Posted by chicagomedia.org on May 23, 2009 at 12:01:42:
In Reply to: Kathy and Judy on WGN posted by Wow.. what a Friday on May 22, 2009 at 09:34:29:
Girlfriends go off the air
'Kathy & Judy' exit as WGN-AM 720 drops long-running program
Phil Rosenthal | Tribune Media
May 23, 2009
Help me, Rhonda.
The Girlfriends are gone.
The "Kathy & Judy" show, a groundbreaking weekday coffee klatch presided over by former Chicago newspaper columnists Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey, ended its run of 20 years on WGN-AM 720 Friday, with the Tribune Co. station calling the cancellation of the one-time ratings juggernaut "a business decision."
The emotional, final 9 a.m.-to-noon show for the Girlfriends, as they are known to their fans, featured highlights of some of their most memorable on-air moments as well as remembrances.
O'Malley and Markey said they had known for three weeks their show was ending, but the abruptness of Friday's announcement by WGN -- just as the finale was beginning -- caught listeners by surprise.
"We're all going to be OK, and we're all going to put on our big-girl panties and deal with it," O'Malley told them.
No replacement was named. WGN-AM executives were not available for comment, and O'Malley and Markey declined an interview request off the air.
The end of "Kathy & Judy" was one of two seismic shifts in Chicago radio Friday. Clear Channel's WNUA-FM 95.5 dropped smooth jazz after 22 years for a Spanish-language format. Both were driven by the need for revenue.
"The media business and the Chicago radio market have changed dramatically in the last few years, including a new method of ratings measurement," Tom Langmyer, WGN-AM's vice president and general manager, said in a statement. "WGN needs to respond to these changes, and this is the time to move in a new direction."
Until recently a ratings powerhouse, Markey and O'Malley's audience share of advertiser-coveted listeners between the ages of 25 to 54 dropped steadily each month this year, from a 1.6 in January to 1.0 in April, ranking 33rd in the market. Among listeners ages 35 to 64, they slipped from 3.1 to 2.5 and 17th place in the same span.
Given WGN's aggressive efforts to begin to reposition itself for the first time in years, the shift from "Kathy & Judy" was inevitable. It had been widely expected that Markey, 65, and O'Malley, 63, would retire at the end of their current deal, which runs into next year.
Markey broke a little at one point during a live commercial read, finally saying, "They're never going to pay for this" and apologizing to the WGN account executive who sold the spot.
"One of the things that radio does is pull people together," O'Malley said, between tears. "There have been so many times in the last 20 years when somebody has said to me, 'I thought I was all alone out there and then I heard somebody else say it.' That's one of the blessings of radio."
O'Malley, who co-wrote the Chicago Tribune's Inc. people column, and Markey, who wrote a features column for the Sun-Times, met in the mid-1980s when they were tabbed to appear as celebrity stepmothers in the Chicago City Ballet production of " Cinderella." After a year or so teaming on the radio on a part-time basis, they were made a permanent team by WGN in 1989. Each eventually gave up their newspaper jobs.
"We have a very yin-yang relationship because we both come from very different places from each other," Markey said in a 1991 Tribune interview. "Kathy's a divorced Catholic who was raised on a farm. I'm divorced, Jewish and from Beverly Hills. But what we have in common is that we're both independent, verbal, curious and are probably above average in intelligence."
Winners of a 2008 Gracie Allen Award from the American Women in Radio & Television as Outstanding Talk Show in 2008, the Girlfriends had a bit of a run-in with management while negotiating a renewal in 2006.
They walked away from WGN for three days rather than work without a contract. But management at WGN and parent Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago Tribune, were reminded how effective the duo were on behalf of advertisers and how they had thousands of listeners, including all those who called in to dish anonymously with the alias "Rhonda" or "Vince."
Nancy Giardina, a 63-year-old retiree from Libertyville, stopped by Tribune Tower with her grandson to peek in on the Girlfriends in the fishbowl that is the Showcase Studio on Michigan Avenue, unaware at first that it was O'Malley and Markey's swan song. "I just feel sick," she said. "It's like someone kicked me in the stomach."
Greg Walsh, a broker at the Chicago Board of Trade, said he would wave hello to the duo on his walk to work. "If it wasn't for this show, I wouldn't be in touch with my feminine side. Every time these girls talk about an issue you absorb it and take it with you. It's like part of your family, it's gone."