Posted by The Noise I Wish I Ignored on July 04, 2008 at 19:01:31:
If you don't have time to read my entire review, I'll sum up last night's WGN broadcast for you: a waste of time.
The overall tone of the night was "we have no idea what we're doing, we didn't rehearse, we didn't research, we didn't put anything together.... but hey, we've got this contract now so we'll go for it."
As a regular listener of Steve Cochran's afternoon show on WGN radio, I was floored when he first appeared on camera. I had no clue that he was 400 lbs. But out of the gate, I have to say Cochran stole the show with his personality and ability to gab. He was the lead, even though I don't think it was supposed to be that way.
Paul Konrad on the other hand, the seasoned on-camera personality, acted the opposite. He was an amateur. As a frequent viewer of the morning news, I expected more. His eyes were glassed over, he couldn't stop giggling and everytime he tried to utter a complete sentence he fumbled over himself and threw his hands in the air. Cochran had to pick up the pieces each time.
I'm 96% sure that Konrad was drunk, had been drinking earlier in the day or was under the influence of drugs.
There were TWO produced pieces for the entire hour-long broadcast. One took us to the Taste for a sampling of food. The other was clearly pre-produced, but was suspiciously treated like live. "Live" with Dean Richards giving us a rundown of musical acts. I say suspiciously because it was 9pm yet Dean was in broad daylight when he was "tossed to".
Camerawork was horrid from the grainy shots of Cochran and Konrad, to the shakey, fuzzy, unfocused and confused different views of the fireworks.
A mess. A waste of time. An embarassment to the world's opinion of the City of Chicago and WGN TV.