Posted by chicagomedia.org on October 30, 2007 at 09:42:46:
The Chicago morning radio landscape Steve Dahl re-enters Monday, when he moves his show from afternoons on CBS Radio's WCKG-FM 105.9 to the 5:30-to-10 a.m. shift on sister station WJMK-FM 104.3, isn't that different from the one he exited 11 years ago, when he quit WMVP-AM 1000.
Jonathon Brandmeier, Eddie Volkman and Joe Bohannon, Steve Harvey, Lin Brehmer, Tom Joyner, Don and Roma Wade, Felicia Middlebrooks and even Kathy Hart, who would team with Eric Ferguson later in 1996, are all heard on the air here.
There have been a few changes, to be sure. Some morning personalities, like Dahl, who made his first splash in Chicago morning radio almost 30 years ago, have left and returned to the market's morning slot in that span, and some are only here because of syndication. Spike O'Dell almost seamlessly replaced the late Bob Collins. Howard Stern went to satellite radio and Erich "Mancow" Muller is off reinventing himself, the medium or something.
A relative newcomer such as Kevin "Drex" Buchar may make a dent locally, but still....
"Especially in the major markets, you've got to have a more proven formula and it needs to be local," said Rod Zimmerman, who oversees CBS Radio's Chicago stations. "Given the economics today, there are fewer risk-takers to allow personalities the time to develop."
Formats come and go, and WCKG's FM talk format is gone, with everyone but those on Dahl's show dumped and an unveiling of the station's new format set for next week or so. But tried-and-true personalities remain as much a part of morning drive in Chicago as rush-hour backups on the Eisenhower Expressway. Part of it is that's what Chicago listeners apparently want.
"There seems to be a love affair with Chicago radio personalities that I've never experienced in other markets," said Marv Nyren, who oversees the Emmis Communications station locally and brought Brandmeier back to town on WLUP-FM 97.9. "But having lived in multiple cities throughout my career in radio, I have never lived in a city that had many truly talented personalities in morning drive that Chicago has always had, since I was a little kid with Wally Phillips and then growing up with Steve Dahl and Jonathon Brandmeier."
But part of the remarkable consistency in local morning radio is because new talent hasn't been nurtured and allowed to grow, and the reason for that may also date back to around 1996. That's when the radio industry was deregulated, allowing for greater concentration of station ownership.
Radio companies invested heavily in consolidation and then set about looking for ways to maximize the return on their investment.
"I don't believe deregulation in general was good for the radio industry," Nyren said. "There were two groups it was supposed to help -- the advertising community and the listening audience -- and I don't think either benefited from deregulation.
"Certain companies looked at things solely in terms of cost. How could they take that one person on in one market and then put him on 20 stations. Well, guess what? That meant there were 19 markets that didn't have a personality in there and, as a programmer, I don't think that's good for radio. ... But in this world of public companies, taking a risk is very risky."
Stations have been less eager to make changes in morning drive, but that could change soon with Arbitron changing its ratings methodology from sample listeners' diaries to what's known as Portable People Meters, which more or less eavesdrop on what the sample audience hears. PPMs are set to arrive in Chicago with the new year.
"Mornings is where radio has always shined and performed its best," Zimmerman said. "People start their day with radio and that's why the audiences will remain very large. ... [But] one thing PPM has shown in Philadelphia and Houston [where the devices already are in use] is a more balancing of the dayparts. Listenership is a little larger in middays and afternoons than what was reported in the past. Morning is not quite as dominant a daypart as it is right now in the diary method."
In Zimmerman's view, the Jack FM format, designed as a music sampler without live personalities and limited interruption, has done all right on WJMK in middays and afternoons but needed a boost in the mornings. He sees the addition of Dahl to mornings as "a real shot in the arm for the radio station that ... solidifies the station, makes it a more well-rounded, more local broadcast."
While making the long-anticipated on-air announcement Monday of his Nov. 5 move, Dahl talked about wanting to "get back in the morning radio wars and kick some butt." Off-air his take on the competition in morning drive had somewhat less swagger: "I will have my work cut out for me," he said by e-mail.
Dahl said he intends to make few changes from his afternoon show in moving back to mornings. "I will be eating breakfast on the air instead of a late afternoon snack," he said. Asked how he feels about returning to his old time slot, Dahl said, "I'm going out tonight to buy a new alarm clock."
Presumably it's set for 2007, not 1996.
-Phil Rosenthal