Rosenthal: Much more about 'Monsters and Money in the Morning'

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: In his media column in today's Chicago Tribune, Phil Rosenthal takes an even deeper look at the new "Monsters" show, talking in detail with Bruno Cohen about the plans. : : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ : 'Monsters and Money in the Morning' to debut on WBBM-Ch. 2 in February : Mike North, Dan Jiggetts to join financial columnists in show to replace 5 to 7 a.m. weekday newscast : : Burying its moribund early morning news, WBBM-Ch. 2 is creating a "Monster." : " Monsters and Money in the Morning," set to debut Feb. 1 in the CBS-owned station's 5 to 7 a.m. weekday slot, is a talk show of sorts. It will include news and be produced within the station's news department but is not supposed to be considered a news program and held to a newscast's standards. : Mike North and Dan Jiggetts, the one-time radio duo known as "The Monsters," whose Comcast SportsNet Chicago morning cable show ends at the end of the month, will talk sports. Former CNBC reporter Mike Hegedus and Chicago Sun-Times finance columnist Terry Savage, who sits on the board of directors of CME Group Inc., will deal with money issues. : Current Channel 2 news staff included in the mix will be Mary Kay Kleist on weather and Susan Carlson on headlines and traffic. Weathercaster-turned-anchor Don Schwenneker and co-anchor Roseanne Tellez, now fronting the little-watched newscast leading into CBS' "The Early Show," will be reassigned before the new creation is put on its feet. : "It's not a news show. It's a sports and business information program," Channel 2 boss Bruno Cohen said Wednesday. "Jeff Kiernan (WBBM's news director) will be the senior executive on this program, but it's not a newscast per se, so it has permission to do a lot of things very differently. ... There may be some product placement in the program. We've considered doing live ads." : North, Jiggetts, Hegedus and Savage will have more latitude in what they can do on and off the air than if "Monsters and Money" were considered a news program, according to Cohen, who did not rule out allowing endorsements "because they're not newscasters. They're no different than radio talk-show hosts." : In a nod to CBS synergy, there will be contributions from news station WBBM-AM 780. : "What this is (will) evolve," Cohen said. "At a local television station, you don't get to go in a closed studio and shoot a pilot and test it and reshoot it and get everything worked out. This is going to be a work in progress." : The four principals had yet to be in the same room together at the time of Wednesday's announcement. "It's going to take at least a year for this show to find its voice," he said. "We'll know a lot about it after three or four months." : Like Savage, North and Jiggetts write columns for the Sun-Times, but Cohen said "that was kind of an 'oh, by the way' " thing rather than a planned cross-promotion. : North's reputation for stirring controversy precedes him, and Cohen said with a laugh that it would take "two or three episodes" to spark one at WBBM. "It's not like he and I haven't talked about it," Cohen said. : Word of the new morning show comes on the heels of WBBM overtaking NBC-owned WMAQ-Ch. 5 in November's 10 p.m. news ratings. ("I don't want to diminish the help we've gotten from NBC's lead-in," Cohen said, "but I think we're doing a much better show.") And Cohen said a combination of that and the imminent availability of North and Jiggetts made Kiernan and him feel "we were ready to take on the next time period." : For what it's worth, some of this was suggested in an Oct. 17, 2008, Chicago Tribune column, three days after Cohen was named WBBM's president and general manager. That column noted that WBBM-AM "has had the stronger news brand of the two WBBMs for years," in part because of its emphasis on business and finance news. : "Here's a bold idea," the column offered. "Dump the 5 to 7 a.m. morning newscast that looks so much like the other early morning news shows, and draw from Cohen's experience at CNBC. Keep headlines, weather and traffic, but set up the dawn show as a local version of CNBC." : Cohen said Wednesday that neither business by itself nor sports by itself "was broad enough to sustain the time period," but combined he decided there might be potential. : It still might be a costly bust, in which case the onus is on Cohen, Kiernan, their team and the ways in which they have chosen to deviate from the newspaper guy's advice. But it's hardly gambling to bail on the current morning newscast. : "First of all, what we're doing doesn't work. To me, that was the easiest part of the decision," Cohen said. "We needed to do something different and we needed to do it in a way that was innovative and that we can execute at a high level consistently. To do that, we had to make a big commitment. ... So we're going to do our darndest to make this work."

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