Actually I got a call from Todd and Brian Musberger, who are Roeper’s agents. They brought Richard to us because he wanted to do radio, but he wasn’t comfortable with management structure at WGN at the time. I wasn’t immediately sold on the idea. The biggest issue I had was that the management before me reached for all the bright shiny objects (like Mancow and Pat Cassidy), and I didn’t want to be lured into a move that wasn’t the best strategic fit. But after we put him on the air with Roe for an hour, we knew right away it was great chemistry. If I do nothing else in this job, putting that show together will have been the thing I can hang my hat on, even though, as I mentioned, I really can’t take credit for it.

Rick: You did have a few very important linchpins in place when you took over, and one of those is the Don & Roma show. They don’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. I know their work ethic is legendary, but could you give us a little insight into the amount of work that goes into that show every day?

Michael: It’s funny you should mention them, because Drew and I were just looking at the numbers in January for the show—really, really solid. Don is the best prepared radio personality I’ve ever seen. He’s so persuasive, he has actually modified my own political perspective. He’s highly intelligent, incredibly well informed, and lives a highly unreasonable life—one that would kill mere mortals like you and me.

He gets up in the middle of the night, and sleeps during the day, but when the show starts up, he quite simply knows everything there is to know. It’s exciting to be able to work with them. You're right, he is the exemplification of that great work ethic, and that was a great relief to me. There was nothing that needed to be done to that show. In fact, the only real reservation Drew had when I asked him to come over was that he worried that we wouldn’t be able to keep Don and Roma for budgetary reasons. I told him, no way. We’re keeping them. In fact, I thought so much of them I ran Drew’s name by them before I even offered the job to Drew, and I did the same with Roe, and they were both enthusiastic about bringing Drew aboard.

Rick: The other linchpin you had was obviously Rush Limbaugh. His numbers have been outstanding in this town for twenty years. When I was on my book tour promoting my novel “$everance,” I was asked about Rush all the time. People that aren’t fans wonder why he never gets in trouble for the things he says when other people like Imus or Rick Sanchez get fired for saying similar things.

Michael: I cannot explain why it is that he never gets in trouble. To be totally honest with you, that’s three hours of the broadcast day I don’t give a lot of thought to, because it’s a given. I don’t worry about it, except from a sales perspective.

Rick: Isn’t the reason he doesn’t get in trouble the fact that he owns his show?

Michael: Well, yes, that’s true. But to be honest, I’m not even sure if Rush is that outrageous anymore. There are others out there that are far more outrageous than Rush now.

Rick: Steve Dahl is going to be available sometime this year. Have you already spoken to him? Is there any interest in possibly bringing him aboard?

Michael: I don’t want to sound cagey, or evasive, but here’s the way I would answer that. We want to consider all of the potential options as we continue to grow the radio station. We’re clearly done with phase one of improving the station. Now, Steve (photo) is a great talent, and I’ve always admired him. I was lucky enough to play golf with him at an outing not too long ago. The decision about his next move will really be in his hands. I’ve read the same things you have. Is he considering going back with Garry? He certainly hasn’t closed the door. I’m not trying to be evasive, but until he’s officially available, we’ll let him take the lead. Plus, we don’t really have an open slot at this time anyway.

Rick: You’ve got some great talent on the weekends like Bruce Wolf and Jake Hartford, but you’ve also got some brokered shows. One of your former brokered weekend shows got sued recently, which I suppose is one of the dangers of featuring brokered programming. I know that’s a good revenue stream for the station, but do you see brokered weekend shows continuing to be a part of the lineup for the foreseeable future?

Michael: In the long haul we’d like to have the weekend programming be a viable extension of what we do Monday through Friday so our listeners feel they can always be serviced by what we do—whenever they want it. In the meantime, there’s a level of revenue you have to replace, and the fact of the matter is that there’s nothing we can immediately do that can have a direct impact on our ratings. At least not enough to make a difference at this point. The amount we have to raise our ratings to make up that weekend revenue is pretty difficult to attain. But we’re still heading in that direction. We’ve given more time to people like Eddie & Jobo, Bruce and Dan, and Jake. But because of the financial realities, that move is going to be a little more gradual than it otherwise would be.

Rick: Switching gears for a moment, there’s something I’ve always wondered about WLS-FM. You’re playing oldies, you’re using the old WLS call letters, and yet, you’ve only got one person on staff (Dick Biondi) that has any connection to the old MusicRadio WLS (although Greg Brown does have that WJMK Oldies experience). A lot of those great WLS talents are still out there and available; including the biggest stars from that era like Larry Lujack, Fred Winston, John Records Landecker, and more. Is there a reason those guys aren’t on the air with you?

Michael: I think that the old model for oldies radio was to recreate the type of radio that people went to high school with—you not only played the music, you presented it with the talent they remembered, like the guys you mentioned—who are all great talents.

What we’re trying to do is frame the music a little differently. We’re not just trying to present the music to the people that listened to it originally. This music has an appeal beyond that audience--people of a slightly younger generation who love the music from shows like Jersey Boys or American Idol. For them, the presentation needs to be slightly different. We’re taking the opportunity to broaden the appeal to a younger generation, still playing the music those older listeners like, but presenting it in a way that the 35 year olds can relate to.

Rick: I’ve talked to more than 200 radio pros since I started this blog, and nearly all of them privately tell me they read Larz’ Chicagolandradioandmedia board, but you’re one of the only ones that openly posts on it using your real name.

Michael: He does a nice job with that board. There a couple of reasons I post under my real name. I think radio is a local medium, and it’s only right that the local audience knows what the local manager thinks. Sometimes you want to tell people that you know the truth from your vantage point—that you aren’t just an anonymous poster with no actual knowledge of what’s going on. Sometimes I just want to be a part of the dialogue.

Rick: I know you can’t talk about the upcoming sale/merger with Cumulus, and you don’t really know any of the details at this time, but you’ve gone through this before when you were with WXRT—and that had to be even more of a culture shock at the time. You went from being a mom and pop place to part of a multi-billion dollar corporation overnight. What was that like?

Michael: Actually it was a little more gradual than you remember. Westinghouse was the first one that bought us. Then they bought CBS the same week—so that was a little strange. We were still part of Westinghouse for awhile—Dan Mason ran that company. Of course we were scared, but it was a really easy transition and I thoroughly enjoyed the Westinghouse times and even the first few years when we became a part of CBS. In some ways things were better right away. For instance, we didn’t even have computers or e-mail with the old owners.

Rick: Did they pressure you to leave the old building on Belmont?

Mike: No, but we certainly could have left several years sooner—I just didn’t want to move. I felt strongly about that building. I felt the building was the gestational device that built XRT. We were isolated out there on Belmont, but we were all together. We ate lunch together, ideas flowed through the building. I fought the opportunity to move downtown because of that atmosphere. It was really conducive to creativity.

Rick: You were with XRT for more than 20 years, and I know you still think very fondly of it. What are some of your favorite memories from those years?

Michael: I do feel very strongly about it. Ten of us had lunch together yesterday and twelve others called bitching they weren’t invited. This is going to sound trite and cliché, but it really was a family. We related to each other. We watched our children grow up...and not just one part of the station, like the sales staff. All of us. As for one special memory, I still get a little choked up even thinking about this, so forgive me, but the day before my daughter got married, Lin Brehmer did about a five minute tribute to her, and....it was truly special. I can’t even think about it without getting choked up. We lived our lives together. We were all coming from a 60s hippie ethos. Not just the listeners, also the employees.

Rick: OK, one last question. You came up through sales and probably know just about every radio salesman in this town. Everybody knows the great air talent, but who are Chicago’s radio sales superstars, current staff excluded?

Michael: Oh boy, well the first one that comes to mind without a doubt, and granted there's a little prejudice on my part, but it's gotta be Patty Reilly Murphy. She started with me in 1980 at the same station, and then we went to WXRT together. She is absolutely incredible. She harnessed the passion in ways that nobody else ever could. There’s Laura DeGrandis at WBBM-FM. What a talent she is—she’s been at WBBM her whole career. At one point she really wanted to work for me, and I didn’t hire her, which is something I’ve always regretted. Debra McCabe at WBBM-AM—she is WBBM-AM sales. There are others there that do a great job, but she is the face of that place. Dan Richman is the LSM at WGN, and he is 'the natural.' He sells with great passion and the enthusiasm. I have a great staff now too. And by the way, thanks for asking about the sales people. Thanks for including that.

Rick: Thanks for doing the interview.

Michael: My pleasure.

Paul Barsky

2011-02-26T09:31:00.002-06:00

Paul Barsky was the morning man at Z-95 (WLS-FM, 94.7) in Chicago in the mid-to-late 1980s. Before and after his time in Chicago he was a very successful morning man in Philadelphia.

Rick: I ask my readers to give me suggestions for people they'd like me to interview, and your name keeps coming up. Considering you haven't been on the air in Chicago for more than twenty years, and you were only here for a short time, you really made a name for yourself in Chicago. What was it about your show that you think people still remember it so fondly today?

Barsky: I really don't know. All I know is that when I first arrived in Chicago, I felt an instant connection. The same thing happened to me when I started in Philly where I spent the majority of my career before and after Chicago. Sometimes personalities click with markets, and sometimes they don't. I got lucky with both Chicago and Philly. The psychology behind why certain personalities have a lasting effect vs. others has always been up for debate. To try to answer your question, I guess I can safely say that I worked hard on the show every day to try to bring something new and entertaining to the listener. Even though off air I was very serious about the show, on air I never really took myself too seriously and had kind of a self deprecating sense of humor. Maybe listeners related to that and thought of me as one of them, I don't know.

In the beginning we were an ensemble cast, myself and three others, and we created some original produced bits that for some reason stuck with people over the years. I also started doing prank calls (called Phone scams) which many shows do today, but back then nobody was doing them on a regular basis so that material might have helped the show to stand out as well. We had a lot of strong benchmark bits which was important to have on a CHR station during that time period. So I think those elements made an impact. And yes, I too still hear from people today on Facebook, who still have tapes of the show etc., and it just blows me away....

Rick: When you first arrived in town you stepped right into a hornet's nest. WLS-FM had been simulcasting Larry Lujack's morning show, but he had decided to move to afternoons, which ticked off Steve and Garry, and the battle between Lujack and Dahl almost came to fisticuffs on the air. A week or so after that blow up, you arrived to take over the morning show. What was it was like to walk into that situation?

Barsky: It's funny you mention the Dahl and Lujack incident. At the time, Larry was still doing mornings and I guess he was still in his office and heard S&G ripping him on air, when he walked in to confront them. It wasn't "reality show" scripted schtick. Lujack was apparently a bit miffed. I think Uncle Lar was getting ready to lay an old school "Clint Eastwood" style beating on the boys. I remember sitting in my hotel room where the company put me up, and I was listening to the station and heard the Luajck/ Dahl blow up live and remembered thinking to myself "Well, working here should be fun."

It was a trip to be in the building at that time, because it was kind of like a soap opera. Both Steve and Larry were superstars in the market and their "in office battle" made for some real compelling radio. And here I was this kid from Philly walking into a dysfunctional radio atmosphere wondering how I was going to make a name for myself and stand out.

Rick: Refresh my memory--is that when it was changed to Z-95?

Barsky: Actually when I started it was still WLS-FM and not Z-95 yet. When ABC decided to discontinue the Lujack morning simulcast,they had someone fill in on the interim basis just playing music, but they knew they needed a show. That's when they decided to hire me for WLS-FM . So Lujack was still on mornings at WLS-AM when I started on the FM side.When he eventually moved to afternoons was around the time we were re branded as Z-95.

Rick: What are some of your favorite memories from your time in Chicago?

Barsky: There are so many, it's hard to pick one. Being an east coast guy, when I first arrived in Chicago, I guess I kind of expected it to be like New York. But it's got a completely different feel and energy. I fell in love with Chicago immediately, especially the people. There's just something special about that Midwestern thing. Down to earth people, but with a somewhat dry, and irreverent sense of humor. Even to this day, when I think of the quintessential Chicago dude, I think Bill Murray. And for women, Bonnie Hunt. I was a former baseball player in my youth, so I know it sounds cliche, but the first time walking into Wrigley Field for me was almost spiritual.

One memory that will always stick out in my mind is my first week at WLS-FM. The station at the time was on Michigan Ave. and I lived on East Ohio street. Since I wasn't that far from the station , I figured there was no sense in having a car and that I'd just jump into a cab at 4:00am. So it's early December and this particular morning , there's no cab outside my building. I waited and waited. Nothing. It was snowing hard and nobody was on the road. Not a single car. So I realize that I need to hoof it. Now mind you, I had just arrived from Philly and had no idea about the Chicago winter so all I had was a leather jacket. And I'm thinking to myself " I'm from the east coast, I went to college in upstate NY , I can handle this , no problem".

Long story short, when I finally arrived to the station after my 20 minute "little trek" down Michigan Ave. which included my first meeting with the sub zero biting wind coming off the Chicago River, I literally had no feeling in my face or hands. My ears were purple.My moustache was completely frozen, I think part of it actually broke off. Turns out it was 25 below with the wind chill. I didn't thaw out till about 7am. I had never felt cold like that in my life. Welcome to Chicago, Philly boy!

Rick: That Z-95 format was a direct competitor of B-96--it was a very uptempo hot hits format. What did you think of the music you played on that show?

Barsky: Well in the beginning, it was your typical straight ahead CHR station musically. Although about a year in, we started to skew in more of a rock leaning CHR direction vs. B-96 which leaned more Rhythmic. As far as my show, we played less and less music as the show gained more traction in popularity. It personally never really mattered what I played on the air, as my concern was more about what I was doing in between the songs.

Rick: Your ratings were pretty solid in retrospect. What happened at Z-95 to force you out?

Barsky: The reason for my departure was a strange one and still kind of a mystery. I've actually heard two separate stories over the years. Here's the first: I was originally signed to a four year deal. When I was hired, the morning show was around 21st place 12+. It took a couple of years to see some results, but eventually we started to see some steady growth. Then halfway into my final year,something popped and the show was really took off and the ratings really shot up as well.

My deal was almost up and I was making pretty good money. According to my agent at the time, his feeling was that ABC knew that we would be coming in for a new deal at much bigger numbers and they felt like they could get another show for much less than they would have to pay me. So they let me go, and (this always happens in radio) that same week the ratings come out and I get the highest numbers ever for the station in the morning, and the rest of the station jumped up as well beating our main competitor B-96.

The second story was that there was someone high up in the company who felt that what I was doing on my show on a CHR station was a bit too edgy for a conservative company like Cap Cities. Bottom line is that there may be some truth to both stories, and in the end they hired a super "family friendly" show to replace me. Unfortunately within a year their new show didn't catch on and went from the top 5, where I left it, back down to 20th. Since mornings was the cornerstone of the station, it really effected the overall station's ratings. That's when the house of cards collapsed and that's when all the stunts like "Hell 947 " etc. took place. Unfortunately for the company,the 94.7 frequency for many, many years never recovered, until a few years back when it put on the current Oldies format.

Rick: A lot of people may not remember this, but one of the newsmen on your show was Wayne Messmer. Wayne is now known as one of the quintessential National Anthem singers in Chicago. Was he already singing in those days?

Barsky: Yes, Wayne had always been a singer and was the PA announcer and National Anthem singer for the Cubs while he was doing the show with me. Listeners would often call the show and ask Wayne to sing the anthem. It got to be funny because we'd be in the middle of something and I'd take an unscreened call at random and there would be the request. And Wayne would sing it every time.It completely stopped the show in it's tracks. And then we'd go back to what we were talking about as if nothing ever happened. In addition to that, since I was able to carry a tune as well, but not even close to Wayne's talent, we'd occasionally take listener song requests on air and instead of playing the songs, we'd sing them with reverb and it became pretty popular bit. What made it fun was that most of the time we wouldn't know the words or melody so we made up our own. Trainwreck radio at it's best.

Wayne was one of those guys who I don't believe ever knew how funny he really was. He once told me a story while I was driving that was so funny I literally had to pull the car off of the expressway from laughing so hard because I couldn't see through my tears. It was the type of laughter where no sound came out because you're gasping for air. That's the only time something like that ever happened to me .Great talent and great guy. The last couple of years of the show it was just Wayne and myself and that's when I think the show sounded the best.

We were also joined by a few different producers who we added to the mix on air. Speaking of "Mix," our last producer was Eric Ferguson who was just beginning his career, and who's been at the top in the market with the "Eric and Kathy Show" for many years now. I'm thrilled for Eric's success. It's always fantastic to see good things happen for good people in this biz.

Rick: You were one of the pioneers of the morning zoo format, at least here in Chicago. I think it's safe to say that your show was the first one in Chicago to use that approach--your show was even called "Barsky's Morning Zoo."

Barsky: My show previously in Philly wasn't the Morning Zoo. It was always the "Barsky Show." John DeBella who was at the legendary Rock station WMMR in Philly in the 80's had the Morning Zoo. The real pioneers of the concept were Scott Shannon and Cleveland Wheeler back in the late 70's in Tampa. The term "Morning Zoo" in the 80's was not so much a set formula or concept, but rather more of a positioning and branding statement for ensemble cast morning shows. Not much different than "Breakfast Club", "Madhouse", "Playhouse" etc.

So here's how my show was renamed the Barsky Morning Zoo. I was hired at WLS-FM by Jan Jeffries (Photo) who was the PD at the time. We were WLS-FM for a short while, and the idea was to drop the WLS-FM moniker because since they were no longer simulcasting Lujack in the morning, they didn't see the need to create any more confusion between WLS-AM and FM. B-96 was our head on competitor, so our station decided to counter with Z-95.

Jan felt that since we were Z-95, the term "ZOO" in the morning would help and enhance the new "Z" moniker. So I was told that it would be called the "Barsky Morning Zoo" from that point on. You have to remember at that time, ensemble morning shows were doing well in other major markets and many of them used the ZOO moniker and branding. Chicago never had that brand in the market, so the station saw the opportunity to grab it and put it in place before any of our competitors. Eventually the name changed back to "The Barsky Show" on Z-95, and we ditched the morning zoo name.

Rick: Do you think the morning zoo format is dead?

Barsky: I think there are a few heritage morning shows in radio who still use the term, like Z100 in NY because it's still very successful. But having said that, the term is kind of outdated and is in many cases part of our vernacular when it comes to what the average Joe uses to describe "those wacky DJ's in the morning." And usually not in such a very favorable light.

Rick: Most recently you were doing sports talk in Dallas. How did you like doing the sports talk format?

Barsky: It was challenging, at times fun and completely different than anything I've ever done in radio. Challenging because truth be told, I was not your typical sports talk guy. Not even close. At the most I was a casual sports fan. But I quickly learned that in sports talk radio "casual" wont cut it. You need to really know your stuff. You need to not only know about your hometown teams, but you need to know the ins and out of every team in every sport. Credibility with the sports talk listener is very important. If you're not on top of it, they'll smell blood and you're toast. So I had to take a crash course in Dallas sports just to catch up because I was on the air with guys who had been doing sports radio for 20 years.

The idea when I was hired was to team me up with a former ESPN sports analyst to bring some entertainment to the show. The station felt like they needed someone like me who was a "morning radio guy" to drive the show. So on paper, it made sense. And because of my versatility in a variety of formats and presentations like CHR, Alternative, Rock, Hot AC, Talk etc. I figured why not give it a go, it's just another format. Not true.

Sports radio is it's own entity and unlike any other radio genre. Most of the personalities in sports radio did not come up in the industry like I did as a music radio morning guy. They're for the most part not "radio people." Most of them are either sports writers, TV sports reporters, former jocks or super sports geeks who got a shot to be on the radio. It's a completely different mindset and approach with it's own nuances. So this experience was a whole new world for me, but ultimately not a good fit. And for the first time in my radio career, I was completely out of my comfort zone which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it's important to challenge and push yourself on occasion. I believe it makes you stronger in every way. You live, learn, and move forward.

