Posted by chicagomedia.org on October 21, 2008 at 12:42:44:
Chicago Emmy Awards serve up some nostalgia
For the last eight years, it has been my honor as a marketing columnist to share a page in the Sun-Times with Rob Feder. He has tirelessly and brilliantly brought readers insight about local radio and television, a beat I previously covered as a reporter for nearly a decade during the 1980s at Crain's Chicago Business. Now I will be adding the Chicago television and radio business beat duties to my other responsibilities covering the local ad industry.
Over time, I hope to provide readers with my own take on what's interesting and newsy on the local radio and TV beat. But I have huge shoes to fill. At Saturday's 50th anniversary Chicago Emmy Awards presentation, longtime broadcaster John Callaway paid tribute to Feder, who after 28 scoop-filled years penned his final column for the paper Friday. The Emmy audience responded with a large round of applause, to which we most humbly add our own for an incredibly well-done job that will not soon be matched in this market.
Farewell, Rob.
It was a night suffused with nostalgia for five decades of often hard-hitting local television news and those who brought it to us. Saturday night's 50th anniversary Chicago Emmy Awards also was notable for one development that had the crowd of 450 broadcast pros atwitter: Joe Ahern was in the audience.
The former general manager of CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2 who was unceremoniously ousted from his job last week after more than six years in the position was the invited guest of Larry Wert, general manager of NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5. The longtime rivals sat together at a prominent table in the Hyatt McCormick Place ballroom, jovially whispering back and forth through the awards. Asked about his plans, the always dapper Ahern said he would like to stay in Chicago, but, of course, it is too early to know if that will be the case.
Right at the top of the show, Pam Zekman, a grand dame in both Chicago print and television journalism, made it clear she wouldn't allow the evening to pass without paying homage to Ahern, which she did in her acceptance speech for an investigative reporting award.
The Emmy presentations included awards in more than 50 categories, a surprisingly large number of which went to Milwaukee-area TV stations that belong to the Chicago Emmy chapter -- a development that seemed to leave the audience a bit stunned at times. But more than the awards, the presence on stage of local TV news luminaries past and present is what made the fast-paced show a pleasure to watch.
Former co-anchors Walter Jacobson and Bill Kurtis, who dominated the local news ratings for years during their tenure at WBBM, kicked off the evening -- and nearly did it in -- with a series of embarrassing miscues. But they recovered nicely, and things proceeded more smoothly from then on.
The evening's real fun came from welcoming back to the spotlight on-air talents such as the quite pleasant Linda MacLennan and Lester Holt, who, among many other anchor talents, tried and failed to raise WBBM out of the ratings dumpster. MacLennan retired to raise a family and now calls herself just a hockey mom, while Holt is enjoying considerable success on a national broadcast news platform at NBC.
For figure skating enthusiasts like us, it was a treat to see Olympic bronze medalist Debi Thomas help hand out the sports-related Emmys.
Thomas moonlighted for WBBM as a figure skating commentator during the Lillehammer Winter Olympics while she was in medical school at Northwestern University. She now lives in Champaign.
Perhaps the night's most touching moment was the reunion of WLS-TV anchor Linda Yu and retired anchor Joel Daly. The two apparently enjoyed a quasi-father/daughter relationship during many years together at WLS. "I even look like Joel now, don't you think," Yu asked the crowd.
The two-hour show concluded with an appearance by two true eminence grises of Chicago broadcasting: John Callaway and Jim Ruddle. Their poise and no-nonsense eloquence were undeniable, as Callaway reminded the assembled guests of the gravity of the mass killings at Northern Illinois University last winter. With Ahern sitting a few feet away, a large crew of WBBM news staffers collected the top Emmy for their spot news coverage of the NIU shooting rampage.
For a list of winners, including the surprise award for outstanding anchor, WLS' relative newcomer Ravi Baichwal, visit www.chicagoemmyonline.org.
(Lewis Lazare, "Television and Radio Columnist", Chicago Sun-Times)