Phil Rosenthal speaks with Mark "Bruno" Cohen

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: New boss takes on Channel 2's woes : : Building gleaming new headquarters for WBBM-Ch. 2 turned out to be easier for Joe Ahern than rebuilding the infamously hobbled CBS-owned station he ran for a little more than six years. : What ultimately doomed Ahern, who was bounced Tuesday from the TV palace he put up across from Daley Plaza, is that both pricey overhauls took too long and didn't increase long-sagging viewership soon enough. : Inheriting The House That Joe Built and all that comes with it—from its underwhelming viewership to the new semi-public street-level news studio Channel 2 christened last month and Ahern's luxurious private suite—is long-time news and programming exec Mark "Bruno" Cohen, 57, who takes over as WBBM president and general manager after a few years running the two CBS-owned stations in Sacramento. : "I know a lot of people have tried to turn the place around and haven't, so I'm not going into it lightly," Cohen said. "But at this point in my career, I love parachuting in and discovering what the situation is, creating my own point of view, communicating that to the people involved and trying to get everybody to go in one direction. If the direction I determine works, then we're going to be successful. If it doesn't, then I guess they'll fly in the next guy. : "To the extent that the office is nice and it has a shower, I suppose that's great. I don't think it means a single ratings point for the station." : Just as Ahern, who ran ABC-owned perennial market leader WLS-Ch. 7 from 1985 to 1997, can take credit for being part of the Channel 7 team that launched Oprah Winfrey to superstardom, Cohen was vice president and news director at NBC flagship WNBC-TV when it recruited a certain talk-show host from WWOR-TV as a newscaster: Matt Lauer. : But Cohen's background in news, syndication and programming differs dramatically from that of Ahern, 63, and most other station bosses around the country these days, who traditionally rise from the sales department. : "My conversations with my senior management at CBS has been that these are not traditional times," Cohen said. "If people keep going back to the same kinds of people and the same kinds of situations, they'll get the same kinds of results." : Ahern's failure to reverse Channel 2's long-standing ratings woes came through a revised version of the WLS playbook penned by his legendary Channel 7 predecessor, Dennis Swanson. Their version of Vince Lombardi's power sweep was to build around the market's top available anchor. : Chief among the disappointments had to be that Ahern's expensive hire of Channel 7 star newscaster Diann Burns, Chicago's highest-paid anchor, failed to pay the dividends he expected. Burns was among several front-line news staffers axed this spring in a cost-cutting move, although her guaranteed $2 million-per-year contract was to expire this month. : "I don't have any regrets," Ahern said by phone on his way home from Channel 2. "I'm grateful for every single day that I've had, and for the future as well." : There surely were other factors in WBBM's wheel-spinning, as well. Staffing cuts and frequent anchor shuffles rarely play well in Chicago. Channel 2 also has had signal problems, which it hopes to minimize with February's mandatory switch to digital transmission. Its newscasts weren't even available in high-definition until last month's move to the new studio. : "The station is poised to go forward and do a great job," Ahern said. "We tackled a lot of [the problems]." : Cohen said he likes and respects Ahern. "I don't know exactly why the last six years didn't galvanize the way he wanted," he said. : In some ways, the hiring of Cohen, who earned the nickname "Bruno" while getting his undergraduate degree in English from Princeton because his basketball plays reminded pals of pro wrestler Bruno Sammartino, brings WBBM full circle. He reportedly owes his first TV break to former Channel 2 chief Bill Applegate. : Cohen was hired in Eugene, Ore., to deliver wire copy and do other chores, launching a career that would take him to syndicated program development for the Walt Disney Co. and the upper management ranks of CNBC. : Now he's being called upon to take Channel 2 out of the hole dug in the 1990s by the disastrous experiment with "if it bleeds, it leads" news on Applegate's watch. : "Even before I went to WNBC television as news director in 1992 . . . [WBBM] was known in news-director circles as 'the unfixable television station,' " Cohen said. "But what I've heard is that there are really exceptional people at the station. They haven't been put together . . . or had their work showcased in quite the way to make the people of Chicago recognize it and make their work compelling to them on a daily basis. I'm going to come in with fresh eyes, obviously, and a lot of experience in a lot of places. : "I'm going to ask these people to come together and give me their best thinking. Set a direction and take a shot at giving Chicago a much better television station. What else is there to do?" : (Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)

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