Rick: What's next for you? Is there any chance you may re-emerge on the Chicago airwaves?

Barsky: I've only been off the air for a few months and I'm looking at some possibilities to be back on air fairly soon. I'm still extremely passionate about entertaining, but right now for me it's about finding the right fit. I've also been exploring radio station ownership off and on over the years, and I'm currently looking into an opportunity as we speak. But I've learned that it's a process that is often long and tedious to say the least. In fact the last time I did this was right after I left Chicago a little more than 20 years ago, I was part of a group that came very close to purchasing a Boston radio station.

As far as doing another radio show in Chicago, it's something I always thought about because of my love for the city, but for whatever reason the right opportunity never presented itself. So a return to Chicago? In this business I've learned you can never say never.

Rick: Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Barsky: Thanks Rick, I enjoyed the interview and reminiscing about my days in Chicago. It was a part of my career and life that I'll always treasure. And the fact that people still remember my show after all these years is quite humbling to say the least....

David Kaplan

2011-02-19T08:13:00.000-06:00

David Kaplan hosts "Chicago Sports Night" weeknights on WGN Radio (AM 720). He also hosts "Chicago Tribune Live" every night on Comcast SportsNet.

Rick: You’ve had a pretty crazy last couple of months over at WGN. Has all the dust settled? Are you back in the groove again?

Kap: Yeah, absolutely back to normal. The guy I give the most credit to for keeping the ship afloat is Tom Langmyer (photo), the GM of WGN. I have no complaints at all with him. He’s been 100% honest with me throughout all of this, totally straight up. Even when things didn’t look so good for me he said “Hang in there it’s gonna work out.” And things really are back to normal. I’m feeling good again about our direction.

Rick: I’ve always been a fan of Brian Noonan (who has been co-hosting the show). I thought he was languishing on those weekend overnight shifts. And he obviously has a pretty good handle on sports. How do you two get along?

Kap: Amazingly well. The funny thing is, I had never worked with him—I had really only met him in the building, that was it. When Tom decided to bring me back, I asked him if he wanted me to do the show by myself or with someone, and he said he’d really like to have a second voice in there, and thought that Brian Noonan and I would have a great chemistry. And he was right.

Rick: How would you compare him to your former co-host Tom Waddle?

Kap: Totally different. Brian (Photo) is one of the funniest humans you’ll ever hear. He has a background in stand up comedy, and he’s razor sharp, he’s got a very quick wit. Tommy was witty and funny too, but he was also a professional athlete, so he came at from it a totally different perspective.

Rick: Do you keep in touch with Waddle now that he’s over at ESPN?

Kap: All the time. I just talked to him yesterday. I worked so long with Tommy, I consider him the best friend in the world. We did ten years together. It was the longest running sports talk show in Chicago radio history.

Rick: Do you prefer doing the show with a partner, or by yourself, because you’ve done it both ways now.

Kap: I got comfortable doing it myself too, but I enjoy having a partner; someone to laugh with, someone to pitch in, someone to help carry the show. It’s really difficult carrying a show all by yourself. Three hours is a lot of time to fill.

Rick: A new PD (Bill White) started this week. Have you met with him yet, and what are your impressions of him?

Kap: Haven’t met with him yet, and I probably won’t really get a chance to sit down with him for a little while. I’m heading down to spring training next week, but we’ve exchanged e-mails, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about the guy.

Rick: Now that the Michaels/Metheney era is finally 100% in the rear-view mirror, what are your thoughts about that tumultuous couple of years?

Kap: This is the way I look at it. People that aren’t from here, simply don’t understand Chicago. We’re a very provincial town. That’s not to say that you can’t learn about Chicago, but if you’re an outsider, you need to spend some time learning the city rather than just coming in here thinking that you can do a cookie-cutter version of something that works somewhere else. That’s especially unforgivable when you’re dealing with an institution like WGN. This radio station and this city are unlike any other. They didn’t understand that.

Rick: This is just my opinion, but I couldn’t believe they thought it was a good idea to eliminate sports from a station that carried the Cubs and the Blackhawks...

Kap: And Northewestern! Yes, it was mindboggling for sure. Tom Langmyer gets it. He’s a sports guy and came from a sports background, and though he has never said this to me, I’m sure these past few years were difficult for him.

Rick: Even when you weren’t doing WGN Sports Night on WGN, you were doing the nightly show on Comcast. As a multi-media star, give me the pros and cons of television versus radio.

Kap: And a newspaper column too.

Rick: That's right, "Around Town" with Fred Mitchell. So you work in three different media.

Kap: I love ‘em all. Comcast is awesome. Jim Corno Sr. is amazing to work for—he really runs a first class organization. He’s so approachable and so accepting. The whole staff over there is outstanding. As for comparing radio and TV, they are a bit different.

In radio you never know where the conversation is headed, because someone can call in, and the show will go in a whole different direction than you thought. In TV we plan it out a lot more. We have a noon meeting every day and throw everything against the wall, discussing what we’ll do any given night. It’s still free-flowing on our particular show, but it’s a little more structured than doing a radio show.

As for writing, I’ve been doing that for a long time, even before I did either radio or television. The "Around Town" column with Fred Mitchell gives me a chance to work with an absolute pro. Plus, it gives us a chance to call attention to worthwhile causes, the benefits the athletes and coaches do, and there’s an opportunity to break stories too. We broke the Marmol extension weeks ago, but it didn’t officially come out until this week.

Rick: I was still working at the Loop FM when you first started on WMVP years ago—and I don’t think people even realize this about you anymore because you do every sport so well—but you were a basketball guy, first and foremost.

Kap: I was an Asst. coach at NIU from 1982 to 1986, and I was a scout for the Indiana Pacers and Seattle Supersonics after that. John McDougal (the NIU coach) was like a second father to me—he took a chance on this unknown 21 year old kid with one year of high school coaching. I really cherish my time there. The relationships that I formed in basketball are still important relationships to this day. (USC Coach) Kevin O’Neil is one of my closest friends. We’ve gone through divorces and weddings and the death of a parent together. I walked down the aisle at his wedding with (MSU coach) Tom Izzo. There was a time back in the 80s, when we were all working our way up, and Kevin was the only one that could afford a hotel room. So one night, four of us all stayed in his room—Tom Izzo, (Indiana coach) Tom Crean, and me. These guys were friends before they were famous, and they have been very loyal to me. Tom Izzo called in on the radio show the night before his first national championship game.

Here's another great Tom Izzo story. The first time I got to do a major basketball game on national television (years ago), it was Loyola vs. MSU. Tom was so great to me. He said “This is confidential, but it will help you. Here’s the scouting report, here’s the plays we call, and the plays they call.” Right before the game started, he came up to the scorer’s table and said: “Tell everyone on the broadcast that you’ve been watching 8 hours of tape, and if MSU wins the tip they’re going to run a quick hitter to get Charlie Bell a triple.”

So, on the air, my partner said “Any final thoughts?”

I said just what Izzo said I should say, and boom it happened. Izzo, who is about the most intense guy you’ll ever see during a game, looked over at me and winked.

All of these guys I met during my basketball years still give me tips and scoops. I always tell kids that networking is the key to the whole world. If you’re good networker, you’re bound to do well. That’s just a fact.

Rick: You’re also obviously a major Cubs fan. That’s one thing I love about listening to your show. You feel our pain. How big of a thrill is it for a life-long Cubs fan to have such an important role on the Cubs flagship radio station?

Kap: It’s an amazing honor, although if you know about my history it is a little ironic. My brother (who is now an eye surgeon) and I were vendors at both ballparks to make a little extra money. We sold a shirt after the 1983 Sox season that said “So close we can taste it” with a bite out of the baseball. Well, in 1985 the Cubs were coming off their big year, so we figured to sell a version of the “So close we can taste it shirt” for their fans too. If you remember that year, the Cubs were in first place in June, so we had these shirts made up, and sold ‘em outside Wrigley before the game. One day some guy bought ten of them, but I only had nine in my bag. I said “I’ll go get the other one out of my car and bring it to your seat. What’s your seat number?”

So I did. He was sitting right behind the bullpen. But when I tossed the shirt to him, he thought he was doing me a big favor by holding it up for everyone to see. Unfortunately, one person that saw it was Dallas Green (photo), who was watching from the box. He found me and had me fired as a vendor for copyright infringement. A friend of mine wrote a letter to him on my behalf, but they wouldn’t take me back. A week or two after I was fired, the five starting pitchers all went on the DL, and the Cubs fell apart. So, yeah, it is an honor to be working on the Cubs flagship, but it’s a little ironic too.

Rick: You’ve interviewed just about every Chicago athlete over the past few decades. Do you have any favorites?

Kap: Michael Jordan was the best. Obviously he’s probably the greatest athlete of all time, but he was also great to me. I got to play golf with him, and that was an amazing experience. The most impressive thing about him was the way he handled the press. The first reporter would ask a question, and he would answer it respectfully, but then some kid from a school newspaper or someone that wasn’t in the room would come in and ask the same question—and sometimes it was a ridiculous question, but he would just smile and calmly answer it again. I never saw him snap at anyone. In that regard, he was a terrific role model.

Another memorable interview wasn’t technically sports-related, although I guess you could say it was. Two weeks after the OJ trial, I got an exclusive one-hour interview with Johnny Cochran. The only rule was that there were no restrictions on the interview. We sat in the showcase studio, and man, was I ready for that interview. My late father was an attorney, and he helped me prep. I had these questions on a legal pad and just started firing, and Cochran looked at me during our first break and said: “Who prepped you for this?”

Another one that I’ll never forget is Bobby Knight. I got to know him a little bit and one day we had dinner. It was a mind blowing experience—he’s the kind of person that is just a life force—he takes over a room. When he got fired at Indiana, I called him that night, and left a voicemail asking for an interview. You remember how crazy that story was? Well, the next night he did the exclusive interview with Jeremy Schaap at ESPN, but the following day he called my office and said “What are you doing on Wednesday?” I said “Nothing.” He said “Come and see me.”

So, on Wednesday, I pulled into his driveway as Bob Verdi was pulling out, and I spent the next five hours in his family room. He pulled out his contract and showed it to me. There was a clause that basically said that anything related to the basketball operations was the sole domain of Coach Knight, and since he was fired for violating the chain of command, he said to me: “Sounds like I don’t have a boss, so how could I have violated the chain of command?”

I got enough tape from him to do a full hour show. I was getting calls from all over the country asking me how I managed to secure this exclusive interview, and I wondered too. I asked him point blank, and he said: “Because I trust you, and I know you won’t screw me.” A few years later he came to town with Texas Tech, and I asked him to do the TV show (I was free-lancing at Channel 5 at the time), and he came right in.

Those are probably the three that come to mind first.

Rick: Finally, I like to ask native Chicagoans this question, just because it’s fun to see what influenced you as a broadcaster. You’re a Niles East grad, and a Chicago guy through and through, and I know you’re a real student of Chicago radio history. Who did you listen to when you were growing up?

Kap: For me, the number one guy, bar none, was Harry. Harry Caray was the voice of the fan. I remember listening to Harry, even when he was with the White Sox. (My brother was a Sox fan.) I loved the honesty. I was enthralled. I also loved Jack Brickhouse—he was a Chicago institution. But as for non-sports, the show I never missed was Steve and Garry. When I was out recruiting I had that show on in the car every single day. I loved it. Those guys were geniuses.

Rick: And now you follow Garry Meier every night.

Kap: And I’m still a big fan. I think he has been a great addition to the station.

Leslie Harris

2011-02-12T09:13:00.000-06:00

Leslie Harris is the evening personality at 95.9 FM, "The River"

RADIO-OGRAPHY

US99 '82-'86
WCKG '86-'88
WLS-AM '88-'89
WFYR '89-'91
The Blaze '91-'93
Y108 '93
Rock 103-5 '94-'97
CD 94.7 '98
The River '07-present

Rick: For those that aren't in the western burbs, or haven't tuned it in yet, how would you describe the format of The River?

Leslie: We have two main focuses. The first is that we are hyper-local. We're in the western suburbs, and we focus on this area. We're very community oriented, and we are out in the community, usually at least once or twice a week. No other station serves the western suburbs the way we do. As far as the music goes, the last couple of years we've been a classic-hits station, with an emphasis on 'hits.' With recent changes, we've added a lot more music, as well as some deeper cuts.

Rick: You've been at the River now for a few years, but there have been a few significant changes in the past month or two; you got a new PD and a new time-slot. How are you adjusting to the new time slot?

Leslie: When I was on middays, I knew that there were a lot of moms and kids listening, so I felt I had to be 'nice.' I like that I can now let a different side of my personality show through. (some might say the smart-alecky side) I also like to rock, and we rock a little harder at night. And I've always been a night-owl. I'm still getting up to get my daughter off to school, but now I can go back to bed for a couple of hours, so I'm actually getting more sleep!

Rick: I worked with (new River PD) Zander briefly at the Loop, and you've also worked at several stations he worked at in the past. Have your paths crossed before this?

Leslie: Yeah, Zander (photo) and I worked together at Rock 103-5. We were both part-timers, so it was kinda weird when he became my new boss. Fortunately, we've always gotten along well.

Rick: You were a Chicago radio mainstay for most of the 80s and 90s, but you took a nearly ten year sabbatical to be a mom. Did you miss the business during that time?

Leslie: Initially, it was a relief to be able to just focus on the job of raising my kids. After awhile though, I definitely had those pangs of longing to be back on the air, but I also thought I had hung up my headphones for the last time. I figured I'd have to go back to weekends at least to start with, and I had no desire to give up that time with my family. It never even dawned on me to pursue something in suburban radio, until Scott Childers, who was at The River at the time, asked me if I'd be interested in coming to do some work there. (Scott now works for our sister station, Star 96.7 in Joliet)

Rick: Just looking over your radio resume, I can tell right away that you've witnessed a few pretty historic moments first hand. You were there for the final chapter of WLS-AM as a music station (in 1989). Describe what that was like.

Leslie: I sent them my resume on a lark. I couldn't believe I actually got hired to work at WLS. It was pretty amazing to work with so many legends - Fred Winston, John Landecker (photo), Catherine Johns, Jim Johnson, Jeff Hendrix, Les Grobstein - I could go on and on. And it was a trip to have regular listeners who would check in from Texas, Minnesota and Canada. But it was also a sad time. The music mix was awful. We played everything from Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett to Motown to Gloria Estefan and Madonna. We all knew the end was near.

Rick: After WLS, you were also at the frequency 103.5. I'm not sure, but I think this must be a record. It was three different stations during your time there (WFYR, The Blaze, Rock 103.5). Which one was your favorite and why?

Leslie: That's an easy one - Rock 103-5. I loved the music. There had never been anything like it before. If it rocked, we played it. It was a great mix of classic rock artists, hair bands and alternative rock artists. We played the older stuff, as well as the new releases from established artists. We broke new artists. And we had attitude. It was really the first Active Rock station, and many other stations across the country modeled themselves after it. It was a fun and exciting place to work. It's also where I met Steven Tyler!

Rick: I remember listening to the Blaze the first day they were on the air. You were part of that original air staff. For a listener it was like radio whiplash going from FYR to the Blaze. What was it like from your side of the microphone?

Leslie: It was exciting and unnerving. I had a great PD at WFYR (Kurt Johnson) but I was so bored playing 'Love songs on 'FYR.' I would get really sleepy about an hour before going on the air! I was so happy that we were changing to a rock format, but a lot of people lost their jobs, including all of the full-timers from WFYR, except Brian Kelly who was let go as soon as his contract ran out. There was such a buzz on the street about it. People were hungry for that music, which hadn't had any other radio outlet. (I think people were getting their only 'fix' from MTV) When we changed formats, we played Rock! Rock! (til you drop) by Def Leppard for days on end. It was so absurd it became funny. I think I worked 3 shifts, so I listened to that song over and over for about 15 hours that weekend. Working at The Blaze was also a learning experience for me, as I'd never played a lot of that music before. I'm still playing a lot of it at The River.

Rick: You grew up in this area. Who were some of the radio personalities you listened to in your youth?

Leslie: I LOVED BOOGIE CHECK (ooh ah!) Really, everything Landecker did was great. Of course Larry Lujack and Fred Winston. I also loved Patti Haze (photo), who was one of the first great women rock jocks. And I've always admired Terri Hemmert's friendly, conversational style, and her enthusiasm for the music.

Rick: You've also worked with some radio legends (some of which you've already mentioned). Which ones were you most impressed with, and which ones influenced your own sound the most?

Leslie: I worked a lot of overnights at WLS, so I got to do a lot of cross-talk with Fred Winston who was doing mornings. I learned a lot about being myself on the air, but having fun while doing it, which of course makes it fun for the listeners. I also worked with Don Wade, both at US99 and at WLS. He had his show so carefully planned, yet made it sound completely conversational.

Rick: Finally, I know you're happy in the burbs, but is there any chance you'll ever make the move back to a downtown station in the future?

Leslie: I am happy at The River, but who knows? I absolutely love the city, and I may pursue something downtown someday. I hope there are still downtown radio jobs to pursue. As I mentioned earlier, one of the great things about The River and NextMedia's other stations is that we have a local focus. I hope the downtown stations get back to that, because I think that's what will save radio.

Mitch Rosen

2011-02-05T08:21:00.001-06:00

Mitch Rosen is the program director of WSCR, The Score (670 AM)

Rick: You got your start in radio at WGN producing the overnight show by Eddie Schwartz. What did you learn about broadcasting from Eddie, and what did he mean to you personally?

Mitch: Eddie (photo) was flat out the best teacher I ever had in radio. He taught me how to chase a story, to be on top of the news of the day, how to track down guests, and the urgency radio is. No doubt he had his quirkiness, but he taught me radio in Chicago. He was an aggressive personality and at one time had a 20 share in overnight radio. I think the secret was that Eddie treated overnight like a prime time day part. I wrote him a note as a high school senior, then ended up interning at WGN, and then became a full-time producer. In a weird way, it was a radio dream come true.

Rick: You came to the Loop along with Eddie in the early 90s, and that was a strange marriage from the beginning. Now with the benefit of nearly twenty years of hindsight, do you think that move was a good one for Ed? When I interviewed Ed shortly before his death he still thought it was. He said: "It gave me a chance to re-energize myself in a new environment and to work with some great people." Do you agree with him?

Mitch: The Eddie move to the Loop was like the nerd in school that always got picked on by the cool kids suddenly being asked to join their group. At WGN, Eddie and I were kind of on an island. Don't get me wrong, it was a great station, but it was overnights, and we kind of got lost in the shuffle.

At that time the Loop was the coolest station in America, and I was thrilled that Eddie asked me to go along for the ride. The truth is I didn't know it was the Loop until the day before he announced he was going there. I really thought we were going to WLS. I never imagined for a second that The Loop was the next stop on The Eddie Tour. I can still remember his call to me when it was close to being official. (Now try to imagine this in Eddie's high pitched voice). He said: “Kid, were going to the LOOP!!” I said "Really?" He said it was going to be fun and all the big boy personalities were on board.

Larry Wert (photo) did something that I will never forget. He sent Eddie a box of hats; one for Brandmeier, Dahl and Meier, and Kevin Matthews, and a note that said throw your hat in the ring. Eddie never forgot that. We went in open minded about the personalities and their treatment of Eddie over the years, but the guys really treated him great. He felt cool. One of the funniest nights was the night that Kevin and Dahl sent a stripper to the studio to surprise big Ed. Ed quickly put on one of his 15 minutes jazz instrumentals.

