Re: Lew Lazare on Radio Chaos

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: My pal Big Ken Cocker would call it "Udder" chaos! : : IT'S 'UTTER CHAOS' - CHICAGO RADIO - May 23,2009 : : New ratings system, tough times drive upheaval : : BY LEWIS LAZARE Sun-Times Columnist : : On Friday, there were two ugly developments in the radio world sure to anger tens of thousands of radio listeners in the days and months to come. Two changes that are perfectly indicative of the current, tumultuous state of the Chicago radio industry. : : At almost the same moment, the "Kathy & Judy Show" was axed on news-talk WGN-AM (720) after a 20-year run, and a new Spanish hot adult contemporary format replaced the 20-year-old smooth jazz format at WNUA-FM (95.5), taking local music legend Ramsey Lewis off the airwaves, along with Rick O'Dell and several other well-known hosts who had been let go months earlier. : : Where will it all end? That has been the question ever since we inherited the radio and television beat a mere seven months ago from Rob Feder. Since then, we have had to deal with rounds of bloody layoffs and format switches across the entire radio spectrum in Chicago. : : We have talked to scores of people in the radio business in recent weeks, and just about everyone agrees they've never seen the local radio landscape undergo such upheaval in such a compressed time period. "Utter chaos" is how one longtime observer described the situation. That source even went so far as to suggest that by the time all the dust has settled (and we're not entirely sure it ever will), Chicago radio fans may find fewer outlets in the market. Yes, some fear the day may come when Chicago simply can't support every station now operating. : : But what is driving this tumult in the local radio industry? Not surprisingly, money is at the core. But experts also point to the new ratings system, the portable people meter (introduced almost a year ago to determine the all-important monthly ratings) as another major reason the radio industry has been forced to quickly reshape itself in Chicago. : : For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, radio stations are in a financial bind. When the economy started its tailspin last fall, so too did radio ad revenue. Station managers wondered how long the rapidly worsening situation would last, and they quickly realized no one could predict. So most station managers decided they had no recourse but to trim the body counts at their respective stations as quickly as possible. : : That, in part, explains why local legends such as Steve Dahl and Ed Volkman and Joe Bohannon are gone from the marketplace now -- along with the million-dollar salaries these guys demanded and readily got when money was flowing freely in the radio business. In addition to their pulling down huge salaries, it also didn't help that talents like Dahl were getting a little long in the tooth, and their appeal to the younger demos that just about every station now covets was fading. : : While the ad revenue was shrinking at every station, the portable people meter also was giving advertisers a new view of who the real winners and losers in the local radio market are. In the past, people manually filled out diaries to indicate what they were listening to on the radio. Those diaries, in turn, were used to calculate ratings each month in the Chicago marketplace. : : But now what people listen to is automatically tracked with the new "people meters." : : "People used to fill out the diaries based on what they thought their favorite radio personalities were, but the people meter is all about what they are really tuned in to," explained one local radio executive. : : That change in the way ratings data are collected has exposed some glaring holes in the presumed strengths of some local radio stations, like WGN-AM, and considerably upped the ratings of other stations such as oldies WLS-FM (94.7) and all-news WBBM-AM (780). Concurrently, the people meter has made bigger stars out of some on-air talents such as Don Wade and Roma and punctured others like Dahl, who plummeted in the ratings when the people meter debuted. : : There has been plenty of change in Chicago radio in the last few months. And one thing seems certain from where we sit: There will be more.

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