Posted by Pier 5736 on July 03, 2010 at 17:48:59:
Rapid changes at station have listeners – and former broadcasters – steamed
Phil Rosenthal
Chicago Tribune Media
July 4, 2010
Not every longtime fan of WGN-AM 720 voicing an opinion is sad about the changes of the past 18 months or so. Some are angry.
"As long as they are making all these changes, I hope they will change the call letters too," a retired former Chicagoan posted on Facebook the other day in response to management's latest gambit, showing the door to midday personality Steve Cochran. "It is certainly no longer the station that mid-America knows and trusts."
The retiree was Spike O'Dell, the former WGN morning drive host who walked away from broadcasting in mid-December 2008. And the only thing more stunning than his level of frustration — building from the station's dropping its long-running "Sports Central" program as well its midday "Girlfriends" team of Judy Markey and Kathy O'Malley — was that O'Dell voiced his view in a public forum.
Humble, friendly and folksy, O'Dell for nearly 22 strong years at WGN epitomized the neutral host-as-moderator that often comes to mind when listeners think of the station's increasingly distant past.
But like a lot of those who can't comprehend what would lead WGN boss Tom Langmyer and program director Kevin Metheny to revamp the station in such fashion, O'Dell sought to make it clear he is among those for whom the 86-year-old Chicago institution has a special place in their hearts and minds.
"It needs to occupy a place on their radio," said Langmyer, WGN-AM's vice president and general manager since 2005. "WGN occupies a place in a lot of people's minds, but we need the listener levels to reflect that."
WGN has moved from passive hosts to those who lead conversations, bringing an argument or a perspective. If groups of people want to talk to each other on a topic, they no longer need a radio station as a go-between. There are social media platforms such as Twitter for that.
And despite what one might sense from Internet chatter, WGN's overall audience share among listeners age 12 and older was up this May compared to May of last year, 5.2 to 5.8. The station showed gains in each daypart except for weekends, when it's flat, and night, when it was down.
"So you look at that and you have to say they're doing some things that are right," said John Gehron, a longtime Chicago radio exec who's now a consultant. "There's growth in some key areas, too, especially among (listeners age) 35 to 64."
To hear Gehron, it is the speed, scope and execution of the changes that seem to be causing whatever ill-will exists toward WGN, its management and that of parent Tribune Co., also parent of this newspaper. Both listeners and staff are getting whiplash.
"They seem to be getting in trouble on style, in the way they're doing things," Gehron said. "People are not getting treated in a way that would make it easier to get through this adjustment. … Here's a radio station people were used to and were comfortable with and in a year everybody but John Williams has been changed out. … I don't know if reinventing it at the speed they're doing it is necessary. That would be my concern."
The effect of the confusion and frustration this has generated is unclear.
"I think we haven't told our own story effectively," said Metheny, the well-traveled program director who arrived at WGN the Monday after O'Dell's final show. "We are not without a plan. Our plan may not have been the most elegantly or artfully executed of all possible plans, but we actually understand what it is we think we are trying to do and why we think we're trying to do it."
Metheny's strategy is to segue from newsy in the morning, through midday talk shows to funny in afternoon drive with Garry Meier. Greg Jarrett was brought in last year from San Francisco to take over morning drive after six months of Williams, who replaced O'Dell but has since moved back to middays. Mike McConnell, hired last month, will come aboard from Cincinnati's WLW-AM in August.
Gehron said the style and substance of McConnell's show will say much about WGN's future, just as the station likely would have been headed in another orbit if it had also successfully lured WLW's over-the-top Bill Cunningham.
"My hope is that they don't make WGN into WLW," Gehron said. "It's very successful for many reasons, but it's also very in-your-face and I don't know if that position is one that will work in Chicago."
The WLW concern is rooted in the fact that Tribune Co. Chief Executive Randy Michaels and other executives he brought to the Chicago-based media concern helped make WLW what it is today. (Michaels also once hired Gehron at Clear Channel.) Langmyer and Metheny said they are running WGN, but they note the value of Michaels' counsel.
WGN's most controversial addition is disgraced former politician Jim Laski, a convicted felon and radio novice, to replace "Sports Central" at night.
"Is it where we want it to be? No," Metheny said of Laski's show. "Are he and I painfully aware of that every day? Absolutely. Do we work intensely on it? Yes, sir."
In a blistering exit interview last week with Chicago Public Media, Cochran took shots at WGN, its direction and its leadership. Metheny said he saw no point in rebutting his ex-employee.
Cochran is "talented, funny, and often inventive," Metheny said.
Williams, meanwhile, is turning out to be a star pupil for Metheny, working hard, being punctual, making the adjustments Metheny asks. Gehron noted Williams has improved on the ratings of Markey and O'Malley, even among female listeners.
"There was a time when what would pass for being a talk show on WGN would be: 'Today, we're going to talk about school lunches. Good or bad?'" Metheny said. "John will attack it in a more engaging manner now. 'The public schools around Chicago are feeding your kids lunches that are going to make them fat and stupid and they're going to get their tushes handed to them in the 21st century.' That's obviously a little more engaging."
All traditional media have had to change, especially in recent years. The more successful the entity, the tougher it is to do.
"Where people get into trouble is in trying to decide which way they want to go," Gehron said. "Do they want to reinvent themselves, or do they want to be the best at what they do and accept what they are? And clearly WGN seems to be taking the road of reinvention."
Believe it or not, there have been controversial WGN changes before.
"There was turmoil (in 1987) when WGN brought in Spike," Gehron recalled. "He came from an oldies rock station, and it was a very gutsy move."
It worked out. Not all moves do.
"The essence of WGN is being the back fence for Chicago," Langmyer said. "How people communicate has indeed changed, but that vision has not. … Now it's the difference between a companion and an engaged companion."
But not necessarily an enraged companion.