The bottom line is that the other on-air stars welcomed us with open arms.

Rick: After producing Ed's show, you had another high-profile producing job--producing the morning show for Kevin Matthews--a man that lampooned Eddie more than anyone. I know Kevin pretty well, and I like him a lot, but I can't even imagine what it would be like producing his show. A producer needs to get inside the host's head, and with all those voices inside there, that would be extremely difficult. How did you do it?

Mitch: Most people say that Kevin is one of the most talented people in radio, and after working closely with him I totally agree. He was smart and always thought about the radio show. It was a 24 hour job for him. Kevin would call me at all times of the day and night. The phone would ring and I'd hear: “Hey bud, I have an idea..Lets send Pugsley to Nashville to try and get kicked out of Graceland on Elvis’s birthday." Sure enough, the next week Pugs was in Nashville. Kevin was a thinker and a radio geek at the same time.

Rick: After working on Kevin's show, you transitioned into management. Describe how that came about.

Mitch: It was always my goal, so I worked toward that. I learned from two of the best, Larry Wert and Jimmy de Castro. They taught me how to work with talent, and more importantly, how you work talent. They also taught me you have to take care of talent. That’s an important part of the job. Over the years, I think I've accomplished that.

Rick: How would you describe your management style?

Mitch: Pretty simple, really. Honesty, integrity, smart radio sense, and try to keep all employees happy. Also, it's important to remember that you can always be fair, but sometimes you can’t always be even. By that I mean that what works for some employees might not work for others.

Rick: You're the program director at the Score right now, but you've also programmed the other sports station in town. Describe the differences between the two stations from your perspective.

Mitch: The best news is that the sports radio format in Chicago is huge. Between both sports stations in town there are well over 1.5 million listeners per week. That's really incredible if you think about it. Five years ago that was unheard of. Men especially love sports talk on the radio.

Chicago is a passionate town for their teams and that translate to the airwaves. Chicago also is a town that loves to talk Chicago sports, and that’s what gives the Score a huge advantage. Starting with Les Grobstein overnights, Mully and Hanley in AM drive, Dan McNeil and Matt Spiegel, Boers and Bernstein, and Laurence Holmes, plus a great bunch of guys like Jason Goff, Matt Abbatacola, Mark Grote, and Ben Finfer amongst others, I feel great about our line-up. The ratings show the audience does too.

As for who built this sports talk franchise, guys like Jeff Schwartz who along with Seth Mason, Ron Gleason, and Danny Lee were guys who helped pave the way for sports talk in Chicago and nationwide.

Rick: The ratings have swung back and forth between the two sports stations over the years, but currently the Score has got a pretty commanding overall lead. What do you think is the secret to the Score's recent success?

Mitch: Again, we keep it local. We focus on Chicago sports talk, and we present it with intelligent hosts doing smart topics. We brand the station as Chicago’s Sports Radio, because that’s truly what we are.

Rick: The White Sox seem to follow you from station to station--I know you were instrumental in bringing them aboard at the Score. How have you managed to establish such a close relationship with them, and what's the key to keeping the Sox happy?

Mitch: I do not know if they follow me, but I have had a nice business relationship with Jerry Reinsdorf going back 20 years. I think there is a trust and always a feel of a partnership between us. The Sox are a great asset to this station. (Photo: Mitch, Jerry Reinsdorf, and Paul Agasse).

Rick: Do your air personalities have to be careful about what they say about the Sox, or does anything go?

Mitch: We only have one rule. You can give your opinion, give your thoughts, give your passion, but do not get personal. So far so good.

Rick: A manager has got to be able to handle the talent, and you've had some real challenges over the years in sports talk. Which of the sports talkers you've worked with were the easiest to deal with, and which were the most difficult?

Mitch: All personalities are different in their individual ways. All have great talent and passion or they would not be on the air in Chicago. One of the shows I’m most of proud of is how Mike Mulligan and Brian Hanley have made the transition from writers to radio personalities. The ratings in AM Drive have never been higher here at the Score. The competition in AM drive is fierce and these guys along with a great EP, Dustin Rhoades have been tremendous.

Next, I feel Danny Mac (photo) has grown professionally and personally since he was here last, and he and Matt have been outstanding in mid-days. Boers and Bernstein the longest running sports talk show in Chicago continue to blow the ratings up in a huge way, and Laurence Holmes is one of the smartest people on the air in Chicago.

I could not be more proud of our starting line-up.

Patty Martin

2011-01-29T10:28:00.000-06:00

Patty Martin is the program director of WDRV (97.1 FM), The Drive.

RADIO-OGRAPHY

Started in college—WRSE, Elmhurst College (did it all-airshifts, PD, MD, Union Board rep, etc)

WXRT: 2 internships, first for Terri Hemmert (public affairs), then for Norm and Bob Gelms in programming (yep, Norm still hired me as MD after knowing me in my college days)

Q101: first paying gig…music research (Thanks to Hemmert for recommending me for the gig)

The Fox, WJKL, Elgin. First post-college on-air gig…nights. The station flipped to big band and I stayed doing 4p-10p. (Again, thanks to Hemmert for the recommendation)

WDEK: started out part time when it was still a cool eclectic rock station, and here’s where it gets interesting. I worked on 4 stations at 1 time. Weekdays I did WJKL + news on its AM (WRMN) then went to DEK to do overnights. Worked both stations Saturdays, slept on the couch at ‘DEK to sign on the “god squad” religious programming on their AM, WLBK Sundays at 7a. I was on-air somewhere 7 days a week, and any hour of the day, putting 700 miles a week on my car. After the “dues paying” initiation, I got full time nights and Asst Promotion Director at DEK. DEK flipped to Top 40 and I got dumped on overnights. My airshift was 7 hours, so I talked them into letting me play an album side at 3am so I could get some of my production done!

KMBY- Monterey- middays, pm drive, nights, morning news and Promotion Director and Music Director (not all at once)
KWAV-Monterey-daytime fill-in
KSJO-San Jose-nights and Music Director
KLOL-Houston-Music Director and weekends
WXRT-Music Director
WDRV-Program Director

Rick: You've been the program director at the Drive now for almost ten years. Take me back to that first phone call from Greg Solk. How did he convince you to come over from WXRT?

Patty: I’d known Greg for years, and every time he saw me he’d tell me he was going to hire me someday. Even back when I was living in CA and TX. I always figured he was blowing smoke! I think it was November ’00 that Greg called. The conversation went something like: How’re they treating you over there?. “Fine.” So you’re not interested in another opportunity then. “I might be…” (it was Bonneville after all, the best radio company to work for.) Greg said they had something in the works, he couldn’t give me any info about it but formatically it was right up my alley. After several meetings, he still wouldn’t clue me in and I just couldn’t make the leap without at least knowing the format. (I believe in trust, but I still lock my doors)

After the stunting, the Drive started the regular format with no jocks, and after hearing an hour of it, I called Greg and told him if he hadn’t found someone yet I was in. Fortunately for me, he hadn’t and I started a couple weeks later, in time for the launch with Bob Stroud

Rick: How has the station evolved musically since you arrived?

Patty: The Drive is an organic living breathing organism that evolves pretty constantly. When we launched, we needed to stand out. So we did that with a whisper (the IDs and much of the imaging was done with Nick Michaels whispering “The Drive”). We were very laid back and sounded very different than anything else on the dial. Plus, there was no one playing the bulk of the music we played.

As time has gone on, we’ve continually freshened our imaging, music and our approach. Successful companies need to evolve in order to thrive. Overall we sound much different than we did at the start, but it’s been a gradual process. These days, many other stations play a chunk of our music, but no one has the intangibles we have between the records. We maintain a deep respect for the music and the listeners in a way the others can’t touch.

Rick: When you look back on your decade of the Drive, what do you consider the highlights of that time?

Patty: Our run has been so amazingly consistent, it’s basically all a highlight! Some of the big feel-goods revolve around listener feedback. Be it in person at an event like the Drive Birthday concerts or via email, they have such genuine passion for what we do! Two others are ratings related…the initial response to the station and when PPM started. We got to see just how many people were actually tuning in. It’s quite a thrill, and quite humbling. When you realize so many people are connecting to what you do on a daily basis it makes you feel even more obligated to do your best for them.

Over the years we’ve developed a very special relationship with our listeners, especially through Drive Advisory Board. They’ve given us great ideas we’ve implemented on-air, and we thank them regularly with unexpected tokens of our appreciation…including a free birthday concert almost every year. It’s such fun to give out every ticket to Rosemont Theatre and see the diverse and passionate audience that embraces this music with us at our birthday celebrations.

Rick: You are blessed with a tremendous air-staff there. There probably isn't anyone on the staff that doesn't have at least twenty five years of radio experience. I'm guessing they don't require a ton of direction.

Patty: So true. It’s an amazingly gifted team, and I look at my role more as a coach. A great team is full of outstanding individual players, but championships aren’t won without coaching to bring that together. There’s always room for growth. The best are the best because they don’t stop trying to improve. Michael Jordan threw hundreds of pre-game free-throws. Players review game video. Our staff is expected to keep focused and give their all every break every day.

The triumvirate of Steve Downes, Bob Stroud (photo) and Bobby Skafish are the core. They have long histories of success, and they want that success to continue, which takes work. No one is allowed to phone it in at the Drive, even though just doing that they’d be better than most of the talent in town! Besides being an outstanding journalist, Kathy Voltmer has as strong a work ethic of any air talent I’ve encountered. Phil Manicki, Greg Easterling and our weekend team of Carla Leonardo, Steve Seaver, Allie Ellison, Marc Vernon, Don Nelson and Jim Foster all have impressive pedigrees, and the high quality of the talent in every hour of every day is something we’re very proud of. We’re also proud that we’re live and local 24/7. There’s never a moment when there’s not a live human being behind the console.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight the contributions of the staff behind the scenes. Full credit for the positive environment in the hallways goes to Jerry Schnacke. He’s now Market Manager, but was our GM for over half the Drive’s 10 years. He created an atmosphere where creativity thrives, and people enjoy coming to work. Drew Horowitz is responsible for giving us the room to develop and grow. We have the 2 most accomplished production wizards in Chicago, Tom Couch and Matt Bisbee, and the unsung hero is Paul Webber. He’s a secret weapon, and that’s all I’ll say about that!

Rick: I absolutely LOVED that history of rock and roll special you aired recently. I think I listened to six hours or more of it. To hear a locally produced and written special of that caliber was amazing. How did that come about?

Patty: It was a true group effort. The original idea came from Director of Creative Services, Tom Couch. We passed the overall idea to key airstaff members for thoughts on how it should be flushed out. Skafish came up with the winning idea, and we were off and running. We figured out the “chapters” then the music to include and it was off to production. Downes, Stroud and Skafish wrote their chapters, Tom and Matt Bisbee wrote the connecting pieces. Several months in the making…and we are so happy with how it came out. The audience response was off the charts. It's running again Saturday (1/29).

Rick: I know that working as a PD for Greg Solk is a challenge. He's very hands-on (he told me so himself when I interviewed last year), and in your case in particular, the Drive was his creation. How does your relationship with Greg work on a day-to-day basis?

Patty: He’s a challenge, but he should be, and he challenges me in a good way. I’m very self-motivating, but he sets the bar very high, and it’s invigorating to work to meet it. Greg (photo) travels a lot, so weeks can go by where we don’t see each other. When he’s on the road I send an occasional update email (nowhere near often enough, if you ask him). If I really need him, he’s reachable (and Fina Rodriguez is key in finding him!) When he’s in Chicago he spends 2 days a week at the Drive. That’s when we joke about him meddling, and doesn’t he have a plane to catch? The Drive is absolutely his baby, and I feel so fortunate that he’s entrusted its daily care and feeding to me! He has a definite vision for its evolution, and is the one who comes up with most of our unique features. I honestly feel that every radio station he touches is better because of his input, so I’m grateful for the attention he gives to the Drive.

Rick: Of course, you also worked for a strong personality at WXRT; Norm Winer. How would you compare and contrast Norm and Greg?

Patty: They both have an unparalleled passion for what they do. Both are unquestionably responsible for their stations vision. Both love sports analogies. Both have a tendency to nit-pick, but Norm gets the nod there! Greg is much better at time management…he’s never late for a meeting, Norm, not so much! (Greg does have Fina which gives him a distinct advantage, but even if Norm had a Fina, he’d still be late!) And Norm loves playing Christmas music…Greg, not so much!

Rick: WXRT is also a unique place. People that work there almost never leave. I've interviewed a few that have and they said Norm was quite upset with them (at least initially) when they left. How did he react when you told him you were leaving in 2001?

Patty: Norm (photo) was extremely gracious with me, especially considering the circumstances... I told him I might be taking the job the day before he left on vacation. The deal wasn’t done yet, but it would happen while he was gone and I didn’t want him to return to that surprise. I told him he was going to have to trust me, or he couldn’t go on vacation…(and that he really needed a vacation).

We agreed to keep it quiet and I’d call him as soon as it was done (ask Norm where he was when I called!). Norm got back to town on a Friday which was my cue to go into Harvey Wells’ office to tell him I was taking the Drive job, and was giving my 2 weeks notice…Harvey (as expected) told me that today was my last day (which was good since I was starting at the Drive in 3 days), and off I went. Sorry Harvey…I’m not sure we ever clued you in on that! John Farneda was in on it early on…I needed to train him because there was no way I’d leave them high and dry. Sorry Norm…not sure we ever clued you in on that!

Rick: What are some of your favorite memories from your time at WXRT?

Patty: Hands down: my private Buddy Guy concerts. My office was the “green room” for any visiting artist, so they’d use it to warm up. Every time he came in (which was often) Buddy would sit in a chair 5 feet away picking away on his guitar, regaling me with stories. People would naturally gather around my door, but Buddy would say this was my private concert and they could only come in if I said it was ok! Another funny time was when the roof caught fire the day Sting was coming in. The place stunk with smoke, so we ran around spraying Ozium and lighting scented candles. It was much better by the time he got there.

Rick: You're a Chicago girl (Elmhurst College, Immaculate Conception), so you're quite familiar with Chicago radio history. Who did you listen to when you were growing up?

Patty: I was the kid, to quote the Ramones, “with the covers pulled up over my head, radio playing so no one can see it.” It was a Mitsubishi transistor, as I recall, with a painful little ear bud. Early on it was WLS and WCFL, then in 8th grade, after graduating to a clock radio with FM, I stumbled on XRT, and my life changed overnight. Literally, because at the time XRT came on at midnight. I also enjoyed Triad Radio, WSDM, WDAI (pre-disco), WDHF, The WMET/WLUP rock wars, The Fox (out of Elgin, where I later worked).

Rick: The big news this past week was the sale of the Drive to Hubbard Broadcasting. Do you anticipate any changes coming to the Drive after the sale is final?

Patty: The principals of Bonneville are coming to Hubbard, and we anticipate a very smooth transition. If all goes well, it will hopefully close around mid-May! My big worry is I’ll be in New Orleans at Jazz Fest when that happens. I want to be here for the celebration.

Ron Riley

2011-01-22T07:26:00.000-06:00

Ron Riley was a part of the legendary WLS lineup in the 1960s. He also worked in Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Baltimore, but considers his time at WLS the pinnacle of his radio career. He later worked in television for more than twenty years.

Rick: I read somewhere that you got your start in radio by winning a contest when you were in high school.

Ron: I was one of those extroverted high school kids in northeastern Illinois, and WKRS-Waukegan had a contest to get a high school reporter to do high school news. I won that contest, and got to do it once a week, which was a real kick.

After college I got a full-time job there, doing newscasts and playing polka. My heroes at the time were from WOKY in Milwaukee. They had these great guys on the air before WLS played music, and I tried to sound like them. Well, one day I was doing a polka show and reading birthdays on the air, and the engineer said there was a guy on the phone that wanted to offer me a job. I thought it was a joke, so I told him to take a number.

After the show, I called the guy, and it was Jerry Bartell from Bartell Broadcasting. They owned a bunch of stations, and he said he’d like me to come to work for WAPL at Appleton. Are you kidding? And that was my first real morning show/disc jockey job. They had different names for everyone on the air, and the sales manager had just come back from a fishing trip on Lake Riley and he gave me the name Smiley Riley. Appleton was OK, but the whole time I was there, I wanted to go to Milwaukee. I was so excited when they finally offered me a stint as the all-night guy there. They paid me $90, and I said “You’re On!”

Rick: In Chicago, you’re best remembered for your days at WLS. Talk a little bit about your arrival at WLS, and the double-duty you were pulling during that first early stint.

Ron: I was doing the all night show in Milwaukee, but I was in the Reserves and they called me up for active duty. I had to go into the Navy for two years. When I came back from the service I got a job at KXOK in St. Louis. It was a rock station, and those were the stations that were really going to town at the time. But shortly after I started there they got a new program director, and you can probably guess the rest of the story. I was fired in three months.

I went to WJJD in Chicago on a part time basis—they were doing country music at the time. I knew Gene Taylor at WLS (photo), and so I called him to ask about a job. He said he didn’t have anything for me: “Sorry, Ron. I’m all set.” I got a part time offer in Cleveland, but it wasn’t set to start for awhile, so I called Milwaukee, and they asked me if I could do a few weeks of afternoon drive, as a fill-in. “Afternoon drive? Really? Sure.” I was living in Lincolnshire at the time, so it was a no-brainer. I had no sooner set the phone down when Gene Taylor called again, and asked me to fill in on the all-night show on WLS.

I said, “I just agreed to work in Milwaukee!” He told me that I should really think about it—it could open doors for me, and I decided—he was right. So I did both jobs for awhile. I would drive up to Milwaukee, do the afternoon show, drive back to Lincolnshire, sleep a few hours, and then go downtown and do the overnight show on WLS. Luckily, that only lasted a few weeks.

So I went to Cleveland and was enjoying my time there with a great team, and suddenly the Biondi thing blew up. He got blown out for getting into a fight about the number of commercials on his show. Clark Weber called me to tell me about it, and said, “Call Taylor.” So I did. I called him a lot, but he never took my call, and he never called me back. I figured I was out of the running, until Clark called again to say that they had narrowed down the list to two people and I was one of them. I kept calling Taylor’s secretary to leave phone numbers wherever I went (remember this was long before cell phones), and she was getting annoyed, but she did take down the numbers.

I’ll never forget...I was in the barber shop getting my haircut, when the barber said: “You've got a phone call.” It was Gene Taylor. He said “Ron, how would you like to work here?” I was very emotional when I got that call. I can still feel that emotion today when I talk about it. I sat down in the barber’s chair and tears started rolling down my face. The barber asked me if my mother had died or something.

I knew this was my big break. I just had no idea how big of a break it was. None of us knew at the time what an impact we were going to have on people. At one point during my WLS time, I had two secretaries answering all of my mail, because that’s how much of it was coming in from all over the country. The station booked us to do these record hops all over the place. Biondi and Clark would fly to their record hops. I wouldn’t go further than Kokomo, but I still did a ton of them. It’s gratifying even today to see that we impacted so many people. One time a girl in Minnesota sent me six notebooks that were filled with notes about all of my shows, what I talked about, what records I played. It was unbelievable. (Photo: The WLS staff at the time, Ron is in the lower right hand corner)

Rick: You were there for a pretty exciting time in music history; the dawning of the British Invasion. You even got the chance to interview the Beatles.

Ron: That’s true. Art Roberts and I were more tuned into the younger demos at night, and we climbed onto every bandwagon that came along. The people that ran the station had the insight to leave us alone and let us do what we thought was right. We developed our own character within the format, but we were pretty free. If we saw a trend, we could jump on it, and they would back us. The Beatles came on the scene, and the station got the record company to back us, and we got to be the station at their concert at Comiskey Park. They took a silver dollar survey and drew long hair on us, and I became “Ringo Ron.”

