Posted by Bud on June 11, 2010 at 21:46:54:
WGN dipping into Cincinnati talent pool to roil waters here
"A comedy team from Cincinnati will take over a big chunk of radio and TV time on WGN (radio) and (TV's) Channel 9," the Chicago Tribune of Sept. 24, 1956, reported.
Wally Phillips, who would become the gold standard in Chicago morning radio on WGN-AM 720, was 31, and Bob Bell, later the first Bozo of WGN-Ch. 9's phenomenally popular "Bozo's Circus," was 34. Their initial WGN effort flopped, but their relative youth provided a margin for error, and the success of the WLW-AM and WLWT-TV imports from Ohio would for decades help define Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s flagship stations.
Now, WGN-AM has reached into the Cincinnati talent pool yet again in an effort to push the era of Phillips and Bell further into the past. It's the latest step in a campaign that began after former Jacor Communications Chairman Sam Zell took control of Tribune Co. in late 2007, bringing Randy Michaels and several of his colleagues from that one-time WLW-AM parent into key management positions here.
The station said this week that Mike McConnell, a veteran midday host on Cincinnati's WLW-AM, will be joining WGN-AM in August.
And this has done nothing to discourage speculation that WGN-AM may also grab fellow WLW-AM personality Bill Cunningham. Cunningham already has a deal to do a potential syndicated TV talk show for parent Tribune Co. that's set to tape test shows this weekend at WGN-Ch. 9.
McConnell is 55, Cunningham 62. They're the top-rated talk hosts on the No. 1 station in the nation's No. 28 market. McConnell is libertarian, and Cunningham is a liberal-turned-conservative whose WLW-AM show beats Rush Limbaugh in Cincinnati and whose weekend syndicated program airs Sunday nights on WLS-AM 890, at least for now, here in the No. 3 market.
They are potentially polarizing, which is sharply at odds with the WGN-AM that listeners have known.
The people running WGN-AM are tight-lipped about precisely what time slot McConnell is getting, and they're not willing to even entertain a scenario involving Cunningham. But it's common knowledge Steve Cochran, whose show moved to 1 p.m. and was trimmed by a third, to two hours, this spring, has a contract expiring soon.
If Cunningham jumps, too, John Williams, who since April has been doing a two-hour show for CBS Radio's WCCO-AM in Minneapolis after his 9 a.m.-to-1 p.m. WGN-AM shift wraps, presumably could move north despite a Chicago contract that runs into 2011.
This would just about complete the makeover of WGN-AM, which last year installed Greg Jarrett, formerly of San Francisco's KGO-AM, in morning drive; hired afternoon host Garry Meier, who earlier was half of two of Chicago radio's top duos of the last 30 years; and this year hired corrupt-politician-turned-radio-novice Jim Laski.
Gone are such longtime WGN-AM staples as Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey and the "Sports Central" program.
Whether the end result for WGN-AM station boss Tom Langmyer and program director Kevin Metheny will match the turnaround Michaels and the Cincinnati kids executed at WLW in the 1980s remains to be seen … and heard.
WLW-AM was losing money in 1983 despite a booming signal when Michaels and a group from Taft Broadcasting bought the station, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Michaels himself hosted a program that, the paper said, once devoted an evening to asking listeners: Who would you like to kill? How would you do it? What would you do with the body?
One of Michaels' first moves at WLW was to hire Cunningham, an attorney offering callers legal advice on a rival station. Michaels later added McConnell to produce ads, giving him a show in '85.
WGN-AM, like WLW, is one of the last remaining round-the-clock live, all-local talk stations. Part of the challenge in remaking the Chicago station is that people here speak fondly of it. But the ratings switch from diaries, which put a premium on brand allegiance, to portable people meters, which tracked actual listening, indicated the audience's sentiment and listening habits didn't sync.
There also is added pressure on WGN-AM to build beyond its traditional standing at or near the top of the so-called beauty contest ratings of listeners age 12 and older to enjoy success with the audience between the ages of 25 and 54 that advertisers care most about — or given the appeal of AM radio, perhaps more realistically, 35 to 54.
Rival stations are quick to note sports broadcasts, not just the traditional WGN-AM tent pole of Cubs games but the growing interest this spring in the Blackhawks, continue to help a good deal.
But, in truth, the only ranking that matters comes from BIA/Kelsey, which showed WGN-AM last year continued to trail only WBBM-AM 780 in advertiser billing among Chicago stations, at $36.5 million, even though the two stations each fell around 10 percent from 2008.
That's one thing that's certain to go over exactly the same in Chicago as in the Cincinnati market — a dollar.
(Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)