Posted by chicagomedia.org on June 26, 2008 at 07:32:42:
Confident North: 'I did what I wanted'
If I know Mike North, his only regret is that news of the final blowup with his bosses didn't make the front page of the papers.
As a consummate showman and a shameless self-promoter, North garnered more headlines during his 16 years at sports/talk WSCR-AM (670) than every other personality at the CBS Radio station combined.
By the same token, the self-styled wise guy and onetime hot dog stand owner did more to put the Score and its format on the map than anyone else.
Call it pride or call it ego, but in the end, North simply became too big and too uncontrollable for the team he'd played on for so long.
Although technically his bosses withdrew their last offer to renew his contract -- a deal that would have kept him in mornings for the time being at half the $1.5 million-a-year he had been making -- North sealed his own fate when he rejected it at the end of last week.
"We were unable to agree," said an extremely cautious Paul Agase, vice president and general manager of the Score. "We thank Mike for his contributions and we wish him well."
While the midday duo of Sun-Times writers Mike Mulligan and Brian Hanley are the odds-on favorites to win the morning job, CBS Radio management will spend the next month or so weighing all options. Among names mentioned were Dan Hampton and Dan Jiggetts.
As for North, he sounded more confident and serene Wednesday than at any time since February 2007, when I first reported that his bosses were seriously considering cutting their ties to him when his contract was up.
North, 55, said he already has "four offers in different venues of entertainment" and predicted that he'd be back at work in two months. (By "offers," he could mean "expressions of interest.")
Despite countless controversies he'd stirred up over the years, he said the labels of sexism and racism applied to him were bum raps.
"I did what I wanted to do and what I thought I had to do," he said. "I challenged people's sensitivities and the way they think."
Just for the record, in the latest Arbitron quarterly survey, North's morning show was tied for eighth place with a 3.8 percent share among men between the ages of 25 and 54. That was the target he'd been paid handsomely to reach.
No matter how you try to spin them, those numbers simply could not justify a seven-figure salary in the current radio climate.
Also just for the record, North denied any disappointment that his ouster didn't make Page One.
"I was on the front of the sports page," he said with a laugh. "That's even better."
(Feder)