Rick: What were the Beatles like?

Ron: They were young kids, and they weren’t real sophisticated yet. They were way over the top. Everything was a big joke to them. They were very distracted. Art Roberts and I did a phone interview with them. They were on the set of A Hard Days Night at the time. They just passed the phone around to each other. “Would you like to speak to John?” Then Paul, etc. We recorded it in the afternoon, and played it back on our respective shows.

Rick: Being a part of WLS in the 1960s, you probably had more than a few memorable brushes with rock and roll greatness. Can you recall any others?

Ron: The record guys were calling all the time, saying they’d bring this band or that band up to my show. I was told by my program director to do what I wanted as far as the interviews went, as long as I didn’t talk too much. I had the Hollies on all the time. I still talk to Graham Nash occasionally. I still talk to Chad from Chad and Jeremy. He lives in Idaho now. We had Herman’s Hermits on. The Hollies would even take calls from the kids. In my mind, we were just putting another dimension to the music by exposing their personalities. That really worked out neat. I remember one time I was talking to Graham Nash, and someone called to say “Mama Cass is here,” and Nash said “Oh god, she’s following me around the country. Hide me.” She arrived with a rose between her teeth. We talked for awhile, and she kept asking about Graham Nash, and I pretended like I had no idea where he was.

Rick: Chicago in the 1960s was the center of the universe for awhile. Hugh Heffner was living in the Playboy Mansion on the north side, making headlines around the world. In 1968, the Democratic Convention came to Chicago, and everybody remembers those police riots in Grant Park. And throughout it all, the soundtrack for the decade was the rock and roll played by WLS. What was it like to have a front row seat to that time?

Ron: You know, it’s funny, all of that was going on in Chicago, but I was really so dedicated to what we were doing and so into it, that I didn’t really look around and take note of what was going on around us. When the riots were going on, Chuck Buell said to me, “I’m going to go check it out,” and he went out there and a cop kicked him, so he came back in pretty fast. I said “What did you expect?”

I guess I never really thought about it. I know that sounds strange now, but it’s true.

Rick: When I talk to radio guys about you, the thing they always mention is the “feud” you had with Clark Weber. When I interviewed Clark a few years ago, I asked him about you, and he joked: “He lives in a radio announcers home for the lame.” You wrote a blurb for his book recently and took a shot at him. The feud continues. How did that all start?

Ron: I was the big Beatles supporter on the staff, and Clark took the other side of the Beatles argument. He was on the side of the other bands—Beatles competitors like the Dave Clark 5. I was called Ringo Ron, so he began to call me Ringworm Ron, just to rip me. (Photo: Clark and Ron in the studio)

I used to take calls from these kids, and had them take shots at Clark on tape, saying things like “Down with Weber,” and I’d intersperse this into the show. I’d pretend to call him at home at night, (it was pre-recorded), and when he answered I’d make a loud trumpet noise, and he’d get all mad, “Riley, don’t you know I have to get up early!”

It was all this silly stuff. I had this character Bruce Lovely, and at Halloween, Bruce would drop pumpkins on Weber. It was just good clean dumb fun. This was ’65 or so. I’ve done twenty-plus years of radio and twenty plus years of television, and this is something I still hear about. A woman came up to me in the supermarket in Maryland just recently and said “Down with Weber!” Isn’t that something?

Rick: While that feud with Clark wasn’t real, the competition between WLS and WCFL was real—and it was fierce. Describe if you can how you perceived that competition, and how you reacted to it.

Ron: I didn’t pay any attention to that. Ron Britain was opposite me, but I made it a point not to listen to the competition and I didn’t really want to hear what they were doing—At least that’s the way I looked at it.

Sure, we were envious that they had Orkin, and we’d hear from the kids about the great stuff that Orkin did, but we weren’t used to sharing the audience. The kids started switching back and forth between the stations, and that changed what it was like behind the scenes at WLS. The fear was that we would lose money to WCFL, and that’s why we brought in a new program director. We did the format change, and went to this fake Drake format, and that wasn’t us--that stifled us a bit. We weren’t quite as innovative anymore after that. I couldn’t change. I did try, but I didn’t like it. And eventually they found a reason to let me go.

Rick: A friend of mine collects radio station records—that is, the promotional records that radio stations used to release. One of them in his collection is a record that you and Clark Weber did for the soldiers in Vietnam. How did that come about?

Ron: We had no real game plan. My whole life was an ad lib, but that record really was ad-libbed. We used to get lots of requests from servicemen in Vietnam for airchecks of our station, and we were sending out all these reel-to-reel tapes. It was getting a little pricey, so Gene Taylor said to Clark and me—“Go in there and do a show, and we’ll press a record.” So we played some hit records, a few beer commercials, and tripped over each other trying to get in some one liners. Mostly we were just putting each other down, kidding around. Occasionally one of those records will show up on eBay. I think I still have one around my house somewhere.

Rick: Another one of the memorable things from your WLS time was your connection to the show “Batman.” That was huge at the time.

Ron: I used to give updates on the air to people listening on the radio. The PR department came up with this idea of the Batman club, and got a Batman suit from Hollywood, and we did a promo at Channel 7. We made up a fan club card, and got bumper stickers, and it was way bigger than any of us thought it would be. Someone sent me a picture of a tank in Vietnam with my bumper sticker on it. I remember when we started, Taylor asked me how many bumper stickers they needed to print up, and I guessed we’d need about 5000, but it ended up being about 100,000 or so.

I even got a cameo on the show. ABC set it up. It was the episode called “Ice Spy” and I flew out to Hollywood with my brother. I had a trailer and a costume and eight words in the script. I was playing an usher in an ice rink, and walked into the box Adam Ward was sitting, and I said, “Mr. Wayne you have a phone call.” I think it’s on YouTube. People send it to me occasionally.

Rick: After you left Chicago in 1971, you moved east, landing in Baltimore. You eventually had an entire second career as a television weather man. How did that come about?

Ron: I was a program director in Baltimore—we were one of the last AM Rockers there, and I could see the writing on the wall—it wasn’t going to last much longer. One day I got a call from the program director at Channel 11 in Baltimore. He said he was a fan of mine from back in the WLS days, and he was doing a local show called “Bowling for Dollars,” and he wondered if I would be willing to audition for it. I hadn’t really done any television other than a few guest spots, but I went to the audition, and I got the job. So for awhile I was doing both the program director job, and the “Bowling for Dollars” show. I did that for four or five years.

About that time Plough Incorporated, the owner of the station, brought in a consultant that knew less than we did, and I figured, that’s it. It’s time to move on before they move me on. They changed over to country, and I was very fortunate that Channel 13 called me. Another former WLS fan was running it, and he asked me if I would consider doing the weather. I had never done anything like that before, but I figured I’d give it a try. Spencer Christian was their weatherman, and I filled in for him. There wasn’t a huge learning curve at the time. We didn’t have all the computer graphics, we were using refrigerator magnets. (laughs). But I kept that up and kept working there, as a weekend and fill in guy.

Oprah worked at that station too. When she got the offer from Chicago she pulled me aside and said “Ron, you’re from Chicago. I got this offer to do a talk show there. Do you think I should take it? Is it a good move?” I was thinking to myself, oh boy, she’s going to get killed in Chicago, so I said “Everybody loves you here. You don’t want to go to Chicago.” Good thing she didn’t listen to me.

I went over to Channel 2 after that, and then I got a call from another former WLS fan, a guy in Washington. He hired me to work at Newschannel 8, an all-news cable station, and that’s when I got my first full time morning television show. I never did get my meteorology degree, but I did get a National Weather Service seal, and I did learn quite a bit about the weather. Although, in all honesty, I was more of a personality, and less of a “metereologist” per se. But I was there for 16 years. I just retired two years ago, and I now I do part-time radio work for WTOP, delivering weather forecasts to the all-news station. I get to work out of my house, which I love.

Rick: Do you ever make it back to Chicago any more? Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?

Ron: Absolutely. I come to Chicago a couple of times a year. We have a lot of relations in town. I was back in August and had lunch with Bernie Allen and Clark Weber, and a couple of record guys, and it was great. I love Chicago.

Ron Santo

2010-12-03T08:57:00.000-06:00

Sad, sad news. Ron Santo passed away at the age of 70. Full details are here.

He never got to see the Cubs win the World Series. He never made it into the Hall of Fame. And there haven't been many people in the world that more desperately wanted both. That's the first thing I thought of when I heard he died this morning. I'm sure most Cub fans thought the same thing. That, and it's not going to be the same listening to the Cubs on the radio without him.

I met Ron once about ten years ago and he was very nice to me, but I don't claim to know him at all. I did, however, talk to a few people the past few years that were among his closest friends.

*****

One of them was his broadcast partner Pat Hughes.

We discussed Ron...

Rick: Your chemistry with Ron Santo is really amazing—it’s like yin and yang. He is pure emotion—and you are the voice of reason. I’m sure that’s part of the secret to your chemistry, but there’s obviously more to it than that. It seems like you also have real affection for each other. Would that be fair to say?

Pat: Yes it would. We have amazing harmony, very few bad vibes. Forget baseball, he’s just an extraordinary human being. I’ve never met anyone like him. Beyond baseball, he’s an icon for diabetics everywhere. What he’s been through! What he’s accomplished! Ron’s an inspiration.

Rick: Have the two of you ever had a fight?

Pat: (laughs) Hell no. Anytime you work together as long as we have, you have a few minor little disagreements, but nothing bad. Never.

Rick: I used to love when you did the attendance game with him and you beat him every day. Even for something like that—his emotions were on his sleeve—he would get so upset. I know that’s what Cub fans love about him. As much as it hurts us to lose, we can hear in his voice that it hurts him even more. Do you ever worry that the strain of that is having a detrimental effect on his health?

Pat: I used to, but not anymore. The man is 70 years old. He’s had diabetes, and cancer. He’s lost his bladder and his legs. He’s gone through everything you can imagine. Why would you worry anymore? He’s like a superman, a man of steel. Plus, I think it’s better for him to get it out of his system, than to let it build up inside him.

*****

Todd Manley was the WGN production director for years, and he beautifully captured the spirit of the Pat & Ron broadcasts in his promos...
PAT AND RON PROMO--A Steamy Fan
PAT AND RON PROMO--The Marrying Type
PAT AND RON PROMO--Snot
PAT & RON PROMO--I Dream of Jeannie

******

I also interviewed Andy Masur, his former colleague at WGN, now the play by play man of the San Diego Padres...

Rick: The years you were at WGN were a roller coaster ride for Ron Santo; from the lows of his health problems and the Hall of Fame snubs, to the highs of the day his number was retired, and the Cubs 2003 playoff run. Was that time an emotional time for the rest of you in the booth too?

Andy: First off, I must say, that Ron Santo is one of my heroes. Not for his play on the field, but for his work and passion off the field. He was a great player, no doubt, but he’s an even better person. Ron is one of the toughest human beings I have ever met. With all the physical problems he’s encountered over the past 8 or so years, I never once heard the man utter the words “why me?” Never. That’s a quality few people have. I think about Ron every day.

As far as 2003 goes, I’m just now finding that I’m able to talk about the year and how it started and finished. Ron’s Hall of Fame snub in February of that year was devastating to all of us in the booth. He really felt that it was his year. It didn’t happen. The Cubs played remarkable baseball that season, and I’ll never forget after they clinched the division with the double header sweep of the Pirates, how many of the players I interviewed in the clubhouse, were saying “this is for Ron”.

I remember the next day, when Ron’s number was retired, looking at the sign on the fence behind the bleachers in left field “Ron Santo a perfect 10” and thinking, this has to make him feel 100 feet tall. It did. An honor well deserved.

The shame of it all though, was Ron didn’t get to enjoy the playoffs in the booth. Another health scare kept him out, and all of us in the booth, from Pat to Matt Boltz, were devastated that Ron wouldn’t be with us. I’ll never forget Pat’s call at the end of the Braves series, “Ron Santo this one’s for you!”, I still seriously get choked up just thinking about it.

So to answer your original question, yes, it was a great year, but a very emotional year for all of us.

******

A few years ago the Associated Press did a story about Ron, and they interviewed me as part of the piece, to get a fan's perspective. Here's a portion of that article...

People around Santo have gone to him and suggested he "detach himself a little bit," said Bob Brenly, a former broadcast partner who is now an analyst for the team's television broadcasts. "But it's not in him," he said.

Even fans have taken notice.

"When he's not on the broadcast I'm actually worried about his health," said Rick Kaempfer, a lifelong fan who has a website (www.justonebadcentury.com) devoted to the Cubs.

Santo also has something that fans like Kaempfer value above everything else. Hope. No matter what happens, no matter how many years and how many ways the Cubs fail, Santo does not give up hope.

"I heard him talking about how the Rockies won 21 in a row a few years ago (at one stretch they won 21 of 22 games), hanging his hat on that, saying it could be us," Kaempfer said.

It is Santo's devotion to his team and his optimism that he will see the Cubs win a World Series title that helps explain the attachment that fans like Kaempfer have to Santo.

"It unifies Cub Fans," Kaempfer said.

******

What kind of a man was he to Cub fans? This story about meeting Ron in the summer of 1963 captures it about as well as any story I've ever heard...

******

As for me, I remember watching this game from the summer of 1970. The game he hit three home runs. Lou Boudreau and Vince Lloyd had the call.

That's the way I'm going to remember him.

Rest in Peace, Ron Santo. Cub nation already misses you. To be honest, I'm getting a little choked up just thinking about it.

Ed Tyll

2010-11-20T08:26:00.002-06:00

Ed Tyll was part of the legendary Loop AM 1000 lineup in the early 90s. He is now hosting middays 12-3 (ET) in Orlando at WEUS 810 AM.

Rick: I was telling a friend of mine that I was going to be talking to you today and he sang: “Ed Tyll, you may not like what he says, Ed Tyll. But he’ll say it anyway, Ed Tyll.” Now that song is stuck in my head. You don’t still use that jingle do you?

Ed: (laughing) I’m still using it. I have seventeen other jingles, but that exact version—which is the original-- is still in the rotation, one of out every 18 times that will song play when I come out of a commercial break.

Rick: In Chicago, people remember you from your time at the Loop. I regularly get e-mails from people asking me to track you down. Now that I have, why don’t you tell everybody what you’re up to these days?

Ed: I still do a radio show, and it’s really the same one I’ve been doing since kindergarten. I love to tell the sensational tales of reality and how great and disastrous it is, and then see and hear how people respond to that.

I’m based in New York City, which is my home town, but the station I’m on is in Orlando. In a world of recession and catastrophic destruction in the field that I love, out of nowhere, some guys that used to love my show in Orlando—which is where I went first after Chicago, called up and said: “We own this radio station now, and we want to make it an authentic talk station. You can do the show from your apartment. We’ll have producers and board ops down here in Florida, and it will just be like you’re in another room from them.”

Plus they had these syndication plans with my show and another personality that was big in the market after I left. They said to me: “If I grab the two of you and have you back to back, we can eventually syndicate both of you (both of us have been syndicated in the past). We’re a showcase market here in the tourism capital of America.”

And that sounded pretty good to me—a non-corporately owned father-son operation.

I went on the air in October, and they flew me down there for a few days to do the show there, and make a few appearances, and reacquaint myself with the market and the listeners there. It’s now in it’s sixth week. I’m on every day from noon to three Eastern Time. I haven’t had this much fun since the 90s.

Rick: You’ve always done what I considered to be a fairly serious talk show. That is, you discussed serious topics in a serious way. It may have been controversial, but it was never really wacky. But you’ve obviously got another side to you. Since you left Chicago you’ve become a stand up comedian. How did that come about?

Ed: The comics wanted to know that too. My original idea of big time entertainment in my childhood came from those Bill Cosby albums. You don’t go out of the house in New York in the winter--you stay home, and if you’ve got a few Cosby albums and a few friends to come over and listen to them while you’re mom makes you hot chocolate, that’s what you do.

After you fall in love with a business like I did with broadcasting, and then that business changes as much as it did, you feel like your wife has cheated on you. And I'd run into these stand up comics like Richard Jeni, and they still had total freedom to say what they were thinking. They’d say, well, I’d love to say this on Leno or Letterman and I can’t, but when I’m on stage in a club, I can say whatever I want. I have total freedom. And that really appealed to me. That’s where I found my niche. I was never a Henny Youngman-type of joke teller. I never submitted jokes to comedy services or anything like that. I created this one-man show.

Rick: How would you describe your comedy act?

Ed: It’s called “Sacred Cowburger,” and it’s a sociological shredding to laugh by.

Rick: Can we see any examples of this on YouTube or anything.

Ed: Yes, you can on YouTube, but I must confess that’s not current material, and it’s definitely not the whole show. I’m not big on this Youtube/Facebook lifestyle. I do participate, I suppose, but it’s not like I’m constantly doing Facebook updates. I’m not even sure why I’m on there. Well, let me take that back. I do know why. My girlfriend got me on there.

Rick: Back in the Loop days I would have classified you as a conservative—I remember you being a big Ronald Reagan fan. So I was a little surprised when I was researching your career to see that Reason Magazine called you a “left liberal” talk show host. Have your politics changed over the years, or has the left-right paradigm moved that far to the right in the last twenty years?

Ed: Here’s a confession. I’m still excited about that crazy little girl from Alaska. I was thrilled that she excited all these woman last year at the convention. Now I know she’s crazy, but I do sense that she’s authentic, and the support for her is real. I’m not sure where exactly you’d place me on the left-right paradigm. I suppose conservative would be accurate, but Republican definitely wouldn’t be.

As for Reason Magazine, I don’t know where they came up with that, other than the fact that on any given day they might have tuned in to something that didn’t fit the exact dogma. For instance, I’ll do a tirade on the scandal of America’s homeless, which certainly isn’t the typical conservative topic. I was raised Catholic. That’s part of who I am.

Rick: Do you think the fact that you’re a little difficult to classify is one of the reasons you’ve moved around so much during this political talk radio era?

Ed: That is exactly correct. You have really put your finger on it there. There is a stubborn independence about me that resists easy classification, and we are definitely living in an oversimplified era.

I’m definitely not swept up in the hyper partisanship, and you know why? I don’t think most people are like that. We’re not that easy to classify. Nobody believes, and nobody should believe, every single thing that a political party stands for. That’s ridiculous. My show is more reflective of reality and I resist the caricaturing of people that has been dominating talk radio the last ten years. When people ask me about my brand, I say my brand is four letters—T-Y-L-L.

Rick: I know you’ve always had some pretty strong opinions about freedom of speech and censorship. You’ve probably even lost a job or two along the way for something you’ve said. What do you think about some of the recent stories in the news; Juan Williams, Keith Olbermann, Rick Sanchez, or even Don Imus?

Ed: It’s very troubling. It’s an awfully dark cloud hanging over our industry. Calling Williams a bigot for what he said? You’ve got to be kidding.

Suspending Keith Olbermann for what? You’ve got to be kidding me. I'll tell you what happened there—somebody in a position of authority wanted to put a thumb on him, to better control what he said, to shut him up. Shameful!

Our founding fathers talked about an unmolested public dialog being a crucial component of our democracy. What would you like us all to be? A soft marshmallow? It’s contrary to Darwin and our greatest moments as a nation. The marketplace of ideas needs to be unrestrained.

Rick: Since this is called Chicago Radio Spotlight, I do need to ask you about your time here in Chicago. You were part of that incredible AM Loop lineup in the 90s, doing nights, and overnights. Do you have any favorite memories of your Chicago days?

Ed: Oh God, I do. Working at the Loop was like working on radio's Mt. Rushmore. I even got to interact with Johnny B, because I stayed late after my show working on stuff, and so I was still there when the caravan would arrive. Johnny B introduced me to Gary Busey once. After my first show on the air at the Loop, Steve and Garry crank-called me out of bed the following morning—they got a big kick out of that. I was in the station during the day for meetings and what have you, and would run into Kevin Matthews. He and Shemp and Jim Shorts, that show was just magical.

These are the flashbacks, and positive ones too. What about Chet Coppock! (Photo) Chet’s intro to my show used to be three minutes long. It was a riot. He would wind up this huge buildup by calling me BIG ED TYLL, and in would walk in this 5’6, 115 pound guy.

Working on the Loop was like being on tour with all famous guys, all the time. I do remember one night when all of us got together for an event on the same night, and it was awesome. They did a poster for Budweiser with all of us, and we came out on stage at the same time. That was something.

Rick: When you were doing overnights on the AM, I had my fair share of overnight shifts on the FM, and heard quite a few of your shows. I remember being amazed that you would just sort of crack the microphone, and pontificate without notes for like 45 minutes. I’m guessing you did your fair share of preparation before you came into the station, but how in the world did you manage to do that?

Ed: (laughs) Yeah, I still do that. I still don’t use notes. Whenever I do the stand up show and I have the right audience, and they’ve let me run over, I’ve been known to do as much as two hours and 45 minutes with a live audience. The best radio comes without notes, channeling what is going on in your head, and from your heart--just spilling it on the air.

Rick: Do I remember also, and forgive me if my memory is hazy here, but didn’t you also briefly work at another station in Chicago?

Ed: At the end, after the Loop gig ended, in the summer of 1993, I was surveying what was next, and I had become close to Scott Loftus, and he said I could come on his station, and so I did. I got in like four or five months there. That was fun too. It was out in the suburbs somewhere.

Rick: You’ve worked everywhere now. Probably more places than anyone else I’ve ever interviewed. I think you have a pretty unique perspective on Chicago. What are the pros and cons of working in this city?

Ed: The cons are minimal because I’m biased to big sprawling cities. I love clean, and Chicago is clean. I love polite, and Chicago is polite. I love well read, and Chicago is well read. I love people that are protective of their identity and culture, I’m very pro-provincial, and I love that about Chicago. I still get excited every time I see the city on TV-- the Water Tower, the Wrigley building, the Hancock (Hey I worked there!), the Drake. I lived on Wabash.

Best of all, Chicago has small town values in a big city. I hope to come out there shortly after the new year with the comedy show, and don’t be surprised if I pop up on an affiliate there in the near future too.

Jim Johnson

2010-11-13T09:23:00.004-06:00

Jim Johnson is the afternoon news anchor on WLS Radio's Roe Conn show. He has been with the radio station in one role or another since 1968.

Rick: If you don't mind, I'd like start at the very beginning of your WLS career. You started in 1968, which couldn't have been a more exciting news year in Chicago. What was it like reporting the news during that tumultuous era?

Jim: 1968 was a life changing year for me. Not only had I just started as a newswriter-editor at WLS...but some of the biggest stories of my career happened soon after I arrived. Martin Luther King was assassinated (followed by the west side riots in Chicago.) Bobby Kennedy was shot. The Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago and the anti-war protests and riots broke out.

Although I was a rookie reporter, the new news director at WLS, Bob Benson, decided I should become a street reporter and cover these events. Little did I know that these stories in my first year were some of the biggest stories ever. I was only 23. In addition to filing reports for WLS, the ABC network began using my reports on a regular basis. I was used as a fill in network anchor on ABC network newscasts. I covered the clash between anti war protesters and the police at the corner of Balbo and Michigan. It was pretty "heady" stuff for someone my age.

Rick: WLS was a music station then with a news room much bigger than the newsroom you have now in this news/talk format. Describe the size and scope of that newsroom and how the labor was divided amongst you.

Jim: Yes the newsroom grew to a point where we had up to 17 people including reporters, news anchors, and editors. (Photo: WLS Newsroom, 1979, L-R, News Director Bud Miller, Catherine Johns, Jeff Hendricks, Jim Johnson, writer Ira Johnson, Linda Marshall, Harley Carnes, Karen Hand, producer Lon Dyson....and Bob Conway in the clock.)

I was a newswriter and editor who doubled as an on air reporter (belonging to two unions for awhile). I later became a full-time on air reporter and anchor covering city hall and breaking news and also filling in for various news anchors on vacation. I was also the “assignment editor" for awhile. I did not like being a so-called boss and eventually got rid of that chore.

In the late 1970s I also worked as a weekend on air reporter for WLS TV. The late Sixties and Seventies were like a scene from the TV show Mad Men....three martini lunches with the sales department and the older city hall reporters were quite common. And the Women's Lib movement had barely begun back then. There were more than a couple scandals involving on air people and young women who worked as assistants and secretaries. (My lips are sealed)

Rick: Throughout the 1970s, you worked with some of the biggest stars in Chicago radio history. Who were some of your favorites during that time?

Jim: Well, of course, Larry Lujack, John Landecker, Fred Winston, and Bob Sirott jump to mind.

Rick: You were a big part of the Steve & Garry show in the 80s, and that was probably one of the most stressful and dramatic times of your time at WLS. The struggle between management and talent was very real. You were probably caught in the middle of it. What was it like from your perspective at that time?

Jim: These were wild times. I was a big listener and fan of Steve and Garry and was happy to fill in for Maggie Brock (their news-person at the time) when she was on vacation, or filling in for Catherine Johns on the am side. At first Steve was not thrilled with my being thrust into their show, but as time when on we got along fine and I eventually became their full time news guy. It was a blast!

I was at ring side for some of the most interesting clashes between on air talent and management in history. Steve and Garry were eventually forced to move to the AM side of WLS which they at first resisted. As it turns out, they had huge ratings on AM and even Steve admitted that "huge transmitter" put him into a lot of homes throughout the Midwest. After a year though, their contract was up and WLS lost them to the Loop ...and I stayed at WLS.

Rick: In 1989 when I was producing Steve & Garry's show at the Loop, they were celebrating their tenth anniversary together. One of the things I did was contact people that used to work with them, and have them call in as a surprise, and you were one of the people that called in. I remember that so vividly because you were actually on-the-air at WLS during that same time slot, and just walked into another room to call the competition. Do you remember that, and did you ever get in trouble for it?

Jim: Of course I remember that...I thought it was fun to call in ... I even remember what I said when you put me through (without telling them who it was). I said "Hey guys let's roll out the Canarble wagon."

Actually as I recall, the bosses didn't mind. Drew Hayes was our program director and is back now. He had a flair for the dramatic and knew it was all good publicity. I'm having a blast with Drew back at the station. Drew and Michael Damsky (our general manager) have brought a breath of fresh air to the station…and made some changes for the better. WLS is thriving again.

Rick: During the Roe and Garry years, you worked with Garry for the second time. There was obviously a comfort level there between you two, and that show had a great run, but when it blew up it must have been extremely awkward and difficult for you. What was going through your mind during that era?

Jim: Everyone involved probably has their own version of what happened. When Drew Hayes (in a brilliant move) brought Garry back to WLS to join Roe as a co-host I thought it was a pairing made in heaven. On the first day Garry started joking about the Canarble wagon and we were off and running. (Photo: Garry, Roe, Jim, and the Canarble Wagon)

Roe and Garry clicked from the beginning and once again I came along for a great ride. Then a few years later when Garry turned down a huge final contract offer from WLS, I was shocked and sad...but life goes on.

Rick: There have obviously been quite a few changes on the show since that time, but the one constant other than Roe himself, has been you. He obviously thinks very highly of you. How would you describe your relationship with Roe?

Jim: Its as good as it gets. Roe (photo) and I have worked closely together for more than 20 years. In addition, we are close friends, and have shared countless professional and personal family moments. Sometimes during the show I swear we can read each others minds! If I get off track ..he lets me know with a glance. I honestly cannot remember ever having a serious disagreement. I’m free to chime in when I want, but most of the time I try to stay out of the way and let Roe and Roeper do their thing. One thing we all agree on is that nothing (and I mean nothing!) said on the show is taken personally.

Rick: What are some of your favorite moments from the Roe show years?

Jim: Oh my god…you’re asking me to remember highlights from what has been a feast of fascinating guests, current events and wacky topics? Not possible. We have had a front-row seat to history and all the compelling events in the past 20 years…including the 9-11 attacks. News-makers, politicians, top show business personalities and gangsters have been in the WLS studios with us. I think some were either drunk or on drugs.

The dozens of “live shows” we have done outside the studio in various locations around the world have been and continue to be a blast. If I ever write a “tell all” book I will have to go into a witness protection program .

Rick: How do you think the latest lineup of the show, with Richard Roeper, is gelling?

Jim: This was another great move by our bosses Michael Damsky and Drew Hayes! (Photo) Can I suck up any more than I have already? He has fit in beautifully. He brings a lot to the table with his own huge resume (columnist, radio and TV host, and author to name a few things). I have listened to a lot of radio and TV in my lifetime and I have never seen anyone fit in to a new show more smoothly and naturally. Simply put, “he gets it!"

Rick: The news business is really in the Johnson blood, isn't it? Your dad was a newsman, you're a newsman, and your daughter is a television news reporter too. What is it about this business and your family?

Jim: No doubt about it I was blessed to be raised in a family with a great Mom and Dad, although their marriage was a constant storm due to my Dad’s drinking and occasional womanizing. Despite their stormy marriage I always knew I had their unconditional love.

My father. He was a brilliant writer and newsman who also loved the outdoors. He started in Chicago at the City News bureau, which was supported by the newspapers in the early days. He eventually went to the Sun Times as a city hall reporter and outdoor sports columnist (odd combination but he loved both).

He quit his good job at the paper and dragged his family up to the North Woods where he and my mother built and operated a hunting and fishing lodge for many years. The politicians, judges, policemen, and firefighters that he covered vacationed there. (Including the original Mayor Daley and his young sons including one who also became mayor). John Callaway the wonderful reporter and TV host here in Chicago was friends with my father and also came up to fish and relax. I felt like I was living in an Earnest Hemmingway novel and loved almost every minute of it.

I assume my daughter Alexis and I inherited my Dad’s journalism blood and my daughter also got my wife’s looks and common sense.

Rick: As someone that has been around the news business literally his entire life, what are your thoughts about the future of news?

Jim: Actually in the past couple of years the business has changed dramatically. Of all the things I’ve witnesses in the business, the explosion of information on-line and the all-news channels have really changed things. Twitter and Facebook are not only social networks, people use them to break news! They didn’t even exist until recently. How did that happen?

I actually like the changes…there’s more out there than ever before. As I tell broadcasting interns, ”Life is change…either get with it our get out of the way.”

Rick: What else do you tell them?

Jim: Try not to let a bad boss drive you out of a job you really like. He who speaks first in a meeting usually loses. Be patient and you will get most of what you want. I’ve been up, I’ve been down, and up is better!

Brian "Whip" Paruch

2010-11-06T10:04:00.001-05:00

Brian Paruch is the morning news anchor on the Eric and Kathy show on WTMX. Since he started in Chicago radio he's been also been known as "Whipping Boy" or "Whip" (which is what Eric and Kathy call him on the air).

Rick: First of all, congrats on the new gig. You must be pretty excited stepping into a ratings powerhouse like this.

Whip: When I started part-time at the Mix in '06, it did cross my mind that this was a job for which I'd be a good fit, especially once I started filling in (either for traffic or news) occasionally. But I thought Barry Keefe would be here forever, so I didn't really allow myself to think about how great it would be to join the show; then when Barry left and Mark joined right away, I REALLY didn't think it would ever be in the cards. So when they approached me with it, I was extremely excited and surprised.

Rick: I know you filled in for Mark Suppelsa when he was on vacation, so you already had a relationship with the morning show gang, but it's never exactly the same thing as doing it full time. How has it gone, and how are you adjusting to returning to the grueling morning show schedule?

Whip: It's gone fine so far, as far as I can tell. I'm having a great time, and they haven't kicked me out or told me to change anything, and those, I think, have to be good signs. The schedule of waking up that early is bringing back some memories...but it's not as though it's a strange concept to me, so it's not too bad. Plus, when I was working here and at the Score, there would be a lot of days when I would pull double shifts...so this is very much a bright side, and could even be considered easy, compared to that.

Rick: You've obviously done the news before, but you're following in the footsteps of some pretty heavy hitters there; Mark Suppelsa is obviously a household name in Chicago after his many years anchoring television newscasts, and Barry Keefe before him was the morning newsman for thirty years. How is your approach similar or different than those two guys?

Whip: I think I'm different than both of those guys, in that my credibility is about a three on a scale of one to ten, whereas they'd both be considered tens. I really just try to write the news the way I speak, and try to think in terms of what our listeners would care about when I select stories. When there's an obvious lead story, like the elections, for example, I'll do that; but on other days, I'm not afraid to lead with, say, Charlie Sheen....while giving the "important" stuff its due, too.

Rick: I really enjoyed listening to you when you were doing sports talk on the Score--I could tell that you had a real passion for and knowledge of the subject matter. You've been doing sports since your days at WPGU at the University of Illinois (yup, another plug for the ol' Alma Mater). Was that difficult for you to give up? And what will you miss the most about doing sports talk?

Whip: It was a little difficult to give up sports, because I'd always wanted to do it before I did it. And it most certainly was fun, most of the time. The only thing I didn't like about sports talk was that sometimes there was some flat-out meanness and/or craziness from listeners, and while I know intellectually that thick skin is a must in this business, sometimes some of the Score callers would actually get to me to the point that I would be driving home, having like a pretend argument with Jim from Evergreen Park in my mind. I know that's not good. I will miss, though, the ability to sit there and talk about the Cubs and/or White Sox for hours straight, especially when things are going well.

Rick: I've known people throughout the years that get stuck with a nickname early in their careers. Some embrace it, some grow to loathe it. You've been known as "The Whipping Boy" or "Whip" since shortly after you started in Chicago radio. How do you feel about it now all these years later?

Whip: I have always thought that the "Whipping Boy" thing was a very distinctive identifier, something that really stuck in people's minds. In other words, a positive.

Rick: Where did you get that nickname?

Whip: Bill Gamble (photo) actually gave me "Whipping Boy," which, from what I understand, was a name that a couple of other guys on alternative stations in different cities at that time (1994) had. I think Heidi Hess was the first person to shorten that to "Whip," then Wendy and Bill changed it to Brian the Whipping Boy, because Bill Leff refused to call me by the wacky radio name.

Rick: Wendy and Bill actually did a show that was similar to Eric and Kathy's show. Has that experience helped you make the transition to this new job?

Whip: I also did news on that show, so in that way it was similar...but it was also different in lots of ways, namely: they had been on the Loop previously, and I had already been on Q101 for awhile, so I think my presence was meant to sort of give Q listeners a familiar presence on this new show on their station. Here, I'm joining an already-established group and trying not to get in the way or harm it. But certainly that experience helped me know when to jump in, when to hold back, etc., all those things that are essential with several voices on the air.

Rick: You're also one of the many Chicago radio graduates of the Mancow show. I've heard the pros and cons about that whole Mancow experience from some of my previous interview subjects (including Mancow himself--who, not surprisingly--gave me mostly the pros). How do you look back on that experience now with the benefit of hindsight?

Whip: Mancow (photo) was a lot of fun a lot of times...but was also very stressful, because you sometimes didn't know from day to day what might pop up out of literally nowhere to cause a problem, or a headache, or an explosion. It also taught me unequivocally to be able to adjust on the fly, and to try not to derail where a host was trying to go. Also, I was kind of the voice-of-reason guy on that show, so I was able to develop some devil's-advocate sorts of skills there. But mostly it was just weird and surreal, and sometimes looking back, I can't believe that it actually happened, or that we actually talked about some of the things we talked about, or that people in the studio actually did the things they did (which, mostly, I just watched in amazement instead of participating).

Rick: I think one of the things I respect the most about your career is that you've really done it all. You've been a music jock, a newsman, a sidekick, a producer, a talk show host, and probably fixed a copy machine or two. Of all those gigs, what's the most satisfying, and which one is the most difficult?

Whip: I think a talk-show host is both the most satisfying and most difficult. It can be tough to come up with compelling topics, especially when you're literally in a studio by yourself, except for a producer and a phone. It takes a special kind of person, and some would say, one who has the qualities of a self-absorbed blowhard, to do that really well consistently. But there are few things more satisfying than presiding over a thoughtful, quality discussion...even if it's only about something as irrelevant as whether or not Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams will ever be able to patch things up.

Rick: You're a local guy--a native Chicagoan--which means you also have a healthy knowledge of Chicago radio history. Who were the guys (or gals) that you listened to when you were growing up, and who has influenced your on-air style the most?

Whip: I go back to being very, very little, and loving Larry Lujack (photo) and Tommy Edwards on WLS: I've since met Tommy, and he's a great guy. Actually, anyone from that WLS era: Bob Sirott, Landecker, etc. And Brant Miller, for some reason, growing up. He came across as very real-sounding to me. I used to call him on WLS and, later, Z-95. I also really enjoyed the Barsky Morning Zoo (in high school) and later I liked Brandmeier, and Bobby Skafish and Bob Stroud when they were on the Loop (I also have worked with Skafish, and he's also a great guy). I also really liked certain sports broadcasters, but not necessarily sports talkers: John Rooney and Wayne Hagin were a great Sox radio team, I thought, and Thom Brennaman was fantastic with the Cubs (and is now fantastic nationally, of course).

Rick: And finally, tell us something we don't know about Eric and Kathy.

Whip: Eric and Kathy actually have no idea that my birth name is not "Whip." Please do not tell them, as I feel that we have a good thing going here.

Mitch Michaels update

2010-10-30T07:19:00.002-05:00

I'm in Washington this week on a writing assignment, but I do have this Chicago Radio Spotlight update for you. I've previously interviewed Mitch Michaels, but his situation has changed recently with his involvement in a few internet ventures...

Mitch: Rick had ask me to update my activities of late so here goes....I've moved from C Block to D block. The guards are much nicer over here...just kidding, but I guess it's a good thing they can't put you behind bars for things you've thought about doing (can they?) or I'd have heard the loud clank of the cell door slamming and the sound of the key being thrown away, long ago! For most of this year, of 2010, I've been the voice/host of an unique internet channel called Classic Rock Chicago. It's one of several channels available on chicagoradioonline.com.

This all falls under the Accuradio.com umbrella. Stay with me, I'm gonna name names. AccuRadio has over 400 channels and is a Kurt Hanson endeavor. Kurt a fellow I've know for way too many years; very bright and very forward thinking. Kurt has a vision, but you'll have to talk to him about that! There are a variety of musical treats and formats on "our" website with great Chicago personalities to match like Tommy Edwards, Doug Dalhgren, Fred Winston, Clark Weber, Danae Alexander, Connie Szerszen and many more. John Gehron, the man who ran WLS for years, and is radio wizard, is also very involved. It's a very fun and exiting project and we hope people will tune in and enjoy!

In just the past few weeks I have launched a new website called Yeah Baby Tunes (yeahbabytunes.net). It features my take on particular tunes with a little twist of personal outlook. We're just trying to have some fun and put out some interesting outlooks on the music "we" all love and grew up with. You can find us on FaceBook and follow us on Twitter. My master web spinner/executive producer/chef Karen Greenstein has done a masterful job on the site (all the way from New Mexico...she's good) and I hope folks will go check it out and enjoy. It's a work in progress and we continue to add new content daily. Yeah Baby Tunes has already been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to much more fun, as we grow! Yeah Baby.....

Eddie Webb

2010-10-23T08:54:00.001-05:00

Eddie Webb is the host of the nationally syndicated VH1 Classic Rock Nights, but is known to Chicago listeners for his two stints with WLUP-FM (97.9).

Rick: How are you liking it in New York?

Eddie: I miss Chicago, I tell you that. As somebody that has moved around a lot, there are some places you absolutely love, and for me, Chicago was one of those places. And there are some that are not as great. New York would be great if I was 22 years old, or making 22 million dollars.

Rick: Tell me about your VH1 Classic “Rock Nights” show. Sadly, it’s not airing here in Chicago.

Eddie: No, that’s true, it’s not on in Chicago yet, but it is nationwide. We’re certainly not reinventing the wheel, but I’m having a great time. It’s not a talk show. It’s just great classic rock played by a guy that really knows and loves the music. And because of the VH1 brand, and the fact that we’re in New York, we also have some great guests on the show. Robbie Krieger from the Doors is coming on tonight (we spoke on Thursday).

Rick: Can your Chicago fans listen on-line?

Eddie: The website is vh1classicrocknights.com, and once you pull up that page you can go to one of the affiliates that stream the show. We have 30 stations now and we should be up to 40 by the end of the year.

Rick: How did this all come about?

Eddie: When I was at the Loop, somebody I knew reached out and said there was a big hush hush opportunity to do a national show on the horizon, but they couldn’t give me any details yet. And even though I love Chicago and the Loop, I figured I owed it to myself to investigate. It never hurts to listen. Well, I finally got some details, and it sounded intriguing. They had done a radio show for CMT. They hired this guy from Salt Lake and put him on the air and syndicated it, and discovered that the television ratings were waaay up in every market the radio show aired. So, they said: “We’d like to do a classic rock show to support VH1 Classic, and we’d like you to be the host.” They said they wanted to launch in May, and the timing worked—and it really sounded like a great opportunity—so I agreed. I moved to New York in April.

Rick: You mentioned your time at The Loop, which is where you were right before this job opportunity—and it was your second go-round there. I’m guessing this second time was a little more stressful than the first. For one thing, you were doing two jobs for awhile there. Then there was the whole financial turmoil within the company, and the programming started coming from St. Louis. Did any of that figure into your decision making process.

Eddie: Absolutely. It definitely figured in. I really don’t like to drag people through the mud, but when they started programming the Loop out of St. Louis, and consolidating jobs, and cutting back, that wasn’t a good time. Chicago is not some small market in Iowa somewhere. Chicago deserves 24-hour live disc jockeys. Chicago radio stations deserve their own programmers. These people out of St. Louis meddled and left, and we had to try to explain to our listeners why the musical accountants didn’t think we should playing this band or that band, when we knew darn well the listeners were right. Music is obviously all subjective. There are people that like Rush or Pink Floyd or whatever, but I’ve always believed that people voted with their wallets. If they’re buying it, they’d definitely want to hear it on the radio.

On top of that, the station wasn’t making any money; they were having serious financial problems. I’ll be honest with you, it was depressing to see the station become a shell of it’s former self. I was really proud to be at the Loop, I loved that station so much, that if this offer had come a few years earlier, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. By the time it did come, it was a no-brainer.

Rick: What are some of your favorite memories from your Loop days?

Eddie: Oh man, there’s a lot of them. Obviously working with a legend like Jonathon Brandmeier—what an honor that was. Doing the Loop Rock Girl...

Rick: Be careful how you say that.

Eddie: (laughs) Right. Doing the Loop Rock girl promotion. (photo) That was a ton of fun. But you know, this is going to sound corny, but my favorite memories are the times I went out to these concert events, where we were broadcasting live, and just meeting the Loop listeners. These great Loop fans treated me like I was one of their buddies—they didn’t ask for autographs, they talked to me like they knew me. They just wanted to have a beer with me and talk about rock and roll. You know, real people. I loved that. These guys really are just like me. I know this format. I live the format. This is who I really am. That’s why I could never do some of those other formats, like a Mix format or one of these AC formats.

Rick: I run into Byrd at a lot of the concerts I go to, and he’s the same way.

Eddie: Absolutely. Byrd (photo) totally is. He lives the format too. It’s a bummer that the decisions are being made now by guys that aren’t really in the audience, and don’t really understand them.

Rick: One of the things that no one ever questioned about you was your rock and roll authenticity. It just takes one second of looking at you to notice that. But not everyone realizes that you actually worked with some of the biggest bands. Talk about that time.

Eddie: I was living in Phoenix and a buddy was a tour manager for Skid Row and asked me to come out to the show—and when I came out, he asked me if I wanted to stay with the tour. I said “You mean right now?” He said yeah, and I said “What the hell?” I did that for a couple of months. When I got home, a buddy of mine had moved to LA and he was working with Madonna at the time, and said you gotta come out to LA, man. So I did, and one of my friends was working for Guns and Roses, and he heard that the guys Duff (photo) had hired were ripping him off, and taking advantage of him. So, I went over there to clean out the place. I went from feeding his dogs, to before I knew it, making appointments with contractors, and occasionally going on the road with them. I was sort of like part assistant/part security—not that I’m a badass or anything.

Rick: You must have seen some things.

Eddie: (laughs) I’ll take a few of those stories to the grave. It was the usual rock and roll stuff.

Rick: What about Ozzy? You worked with him too, didn’t you?

Eddie: That was a few years later. I got an e-mail from a buddy, asking if I’d like to do this MVP program for Ozzie. This would have been 2004, and I did that three and half years and toured the country with the band in a bus, and ran this VIP program. In select cities, Sharon Osbourne also did a platinum project. We’d bring in these ten people, and we’d take care of them, and make them feel special. I’m a small town Iowa boy, born and raised—a town of 8000, and if you told me when I was a kid, that I would end up working for Ozzy, I never would have believed it. It was a great time. After that, I got back into radio in Vegas, and then back to Chicago.

Rick: You’ve been in the rock and roll business now for a long time, and met just about everyone. Who are some of your favorites and least favorites, just as people to talk to?

Eddie: Most of them are great guys. I just recently interviewed Jason Bohnam. He was awesome. Kevin Cronin. Awesome. Skid Row was cool. Believe it or not, Donny Osmond was one of my all-time favs. He gets it, he understands who he is, and he goes with it. He was just a fun interview and a great guy. Of course, Duff and Slash are two of my all time favorites.

Rick: I met Slash once, and was really surprised that he’s such a gentle dude.

Eddie: No doubt. But compared to Duff, Slash is a dick (laughs). That’s how nice Duff is.

Rick: What about guys that you were excited to meet? Any rock and roll heroes?

Eddie: I got a chance to meet Robert Plant once, and while they were laying out all these ground rules, I almost bumped right into him. He looked at me and said: “Who do I have to fuck around here to get a cup of tea?” I said, “Dude, I hope it’s not me.”

Rick: What about least favorite?

Eddie: There are two guys I talk about on the radio—my listeners know how I feel about them. Chris Robinson (photo) was the biggest dick ever. Every time in the last ten or eleven years that I’ve played the Black Crowes, every time, I play a tape of this caller saying “That guy is a dick”

I will not interview him again or go anywhere near him.

Rick: What did he do?

Eddie: He is just one of those guys that is too cool for the room. I said, “You guys are like the ultimate garage band,” which I intended as a compliment, because I really do like their music. He said: ‘We ain’t no fuckin’ garage band!” Real pleasant.

The first time around at the Loop, I was down in Atlanta for the “By Your Side” album release show, live on the radio on the SFX network. I was the host of the show. There were people from radio stations all over the country, and we were squeezed into this little rehearsal studio in Atlanta. I was crushed against the stage, and had my notes on a music stand.

I don’t know if you’ve done a show like this before, but we were on about 200 stations—this was a live network show, and we had planned out the show very meticulously with the SFX people—I wasn’t exactly ad-libbing up there. One of the questions someone asked compared Robinson’s raspy sound to Rod Stewart, which to me, again, is totally a compliment. He said “I’m going to go down there and kick you in the teeth.”

Rick: Whoa.

Eddie: The other guy I couldn’t stand was Stephen Pearcy from Ratt—but he’s a combination of dick and stupid. So I’ll cut him a little slack. But those are really the only two bad experiences.

Rick: What about rock and roll radio? Do you have any radio heroes?

Eddie: You bet. John Records Landecker (photo). I will say this to anyone that will listen; he is the guy that inspired me to go into radio. I don’t know whether to thank him or blame him for that. I still remember this like it was yesterday. It was in January, and I was like 15 years old, living in Iowa, and WGN-TV aired this special show following John around the studio, asking him questions about the job—why he did it—what he loved about it. I was watching him in the WLS studio, doing his bit, doing his thing, and I was just MEZMERIZED. (Here’s a portion of that show)

My father owned a hardware store, and that summer his store was doing a promotion with a local radio station, and he asked me if I wanted to come to the station with him, and I did—and I see this guy talking into that same nerf ball microphone, and I thought –man this is great, this is what I want to do. And they said they needed help on the weekend, and would I be interested? Are you kidding me?

It was a beautiful music station, and I would change these tapes, and then I got to read the weather. I thought I was big time—I had visions of grandeur.

Since those days I’ve tried to listen to whatever Landecker stuff I could get my hands on; tapes, MP3s, you name it. He was tremendous. I mean he would become a part of that music—whatever he did made the music even better. I know he did a good morning show and a talk show, but for my money, if I had a radio station, I’d put him on at night, and say, here’s a million dollars play whatever, and do whatever you want. He was the greatest disc jockey ever.

I ended up having lunch with John a few years ago, and I was really nervous, more nervous than I was meeting any of the rock stars I’ve met. Meeting him was like meeting Wolfman Jack.

Rick: It seems like you’ve seen it and done it all in the business. Are there any unfulfilled career goals?

Eddie: I just want to be on a farm in the middle of nowhere and not see anyone—especially PDs. Just kidding. In all seriousness, I’m really very happy where I am now, and I’d love to grow with this show—get it on 100 or 150 stations across America. And maybe somewhere out there, another 15-year-old kid will be listening, and be inspired to do this too.

Ben Finfer

2010-10-16T09:36:00.001-05:00

Ben Finfer is the technical producer of the Danny Mac Show on the Score, WSCR-AM 670. He recently joined the show after leaving ESPN AM 1000.

Rick: I know Dan McNeil has always been a big supporter of your work. When I interviewed him at ESPN six years ago, he referred to you as the unsung hero of the show (Mac, Jurko & Harry). Is he the one that lured you to join him on the Score?

Ben: First of all it was nice of Mac to say that six years ago. (Photo: Ben at work at ESPN/6 years ago.) But I think a baboon could have produced that show and it still would have been good. Although I'm not sure a baboon would have been able to stand the smell. Anyway, Mac was obviously a big part of my move. As was Mitch Rosen, our program director. But it wasn't just them. I was ready for a change of scenery after almost nine years at ESPN. Luckily I had an opportunity to make the move because I had fooled Mac into thinking I was good at my job. But I might have left even if the Score didn't come calling. In fact before they called I had checked job postings and there was a weekend host position available in Billings, Montana. I'm always looking for ways to show off my knowledge of the Northern Pacific Hockey League. For instance, did you know there is a Northern Pacific Hockey League?

Rick: How has the reunion gone?

Ben: It's gone well I think. It's not like Mac (photo) and I hadn't talked since he left ESPN. It also helped that there was already an established show in place with quality producers. Jay Zawaski and Nick Shepkowski make up the best crew I've worked with and all I had to do was not screw anything up. In fact, everyone at the Score has made it easy for me. I felt pretty useless early on as I adjusted. There was a ton of stuff I needed to learn that I took for granted at ESPN. I didn't even know where the vending machine was. By the way, in case you're wondering the vending machines at the Score are way better than ESPN's.

Rick: You bring a lot to the table as a producer. I see you in the tradition of the great personality show technical producers like John Swanson (Eric & Kathy) and Vince Argento (Landecker & Brandmeier). You're not just a blade man, you take it to the next level; voicing, singing, conceptualizing audio packages and themes. Will you be performing similar duties at the Score?

Ben: Thanks for the compliment. It's flattering to be put in the same category as those guys. In fact I've had Swanson in a few of my personality show technical producer fantasy leagues. Yeah, my duties at the Score are pretty much the same as they were at ESPN. And while I'd love to take sole credit for "taking it to the next level", a lot of my work is a result of collaboration among show members. I often rely on co-workers to help me with an idea. Then subsequently use Inception to make them think it was my idea in the first place. That's how we do it in radio.

Rick: I don't think people appreciate the amount of work that goes into putting a show together behind the scenes. Take me through a typical work day, and explain how the various different people on the show divide the labor.

Ben: A typical work day starts with me waking up at about 4:30 a.m. and hating my life. That lasts until about 5:30. Once I get into the studios I begin production on the day's library of audio. That includes a show open, game highlights, player and coach sound bytes, etc. Both hosts give a lot of suggestions about what they'd like to hear. We get emails full of weird stuff they heard on t.v. or ridiculous comments made by Lovie Smith or whatever. Zawaski is busier than I am. He's the executive producer and books all the guests for the show, plus helps with audio production. He mostly has to lock down guests the day prior because what sane person is awake that early in the morning otherwise? Shepkowski does a lot of editing and production as well. Plus he's our show researcher. If you hear Mac doing a list of the Atlanta Falcons who have made a Pro Bowl, it's because Shep looked it up. He could probably find Jimmy Hoffa's body using Google.

At around 7:30 Spiegs and Mac roll in. We do a show meeting to plan out the day's hilarity and high quality sports conversation. These meetings usually include the all-important task of sending our intern out for coffee. Once the show starts things actually slow down a bit. Mac and Spiegel work their magic, Zawaski screens callers and guides the show, I run the board, and Shep is our runner to catch anything that falls through the cracks. Somehow we make it through four hours. We wrap around 1:15, followed by a post show meeting to talk about how great we were. And then by 2:00 I'm back to hating my life.

Rick: It must have been a little difficult leaving ESPN after all this time. You still obviously have a lot of friends there. How did they take it when you told them you were leaving?

Ben: I actually haven't told them yet. They think I'm just on a long vacation. The people there were the only difficult part of leaving. But I'll maintain friendships with a lot of them no matter where I work. And everyone seemed genuinely happy for me. Believe it or not it was something I worried about. Harry Teinowitz (photo) is one of my favorite people in the business and a friend outside of it. So I was glad that he was supportive. The same with Carmen, Jurko and Danny Zederman, who I produced the show with. I received a lot of congratulatory calls and emails from people there. The generosity coming from ESPN was really nice. And that included my former bosses...John Cravens, Justin Craig and Adam Delevitt. Some real good people work at that place. By the way I also got a text from Brett Favre, let's just say he appeared to be very excited for me.

Rick: What are some of your favorite memories from your years at ESPN?

Ben: Winning the Golden Tee tournament was a personal high for me. People are still talking about my hook shot around the mountain on the 14th hole at Alpine Run. After that my favorite memories are of just hanging out in the office and laughing. There's real good camaraderie there. I mean if you put that many guys together for an extended period a lot of FCC-unfriendly stuff is seen, heard and forwarded. It's the kind of stuff that would have made us all executives with the Tribune Company. Kidding of course. It wasn't close to being that bad.

Rick: You were part of the afternoon saloon when Danny was there, and for quite awhile after Danny left. How were each of those experiences different? What was it like in the weeks and months after Carmen DeFalco replaced him?

Ben: Honestly it was a pretty seamless transition from Mac to Carm. We weren't going to just stop doing radio because he was gone. There were still plenty of crappy Chicago sports teams to be discussed. They have different styles obviously. Several people told me Mac was better, several thought Carmen (photo) was better. But that was for everyone else to decide for themselves. Things around the office didn't change all that much. That probably sounds a little cold considering Mac had been there more than seven years. I just think it's the reality of the business. On Friday he was there, the following Monday he wasn't. It was all made a lot easier by the fact that Carmen wasn't new. He had been at the station a long time and had filled in for Mac quite a bit. Which was nice because I didn't feel like kissing up to someone new. And in the end it's all about me, right?

Rick: There's no question there were some tense times at ESPN. There must have been a half dozen suspensions of various different colleagues when you were there. Then again, the Score has had it's share of tension too. Is there just something innately stressful about sportstalk that brings that out?

Ben: It's definitely not the stress. There are several jobs out there that create a lot more stress than sports radio. We're not putting our lives on the line. We're just breaking down the Bears offensive line. I think the tense times came from the fact that these are guys paid to have opinions and to express them to others. There's no switch to flip. Mac doesn't turn off a microphone and all of sudden go into a shell. He likes to say what's on his mind. As do Harry and Jurko. And I'm sure that's the case with a lot of talk show hosts. But anybody who tells you they're stressed out by talk radio is a drama queen. Passover seders with the family are more stressful. I know there's always a ratings battle staring us in the face and jobs are always on the line. But the worst case scenario is you get fired. I'm sure finding another job isn't that hard. Just ask Mike North.

Rick: You got an opportunity to host or co-host shows at ESPN, particularly on the weekend. Is the Score giving you the same opportunity?

Ben: Yes, I believe that's part of the plan. At the very least I can always call into Les Grobstein's show. That's almost like co-hosting. For now it'll be some weekend stuff at varied times. There are a lot of really good shows on our station so I appreciate wherever they can squeeze me in. That's the beauty of the Score as opposed to ESPN. We're local and live at almost all points of the week. It's tough getting air time at ESPN in between national broadcasts of the John Kincade Show and the replay of the John Kincade Show.

Rick: I know you're still relatively young, and you've got your whole career ahead of you, but what direction do you hope to take it?

Ben: Relatively young, huh? My irritable bowel syndrome says differently. Either way, I'd like to be on the air full time. I want to be the next Dan McNeil or Dan Bernstein or Marc Silverman. Or even Steve Dahl. Actually I want to be better than all of them. But I have a long way to go to get to that point in both talent and accomplishments. Plus there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other guys who want the same thing and have as much a shot at it as I do. But I really don't have any other skills. So I'm willing to be patient.

Rick: Last question. I know you're a fellow Illini as well as a fellow long suffering Cubs fan. Which happens first? An Illinois national championship or a Cubs World Series Championship, or will we die waiting for both?

Ben: Are you including all sports? Because perhaps you weren't aware that the Illini men's tennis team won a national title a few years back. If you're talking major sports I'd say an Illini basketball national championship is the most likely of the bunch. I don't think our football team will ever win one. Ever. Since the BCS began in the 90s the champions have been Tennessee, Florida State, Oklahoma, Miami, Ohio State, LSU, USC, Texas, Florida and Alabama. That's a group of elite programs much further along on the college football timeline of evolution than Illinois. And the Cubs? After the debacle of the 2008 playoffs I, for the first time, began to think they'll never win again. But that was before the Mike Quade era began. So who knows?

Danny Bonaduce

2010-10-09T09:27:00.000-05:00

Danny Bonaduce is the morning man at WYSP in Philadelphia, but during the 1990s he entertained Chicago radio audiences on the Loop.

Rick: You’re known for all sorts of different things (including obviously, "The Partridge Family"), but it’s been more than twenty years now since you started in radio. Do you consider yourself a radio guy now first and foremost?

Danny: Well, I’ve been doing it every single day for twenty years, so I guess the answer to that has to be yes. In life I guess you either have to follow the money or your spiritual beliefs, and since I have no spiritual beliefs of any kind, I follow the money. And for me, the money is in radio.

Rick: You and I worked together very briefly when you first started on the Loop. I was doing overnights on the FM while you were doing overnights on the AM, and I remember that as a very wild time. The hallways were completely crazy every night--it was a radio free for all, and Chicago seemed to embrace you almost instantly. Did you feel the same way about Chicago?

Danny: Absolutely. If you read my book, and I’m not saying this to sell the book because it’s out of print now, but there is more than one chapter dedicated to Chicago, and not just to radio, but to the city, and the people I met there. As far as I’m concerned, my radio career didn’t start the first time I cracked the mic and said “This is Danny Bonaduce.” My real radio career started when I did talk radio—entertainment talk—which is what I do—and that happened for the first time in Chicago. That was real radio, not playing some Debbie Gibson records.

The reason you remember the craziness in the hallway is because back then, just as now, I did absolutely no preparation. I still never write anything down. I don’t even carry a pen. I just introduce the show, and I sidekick for the telephone.

I wait for the inspiration of one moment that will start the show. Let’s say I get into a huge fight with my girlfriend, just to take an obvious example of something that everyone can relate to. I tell the story on the air, and then before I even get to the phone calls of people saying I was right or I was wrong, I get the calls from other people who got into fights with their girlfriends, and that leads to a discussion about resolving the fights because divorce is too expensive, and then calls about cheating, and before you know it, you’ve got a show. I usually have one story to start, and aside from that, I don’t prepare a thing.

Rick: The bit I remember most vividly from your early time at the Loop was the bit when you drove down the parking garage ramp in the Hancock as fast as you could.

Danny: (excited) Carioke! That was my all-time favorite bit. I loved that! That was the very best thing I’ve ever done in entertainment talk radio, and the best I ever will do.

The Hancock had this eight story spiral ramp going up to the parking garage (photo), and the bit was that you had to come into the car with me and sing a song all the way down while I drove as fast as I could, and if you could do it without screaming, you’d win. No one could ever do it, because I knew something they didn’t. That garage ramp was engineered in such a way that a car couldn’t flip over. And I didn’t care if I scraped it up or dinged it, so I would hit the sides, and sparks would go flying and everybody, and I mean everybody, screamed. Nobody made it down that ramp without screaming.

One day Johnny B told me that he thought he could do it, and so I took him down the ramp too. And I went fast, but not real fast, not as fast as I could have gone, and he was singing Happy Birthday or something like that and was doing great until we got to the bottom of the ramp. When we reached the bottom, he saw a woman standing there with a baby carriage, and it was right in our way. Well, I slammed into that baby carriage at full speed, and it went flying through the air, and Johnny B FLIPPED OUT. I mean flipped out!

And then the woman, my ex-wife, got the baby carriage and showed Johnny there was a doll in there.

Rick: (laughing) Oh my God.

Danny: I’ve tried recreating that in other places, but I can’t. It was just that spiral, and the engineering of it that made it work. On flat surfaces or other garages it wouldn’t work, because it would be too dangerous.

Rick: To a lot of people, the big highlight of your time here, the thing that everybody remembers is your fight against Donny Osmond. You’ve since fought a bunch of other people, and everybody knows that you’re a tough guy now, but nobody really knew what to expect for that fight. What are your memories of that night?

Danny: I didn’t know what to expect either. I came close to losing that fight. For one thing, I was drunk. Somebody asked me on my way into the ring what I thought was going to happen, and I said, "I’m going to kick his ass then get drunker."

I mean, c’mon, this is Donny Osmond we’re talking about here. I had a girl to hold my cigarette, because you know, I was smoking three packs a day. But that’s how unconcerned I was. And I started off by pounding away at this guy for like seventy five seconds, and then I stepped away, figuring he would just collapse onto the ground. But he didn’t. He had protected himself. And I thought, “Holy shit, if Donny Osmond kicks my ass, I’m going to have to leave the country!”

Rick: But you did win that fight. And you’ve fought a few more since then.

Danny: After that Donny fight, I took training more seriously. I recently fought Jose Canseco. And that guy was HUGE. I mean the measurements were hilarious. On weigh-in day he was 6’6, 265. I was 5’6, 165. He hit me once, and I’ve never been hit that hard before. I went flying halfway cross the ring, but I happened to land on my feet. I opened my eyes expecting to see him coming in for the kill, but he hadn’t moved. I had to walk back over to him. I think the only reason I didn't lose that fight was because he was tired of being hated.

Rick: Do you still have a tattoo of the Loop logo and Larry Wert’s name on your butt? (Photo: Life Magazine)

Danny: Sure, of course. You don’t think I would have that taken off do you? It’s a hell of an ice breaker in Chicago.

Rick: And Larry really is the godfather of your child.

Danny: I know people thought I was kissing the boss’s ass when I made him the godfather, but I didn’t do that because he was the boss. We really were best friends. And plus, I was already #1 by then. You don’t kiss the boss’s ass when you’re #1. You do it when your ratings suck.

Rick: I don’t know if people remember this, but Johnny B was also critical in the beginning of your radio career. I talked to Johnny the other day and mentioned that I would be talking to you, and he told me to say hi.

Danny: I love Johnny (photo). The reason I give Johnny the credit for my radio career is because even though he never actually hired me anywhere, even at the Loop, he gave me my start with a bit he did.

An article came out in the National Enquirer that Danny Bonaduce was homeless and hungry, so he did a mock food drive for me. I got a call from Chicago saying: "We’ve got 7000 pounds of canned food, and about 12 grand in cash, and would you come to Chicago?" So I did, and you have to remember I was living in LA where everyone is apathetic. If a DJ told someone to do something there, maybe five people would show up. When I got to Chicago though, there were hundreds of people in the airport with signs and billboards. I remember one very well. It had a picture of a red-headed skeleton, and it said “Stop hunger before it stops Danny Partridge.”

I couldn’t believe it—that’s when I discovered the power a DJ could have.

And Johnny had me come up on stage with him and sing “I think I love you” and I wrote funny new lyrics to it, but while I was up there, I felt like I was being pelted with ice. I thought, "man these people in Chicago turn on you fast," but then I noticed it wasn’t ice. It was coins. It was money, and I was running around that stage picking it up. Sure, it was a funny bit, but I really was homeless. I needed that money.

So, DJs being the scum that they are, started stealing the bit. And it became so popular, I went around the country one station at a time, repeating the bit. And one station in Philly even hired me to come on their lame show and be a sidekick and play Debbie Gibson records.

And then Larry Wert saw me do stand up. He called his boss Jimmy de Castro (photo) and said “I’ve seen Danny’s show four nights in a row, and it’s completely different every night. I think he’d be great for the Loop.” So, when my contract ran out in Philly, I went to Chicago, and I got the overnight shift. One night I was on the air on a Saturday, because I worked six days a week back then, and Jimmy called Larry Wert, and said, “Is this what this fucker does? He just screams into the microphone all day?” Just as he was saying that to Larry, I guess I actually said, “What I lack in talent, I make up for in volume.”

I had a contract offer to do overnights, but before I even had a chance to sign it, they moved me to nights, and then to middays, and I never actually signed it. Jimmy finally said to me, “Is it OK if we just shake on it?” And we did. We just shook hands. They gave me a raise and gave me a great deal of money, and I worked for their company and the company it became, which is Clear Channel, for 16 years—all without a contract. The only time I actually signed a contract is the time I was fired.

Rick: And where was that?

Danny: That was in LA.

Rick: Right. That was the Adam Carolla show in LA. What is the real story about what happened there?

Danny: I liked Adam Carolla (photo) a lot, I thought he was a genius, but I heard his show, and knew that he just didn’t know how to do radio. I figured if someone ever taught him, it could be an incredible show. So I really fought hard for that job. I fought like crazy to get it. And I became his sidekick, and I was very happy to be the sidekick. I went out of my way to say, 'Hey, the sign on the wall says the Adam Carolla show.' I was very careful not to step on any toes.

We went from #18 to like #4. But Adam said he didn’t like my comedy. I said:“Why? Because it’s funny?”

He said “Yeah, it’s not my brand of comedy.”

I will say this for him, he’s not a coward. He said that he didn’t want me on his show anymore right in front of me . But CBS wouldn’t let me go. So they gave me morning show money to do a one hour show. Then they hired me to do mornings in Philly.

Rick: Which is where you are now. How is it going in Philadelphia?

Danny: Great. There were something like five different morning shows in the four years before I started here, and I just started my third year, so it’s going well.

Rick: Can people in Chicago hear your show on the internet?

Danny: Sure can. Just go to 94WYSP.radio.com and check it out. We’ve actually got a pretty big following in Chicago already.

Rick: In addition to doing the radio, you’re also a reality television mogul these days, aren’t you? I’ve seen you in several reality shows over the years, but you’re more than just a star in them.

Danny: Every reality show you’ve ever seen me in, except the one with Hulk Hogan, I either wrote, hosted, or produced.

Rick: Do you have your own company?

Danny: Yes. It’s called Graveltone Productions.

Rick: And people probably pitch you all the time.

Danny: They do, and I would take the offers if they would fit around my schedule, but that’s getting harder to do. I’m in Philadelphia now, so it would have to take place here, because I’m not giving up the radio gig. Anyone that gives up radio for TV is out of their mind, unless you’re Ryan Seacrest or something. I’ve done a ton of reality shows, but the problem is that they are years and years apart sometimes. On the radio, I’m on the air every single day, collecting a very healthy regular paycheck.

Rick: Do you ever make it back to Chicago?

Danny: Not as often as I’d like. I come to Zanies every few years, and I suppose it’s about time for that again. If you have any ideas that will bring me back to town, believe me, I’m all ears. Let’s hear ‘em.

Rick: Are you working on anything else these days?

Danny: Yes, on October 23rd I’m playing a 1500 person shed with David Cassidy. I had him on the show recently, which is something I really don’t like to do. My biggest fear is that someone will tune in to my show for the first time at that one moment he’s on and say, “OK, so he talks about the Partridge Family all the time. Is that all he can do?”

But I did The Today Show with him and he seemed to be in a better place about the Partridge Family, so I invited him on the show. And on the air he dared me to learn to play one song on the bass, and join him on stage for the first and only time for real.

So, even though I have a million jobs now for CBS, I’ve got a bass lesson in about a half an hour.

Pat Cassidy

2010-10-02T09:14:00.001-05:00

Pat Cassidy is the morning co-anchor at WBBM-AM, Newsradio 78.

Rick: By the dawn’s early light. That’s how I know that I’m listening to Pat Cassidy. What is the origin of your use of that phrase?

Pat: It’s from the national anthem of course, and I’m on when the dawn is just lighting. I was looking for some kind of signature line, and I’m a patriotic guy on top of it all, and just tried it, and it stuck around all these years. I do get ribbed by my co-workers occasionally when I say it when it’s still pitch black outside, like in the winter, but I’ve been saying it now for 35 years. Once in awhile I space out, and forget to say it, and people notice. We get calls about it.

Rick: You’ve been back at WBBM for a few months now. Does your time at WLS seem like the old Dallas episode, where everybody just dreamed that Bobby Ewing was dead for two years? Did you emerge from the shower as if nothing had ever happened?

Pat: (Laughs) Something like that.

Rick: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a radio station hold a slot open for someone like that, hoping they would return. Is it any different the second time around?

Pat: It really is just like it used to be. I fell right back into the pace of things, and the stride of things. Most of the same people are here, and these are people I worked with for years and years. Some I’ve known since the WMAQ days, like my head writer Barb Hillebrand. For the most part, people accepted me. A lot of people said it was good to have me back. There have been a few little comments implying that this is where I belong, not doing that talk thing.

Rick: Since you brought it up, let’s talk about that talk thing for a moment. There were a couple of notable shows when you were co-hosting the show with Mancow on WLS. The one that probably got the most attention was the waterboarding show. What was going through your mind while you were narrating that show in progress? Was that authentic? It looks like it on the video.

Pat: It was authentic. Now, Mancow was not stuck in a cell and not fearing for his life, so that part wasn’t legitimate in those terms. But it was performed by a Marine, and Mancow’s feet really were bound, and there were many elements that were real, including the fact that he caught him off guard by doing it on the count of three instead of five. That really threw Mancow off. He really felt it was torture after it happened. Looking into his eyes, you could see it. He did look very upset.

Rick: Yes, he did, but with Mancow you never know. Are people wrong to doubt his authenticity? Is he just misunderstood?

Pat: No, I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t use that word. He’s not misunderstood. He does what he does quite deliberately. He says deliberately outrageous things just to get a rise out of people sometimes. But I will say that having worked with him, and having it seen from the inside, he really does have devoted fans. And yes, he also has his detractors. Seems like there is no inbetween with Mancow. But he is a hardworking, talented, fun-loving guy. I’ve never seen anyone work harder than that guy. He’s doing pretty well with it, but he might consider fine-tuning it a bit to make it more commercial.

Rick: You’ve been anchoring a morning newscast for many years now (at WMAQ and WBBM). I listened to Karl Klockars interview with you about 9/11, which was really interesting by the way. You mentioned something in that interview that hadn’t really occurred to me before. The morning time slot rarely has breaking news. It has the highest listenership, but it rarely has breaking news. 9/11 was an exception to the rule. Were there others?

Pat: The discovery of the bodies at Gacy’s house happened in morning drive. I had a source at the time in law enforcement that called me a few times during the process. At first we only knew it was a body or two, but he called to say “Pat, it ain’t one or two. It’s more like 22. There’s a lot of bodies down here."

That was a breaking news story in the morning. But for the most part, there aren’t too many, because frankly, people are fast asleep. Most of the breaking stories in morning drive are crimes, or fires, or sometimes something happening in Europe, or very rarely, the East Coast—say if the newspapers have a big expose that is getting lots of attention.

I suppose it is a bit ironic that we have the most listeners, but the fewest breaking news stories.

Rick: My wife has your show on every morning as she gets ready for work, and I can name the whole cast of characters with very little difficulty, but I don’t really know much about them because the all news format doesn’t really allow for a great deal of personality to shine through. Tell us a little more about your show mates Felicia Middlebrooks, Bart Shore, and Josh Liss.

Pat: Felicia is a very conscientious and organized individual who is serious about presenting news, but she’s also very compassionate and has tremendous empathy. My attitude is more like a cop’s. I’m slightly jaded. Yes, it’s sad, but we’ve got to move on. Felicia really feels deeply for some of the victims.

Bart Shore (photo) is a rocker, but he’s so conscientious about the traffic, probably more so than anyone I’ve ever seen. He works like a newsman, makes phone calls, and sometimes even breaks news stories. In his heart, though, I think he’s a frustrated DJ that loves his rock and roll.

Josh is a tremendous writer, and knows way more about sports than he’s putting on the air. He’s often very insightful, but for me what sets him apart from the rest is his writing, the turn of a phrase, the way he says so much with a few words.

And the guy who really runs our show is Jim Benes. Jim is a tremendous journalist, with great instincts. He gets in there many hours before we do, and thanks to him, we never miss a story. Never. Not with Jim at the helm, overseeing everything. He’s also my golfing buddy. We live near each other.

Rick: I have real fond memories of the old WMAQ. You were there for so many years, through so many different formats, until the very last moment they signed off the air. What are some of your favorite memories from those years?

Pat: Oh gosh, I have many. I thought of WMAQ as two different stations. It was owned by NBC when I first started there. It was a country music station at the time. This was late 1975. Actually I was hired by NBC to work at WNIS (All news on FM), but that didn’t really work out. It was ahead of it’s time; FM radio wasn't as prevalent as it is now. I was moved over to WMAQ after that. Lee Sherwood was the DJ on that show, Jerry Taft was the weather man, and our sportscaster was Tim Weigel.

I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think that was Tim’s first broadcasting job. He was a sportswriter for the Daily News when we hired him. We were looking for a way to present the sports in a more fun way and somebody heard Weigel clowning around in the press box one night, and thought, whoa—this guy is smart, and glib, and entertaining. So they offered him a job. That show was a hit. Our ratings in the mid to late 1970s were killer. Country music worked real well on AM Radio.

Rick: WMAQ’s gonna make me rich!

Pat: Exactly. WMAQ is going to make me rich. That is one of the most memorable catch phrases or slogans in radio history. I think they made a big mistake by getting rid of it. They dropped it because the lottery came along, and I remember sitting in a meeting, and somebody said that the lottery was going to own the phrase now. So we dropped it. But people still remember it today.

One time we had a contest winner that won $25,000. That was a lot of money in those days. WMAQ made him rich, but only for a few seconds. He got so excited, he went out on the front lawn to tell the neighbors and dropped dead.

Rick: (laughs) Sorry, I guess I shouldn't be laughing. I never heard that story.

Pat: I believe he lived just over the border, I want to say it was Racine.

Rick: So after the country format, it became a talk station.

Pat: Yes, that’s true. For a brief period of time it did. That’s where I met Drew Hayes for the first time.

Rick: He was on the air in those days, right?

Pat: That’s right. We also had Mort Downey Jr. (photo) and Chet Coppock. I’ll never forget a stunt I saw Mort Downey pull. It was one of the riskiest things I’ve ever seen. He was a right wing screamer and was debating a feminist, and there was no doubt about it, she was getting the best of him.

But Mort had control over the dump button (the delay system). So, to throw her off her game, he unleashed one of the most intense three or four seconds of profanity you’ve ever heard, and then hit the dump button so it wouldn’t go on the air. But the feminist heard it, and it completely froze her. After that he had the best of her and the audience perceived him to be the winner of the debate. It was risky as heck to do, though. If he hadn’t timed hitting the dump button perfectly, if even one of those words made it over the air, he would have been fired on the spot.

Rick: Were you surprised when NBC sold WMAQ?

Pat: Yes. We never would have believed that NBC would sell that station. It was one of the first radio stations in Chicago, and it had always been run by NBC. But Westinghouse bought it, and they had had tremendous success across the country doing the all-news format. So they came in here gung ho to kick BBM’s butt, and they put a lot of money into it. I was the morning news anchor, and the asst. news director, but we never overcame WBBM. I did find out later, when I was at WBBM myself, that we did have an impact on them. They certainly took us seriously. They told me that WMAQ made WBBM work harder.

The last few years at WMAQ we started tweaking and tinkering the format a bit. We were still news based, but what we were doing then is sort of what Greg Jarrett is doing now. Funny thing is, and this happens all the time in this business, it started to catch fire just before they pulled the plug.

Rick: I know you had a new destination already ticketed when WMAQ signed off, but you must have had some mixed feelings about the end of the line there.

Pat: It was bittersweet. I had a lot of memories and friends there. Bill Cameron, for example. I finally got a chance to work with him again at WLS. But I was sad for all the people that lost their jobs, and I was sad that the call letters were being dumped too. It was a legacy radio station, a part of Chicago for decades and decades.

At the same time, I was excited to be joining WBBM. Management wanted me to go to WBBM the very next day and wanted me to say on the air where I was going. They were hyping it up pretty good. I wasn’t actually on when the station signed off for good—that was later in the day—but I was on WBBM the next morning. I’m proud to say that I didn’t screw up the call letters once. I did screw up later in the week, but not on the first day.

Rick: You’re a native of the area, and I trust that you listened to a little radio growing up. What did you listen to, and who are some of your greatest radio influences?

Pat: I listened to rock and roll, WLS and WCFL, some of the early FM stations.

I actually started out as a DJ and as a part of my shift, I had to read some headlines. The boss at the time, a man named Charles Manson of all things, called me in and said, "You know when you read the headlines, you sound like a newsman and you do things to the news, don’t you?" I said, "Yes, I rewrite it a little bit." He said, "You sound great, how would you like to be my morning newsman?" I was just an average disc jockey, and I was always interested in news, so I said yes.

The station later became WBMX, which was an urban station (It’s now WVAZ). They asked me to stay aboard and become the news director, and I remember talking to the new boss on the phone, and said—"I’m flattered, but I’m not, you know...urban myself." He said, "That’s OK, we’d like to have an integrated staff." So I became their news director, the white guy on the urban station. I worked with all of the big names of that era. I remember the first time I met Jesse Jackson (photo). He showed up wearing a light-green suede suit with a matching briefcase.

But as for guys I admired, Lyle Dean and Jeff Hendrix, those were the guys I liked. When Jeff retired, they actually called and asked me to come over there, but the timing wasn’t right.

Rick: Do you have any advice for the radio newsmen of tomorrow that may be growing up listening to Pat Cassidy?

Pat: There’s always going to be a need for broadcasters that can do the news. Keep the faith. Be as well rounded as you possibly can be. The one-trick pony just isn’t going to make it anymore. You’ve got to be able to anchor, report, and do talk. If you can, do sports too. Make yourself as well rounded as possible. The jack of all trades is the man or woman that will be most employable.

Alex Quigley

2010-09-25T08:40:00.000-05:00

Alex Quigley is the co-host of ChicagoNow Radio and Preps Plus Chicago on WGN Radio. He was also recently named the interim assistant program director.

Rick: WGN has been getting a lot of criticism lately, but I think your show (ChicagoNow Radio) is a nice addition to the Saturday lineup. For those that haven't tuned in yet, how would you describe the show?

Alex: It's a revolving door of ChicagoNow bloggers, with a new topic and new vibe every half hour. Amy and I push and pull the bloggers to get them comfortable and talking about their areas of expertise. Then we take a one-way trip to Tangentville. As long as we're talking about something that our listeners in Chicagoland find useful or entertaining, we don't mind where the conversation goes. It starts at 9am and ends at noon, save for Cubs/Blackhawks/Wildcats games that may cut us short

Rick: When I heard that you were going to host the show, I figured, OK--that makes sense. You're a writer for ChicagoNow, you've got the radio background, and you did a lot of interviews at Q-101. But this is a whole different ballgame, isn't it? How do you like the challenge of doing a full-fledged talk show?

Alex: Man, you ain't kidding. There's no rollin' in ten minutes before showtime and winging it. (Well, I guess you could, but it's glaringly obvious if you did. And bad.) I love it. I also appreciate the freedom that Dan and Kevin have given us, formatically. The challenge also is eased when you have a solid producer. Matt Mattucci and Kristin Decker both do great work for us. The show wouldn't be anything without their work.

Rick: WGN is a Chicago institution, obviously. What does it mean to you to be broadcasting from those iconic studios on Michigan Avenue?

Alex: On day number one, it was intimidating. Also, day number one happened to be the day Chicago dyed the river green for St. Patrick's Day...so the extra ten thousand people didn't help the nerves. But honestly, if I start getting wrapped up in the history of the hallowed halls...I forget about why I've got a microphone in my face. It's to relate to the millions of people who aren't here, or who may never even visit the Tower. It's about relating to them here and now in their cars, workplaces, garages, and kitchens. And in the case of one of our semi-regular callers, their bathrooms.

Rick: I met your co-host Amy Guth at one of her Reading Under the Influence events at Sheffield's (when I read--under the influence--from one of my books). She's a natural on the air. Has she done radio before this?

Alex: Jimmy Greenfield. It's all about his intuition. He knew Amy (photo) well from working together upstairs and suggested that she get a tryout alongside me. He was right. (He grows a mean playoff beard, too.) Amy's never done radio, but she's hosted some red-carpet literary events and gone on her own book tour, so she doesn't shy away from talking. We fit together very well on-air by filling each other's knowledge voids in a very complementary way. Between the two of us, we might have a trivia night dynasty in the making. I'm very impressed with the progress she's made in a mere twenty shows. Threatened, even. No seriously, she physically threatens me.

Rick: Now I see you've also added a Friday night football show to your list of duties. Tell me more about that show.

Alex: Preps Plus Chicago is our way of leveraging our excellent resources within the Tribune's Preps Plus section. They've got a fleet of reporters out across Chicagoland every Friday night; we put 'em on the air live to give their first-hand accounts of the best games on the slate. It's fast-paced, rapid-fire, instant results and analysis. (Executive producer Justin Weiner has some of the fastest dialing fingers in the radio biz.) It starts at 10:30pm every Friday night, barring any Cubs/Blackhawks/Wildcats preemption. And if the first show is any example...we'll be out of breath by 11:00:01 every Friday night this season.

Rick: You and I actually have a lot in common. For one thing, we share an alma mater (University of Illinois). For another thing, we both got our radio start there (although mine, sadly, was about fifteen years earlier). My mom hates when I say this, but I learned more valuable information from my stint at WPGU (I was the PD too--like you) than I did in my journalism classes. How did your stint at that radio station help you in your career?

Alex: You are sooooo right about WPGU. Everything I learned about radio in college I learned there, and well before the JOURN curriculum got to it in my classes. But I don't fault the University for that; I was just really, really involved in the Planet's workings from the moment I walked in the door as a 17-year-old freshman. I know you had the "old" studios in the Six-Pack, but now our location on Green Street is "old". The kids there today have it really good with their all-in-one Daily Illini / PGU combo building. Plus, it's next to Legends Bar & Grill. Whippersnappers.

On a more serious note, joining the unofficial fraternity of WPGU alums has been a lifelong comfort. Most of my best friends today are people I met there and fought alongside in the radio trenches.

Rick: You were at Q-101 off and on for most of the 00s (have we come up with a name for that decade yet)? What are some of your favorite moments from those years?

Alex: Weezerama is still my #1 memory. Sludge gave geographic clues to a secret spot in the metro where I had 500 wristbands, first 500 get in to a secret show with newly-resurgent Weezer. We were just north of where the Sears Centre is now in a dog park just off of Higgins Road. A couple minutes after the final clue was given, a small trickle of ten or so cars found us. Then...the tidal wave hit. Some five thousand listeners flooded the area. People abandoned their cars on Higgins and took off through the forest to get to us. It was a rare time when the direct impact radio has was very visible. Visible and sweaty.

More recently, I got to host Corey Taylor's station takeover (photo) and interview Kirk Hammett. Easily two of the best rock stars I ever met through the job. I'm very grateful to Marc Young for giving me the call on those.

Rick: I know you grew up in Belvidere. Who did you listen to when you were growing up? And who are your biggest radio influences?

Alex: Sports-wise, I slept with the radio under the pillow for many Bulls and Cubs games. I also remember turning down the TV for Bears games and turning up Larrivee and Arkush because they were just better than the national crew. On the FM side, the two I distinctly remember are Jeff Wicker at WZOK and Pete McMurray on WXRX. First time I met Pete in the lunchroom at Emmis, I said something to the effect of "Pete, I used to listen to you all the time when I was growing up!" He looked at me sideways...I later realized that it may have come off like I was calling him "old". Pete is not old. In fact, he's in ten times better shape than I am and could probably lift a tour bus if needed.

Rick: You're also a writer/blogger for the Tribune (ChicagoNow and the Red Eye). What do you prefer--radio or writing--and why? And which direction do you see your career heading in the future?

Alex: It looks like my "radio" plate will be getting a whole lot more full in the near future with the interim APD title, so I'm going to roll with that. But I fully plan on continuing to write for the RedEye and ChicagoNow. Can't hurt to expand that umbrella. As a minimum goal, I hope to not be unemployed. As a maximum goal, I want to be in the Chicago Radio Hall of Fame. I will be happy to finish somewhere in the middle ground.

Orion Samuelson

2010-09-18T08:22:00.002-05:00

September 26th, 2010 will mark Orion Samuelson's 50th anniversary with WGN Radio.

Rick: First of all, congratulations on 50 years at WGN radio. That’s an amazing accomplishment. Has it seemed like fifty years to you?

Orion: No, no, it certainly hasn’t, but I am proud of it because no one has ever done it before, and the way the business is these days, I suspect no one will do it again for a very long time. I’m very appreciative that WGN has given me this opportunity.

Rick: Where did you work before WGN?

Orion: Well, I’m a Wisconsin farmboy; my family owned a farm in La Crosse. I got my start in radio in 1952 as a polka disc jockey on WKLG. It later became WCOW, which certainly makes sense in that region, but now I believe it’s WKLG again. In 1954, I moved to Appleton to become a teenage telephone DJ, taking requests and playing the records for kids. The owner of that station also owned a television and radio station in Green Bay Wisconsin, and knew I was a farm kid, so when one of the farm broadcasters left, they brought me aboard.

I really enjoyed Green Bay. I was a big fish in a little pond, and had just built a new home there. WGN called me because their farm director, Norm Kraft, had resigned on the air and walked out of the studio—announcing that he had joined the campaign of Senator Kennedy. I suspect that he thought he would be named Secretary of Agriculture if Sen. Kennedy won. Kennedy did win, but Norm didn’t get the Secretary job.

As for me, I loaded up my 1949 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe with 80,000 miles on it, and drove to Chicago. Remember, there weren't any expressways in those days. It was a long drive on highway 41, but I figured it would be a fun trip to the big city. I knew there were far more qualified people than me, so I didn’t think anything would come of it. I met the GM,Ward Quaal (photo), and Wally Phillips-who was doing evenings at the time, and Eddie Hubbard—the morning man, and Jack Brickhouse, and was very impressed. I was shocked when they offered me the job. I really thought long and hard about it. It took me ten days to make the decision. I look back at that now, and shudder to think how close I came to saying no.

Rick: When you started at WGN in 1960, Chicago was the center of the media universe. The first Kennedy-Nixon debate took place at the old Channel 2 studios at McClurg Ct. the same week you started. I’m guessing it didn’t take long to realize that you had hit the big-time.

Orion: (laughs) No, no, it didn’t. It was a little intimidating. I went from big fish in little pond, to little fish in big pond. And I feared any little mistake would send me packing. WGN was very impressive thanks to Ward Quaal. He was an icon in the industry. He turned WGN around when he took over in 1956. He took paid religion off the air, and he put traffic copters in the air to get better traffic reports. He was an outstanding broadcaster.

Rick: You’ve covered an incredibly broad range of stories in those fifty years. There must be a handful of them that are most memorable to you. What are they?

Orion: Well, I’ve also done a television show for many years too, and with my crew we’ve gone to forty three countries. That’s one thing.

I’ve been asked about this a lot in the last few weeks, and I suppose the one that comes to mind is the day that Senator Kennedy came to Green Bay in May of 1960. He held a press conference in the Northland Hotel, and I asked him several questions about farm and dairy issues. After the press conference was over, a gentleman in a suit came over to me and said, “Senator Kennedy would like to speak to you privately.” He wanted to learn more about farm issues. So we sat in the bar of the Northland Hotel and discussed farm issues for about twenty minutes.

Then, on November 22, 1963, I happened to be on the air when the news came over the wire. I was in the middle of a weather forecast, and I remember it was a warm and rainy day in Chicago, when the yellow teletype was handed to me. I thought it was a joke at first, because of course, that’s the sort of gag we liked to pull on each other, but when I saw the faces in the control room I knew it was for real.

You have to remember, this was before we had the internet, and before we had computers—we were totally reliant upon UPI and AP to give us the news. That was all we had. At 12:33, all I had was this one or two sentence bulletin stating that the President had been shot. I didn’t know what to do. The program director was at lunch, so we couldn’t ask him. The record turner was at lunch, so we couldn’t go to music. So I just went back to reading my forecast, then read the bulletin again, then went back to the forecast. Finally, someone found the record turner, and we went back to music. Walter Cronkite announced that Kennedy was dead around 1:00. I’ll certainly never forget that day.

On the other end of the spectrum, another highlight for me was being the announcer on the WGN Barn Dance. I grew up listening to WLS, the Prairie Farmer Station, and the Barn Dance was a regular Saturday night feature, and had been since the 1920s. They held it at the old 8th Street Theatre. Well, on April 30, 1960, WLS signed off as a farm station, and the next day they became a rock and roll station. This infuriated every single farmer in the Midwest. I said to Ward Quaal, that it would be a shame to let the Barn Dance die, and he agreed. We brought it to WGN, and from 1960-1969, I got to meet some of the greats of the business, including Johnny Cash, and boy you name it, they were all on the show.

I still talk to 4-H clubs with some regularity, and I always tell young people, if you don’t remember anything else I’ve said, remember this: You can’t dream big enough. As a kid sitting on a three-legged milking stool in Wisconsin, I never would have believed the life I had in front of me. Thanks to the power and influence of WGN, I’ve met seven presidents. I even went to a dinner at the White House once when Richard Nixon was president. I never would have believed that could happen to me.

Rick: One of the things I enjoyed about working in radio was the chance to meet so many talented people. You’ve seen some of the greatest come and go—who would you rate as the best of the best—and who have been some of your personal favorites?

Orion: Wally Phillips (photo) had the fastest mind of anyone I’ve ever known. It used to absolutely amaze me—listening to him on the phone calls, his quick comebacks were incredible. Just sitting there and watching the system work was an education. In those days all of these voice cuts he played were put on a disc. There were tons of discs, and his record turner did a tremendous job.

When Bob Collins arrived, I honestly thought it was the end of WGN. He was so unlike Wally, so unlike Roy Leonard. He had that raucous cackle and laugh. He wasn’t smooth. He didn’t have a good radio voice. I didn’t like him for a good six months. But we got involved in a cow milking contest once, and we hit it off. On the day he died he was my closest friend at WGN. His talent was that he could go from something very silly or stupid, to talking about an important issue like abortion or gun control, in the blink of an eye, without missing a beat, and without losing his credibility. That’s a rare talent.

Spike O’Dell was great too. He was put in one of the most difficult situations any broadcaster had ever faced—he had to replace Bobby, and talk about it, and report it, on the air. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t able to discuss it without breaking down. I’m still amazed that Spike handled that so well. He was a great guy too. What you see is what you get from Spike.

And Roy Leonard, in my book, is the best celebrity interviewer of all time. He did the research, he prepared, he read their books, and it showed. I’ll always appreciate Roy for the gracious way he introduced me to these big stars when I came into the studio to deliver my reports. He didn’t have to do that, but he always went out of his way to introduce me to people like Gregory Peck, and one time, I even got to shake hands with Sophia Loren. That’s a moment I’ll never forget. (laughs) That was definitely a highlight.

Rick: We’ve already touched on this briefly, but I want to ask you a little more about agricultural reporting. It used to be a mainstay of big AM radio stations throughout the Midwest. Is radio making a mistake by eliminating or downplaying agricultural news?

Orion: Yes, they are, but you have to realize that most of the managers of the big city radio stations have no knowledge of the food industry’s importance to our daily lives. Their upbringing was probably in the city, and they don’t really understand what happens west of the Tri-State Tollway. I can understand that, I really do. But I try to educate our sales people that rural people are just like them, they buy refrigerators and cars just like city folks do.

Another thing that has emerged to diminish the power of the Big AM stations to deliver the farm news is that local stations have emerged to fill that void. Before they came around, at night time you really didn’t have any other contact with the world besides us. We would cover the nation and a good part of Canada. We were a natural resource because we could get information to everybody in the country. Now there are other ways to do that. And now WGN isn’t even a clear channel station anymore. Now there’s a 720 in Las Vegas and Connecticut.

We had an interesting moment during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. President Kennedy wanted to send a message to the Cuban people that our dispute was not with them, but with their government. He came to several of the big 50,000 watt clear channel radios stations, including WGN, and asked us to deliver a message at midnight every night in their native tongue. And we did. And they could hear us all the way in Cuba. But, the Cubans took action to block us. Within six months they started a 200,000 watt station on the same frequency, and that really blasted us out of the air at nighttime. In the south all you could hear on 720 was Cuban radio. It took us twelve to fourteen years of intensive negotiating through the Swiss Embassy (because we didn’t have direct relations with Cuba) to finally reclaim the frequency in that direction. When I met Mr. Castro in 2000, I was really tempted to bring it up, but I didn’t.

Rick: The radio business itself has obviously changed dramatically during your time on the air. In what ways do you think it’s better or worse than it once was?

Orion: Well, with the instant access we have today, we’re able to do a better job covering stories. If we had all this information at our fingertips in 1963, I wouldn’t have been forced to read weather forecasts the day the president was assassinated.

But there have also been a few changes for the worse, and I fully realize my take on this is probably partly due to generational differences. I’m bothered by the language. I’ve always believed that if you can’t make your point without using four letter words, you’re obviously not able to make your point. I also don’t think we’ve improved the world with some of the formerly taboo topics that are now covered.

Obviously, consolidation is another thing that hasn’t been good for radio. Local radio was really battered by that, but I do think we’re slowly recovering from that. I’ve done local radio and I know how important it is to the community—we did birth announcements, and funeral announcements—the sort of community involvement that all but disappeared in places like Minot, North Dakota, where one company owns eight radio stations.

Rick: And the changes at WGN?

Orion: Look, every kind of change is difficult for all of us. The changes here—I don’t like them all, but I’ve always believed that if you don’t own the radio station, it really is out of your hands. You only have two choices. Go away or stay. I’ve obviously stayed.

Rick: You’ve been rumored to be running for office many times over the years. I know you’ve been active in Republican politics. Has that ship sailed or is there still a chance we could see Orion for Governor signs in our front yards someday?

Orion: No, I’m 76—nobody will vote for someone my age now. But I’ve always been intrigued by politics. When Reagan was elected I was on the list of potential Secretary of Agriculture nominees. I think I would have been a good one, but many people pointed out to me that I could make an even bigger impact on the agricultural community where I was. Once you become the secretary, half the people hate you—the people from the other party.

I did have an interesting five days of almost going into politics when President Obama was running for the Senate. Jack Ryan had won the primary, but had to back out after a scandal emerged.

I got a call from Channel 7 saying that they wanted to interview me about possibly becoming the Republican candidate, because they were hearing rumblings that I was being mentioned as a possible replacement. I told them there was no story there, I hadn’t been contacted. Then Channel 2 called and told me that I was being mentioned downstate in the newspapers there.

The next five days were fascinating. Suddenly I was hearing from people all over the state, offering to hold fundraisers or contribute to my campaign. Denny Hastert’s office called me and set up a meeting at his house. Dennis (photo) was there, along with his campaign treasurer, and the head of the party, and Denny’s wife too—so Gloria had someone to talk to.

Suddenly this was becoming very serious. They asked me about my positions, and I admitted that I had some views that wouldn’t be popular with the base, including my stance on gun control and abortion. I’m all for hunting, but I honestly don’t believe hunters need automatic weapons. Denny admitted that a few would take issue with that stance, but that he could live with it. Then I told him that I really thought a woman should have the right to choose what happens with her own body, but I also said that I have two children, and they’re both adopted, and I wouldn’t have been so blessed if their mothers had chosen abortion. He seemed to think that was a reasonable position to take.

We even talked about what it would take from a financial perspective to run for office. He told me that most candidates need to spend $4 million just to become known, but that I wouldn’t need that because I was already known. He said I’d need about $10 million altogether, and that he could get me the first million. Well, that left $9 million more, which seemed daunting. But he pointed out that I wouldn’t have to run in a primary, and that was another plus.

I left his house thinking I was ready. My wife was ready. Denny Hastert was ready. But since I had a serious health condition (involving my throat), I said that the final decision would have to be made by my doctor. When I got him on the phone, he said: “Samuelson, what the hell are you thinking? Are you crazy?” (laughs). I took that as a no.

That ended my never political career.

Rick: But your radio career is still going strong, so let me ask the question I’m sure you don’t want to answer—are you planning on retiring soon?

Orion: No, not at all. Randy Michaels and I have had a few conversations about this. We went to lunch a couple of times and chatted. He has a love of radio history—give him a call letter and he can tell you where it is. He asked me if I was planning on retiring, and I said no. Randy said to me: “As long as I’m president of this company, I want you on the air.”