On Friday Chicago Public Media CEO Torey Malatia, CEO announced his resignation, after two decades at WBEZ. Public radio listeners from outside Chicago may know Malatia as the man providing “management oversight” for This American Life, to whom Ira Glass always attributes an out-of-context quote from that episode during the program’s end credits. Malatia has […]
Chicago’s Q101 was one of the first commercial alternative rock stations, and the first one to bring that format to the Chicago radio starting in 1992. The format and Q101 branding went away on July 15, 2011, when Randy Michaels’ Merlin Media took over the station, flipping it to his FM News format, that was […]
This past Saturday I attended the Intercollegiate Broadcast System’s Midwest conference in Chicago, hosted by Columbia College. This was my first IBS conference, despite having advised a Chicago-area college station for the last four years. This one-day event was billed for high schools in addition to colleges, and the attendance appeared equally split between secondary […]
Over the summer I was in the Chicago and Urbana-Champaign area for a combined vacation/trip to the Grassroots Radio Conference. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit more radio stations and managed to tour six stations total in both Illinois and Indiana. My stops included three college radio stations, two community radio stations, and one […]
It’s an increasingly rare thing to find a station that has maintained its format (and call letters) for more than a decade, nevermind 40 years. This week Chicago commercial rock station WXRT begins celebrating its fortieth year on air with something called “40 years in 40 days.” Starting Monday, each day the station is highlighting […]
Editors’ note: Since the publication of this article the smooth jazz format has returned to the Chicago airwaves. Read this December 31, 2014 update for more details. My post about the demise of Chicago smooth jazz station Smooth 87.7 two weeks ago continues to gather comments lamenting the station’s passing. Many of the commenters express […]
The popular music world suffered two significant tragedies recently, with the untimely death of singer Whitney Houston on Feb. 11, followed by the death of Monkees singer Davy Jones yesterday. In the days before ubiquitous facebook and twitter access, most people probably would have heard the sad news first on their radios, along with tributes […]
Here’s some news that should be absolutely no surprise to Radio Survivor listeners: Randy Michaels’ new FM news station in Chicago WWWN-FM is tanking in the ratings. In fact, the former Tribune chief‘s station sits at number 48, a mere 45 spots below its main competitor, the news-talk stalwart WBBM, which not coincidentally has added […]
When last we heard from Randy Michaels he was exiting the Tribune Tower in Chicago, resigning after news broke that he turned the company’s broadcast division into Animal House. While the architect of Clear Channel’s buy, consolidate and gut approach to broadcasting was busy allegedly throwing poker parties, he shuffled beloved hosts and drove down […]
I’ve written about Chicago “progressive” rock station WXRT-FM before. It’s truly the only commercial music station in the city that I can tolerate listening to for any extended period of time. Sure, its commercial stop sets can be as long and annoying as any other stations, but everything else about the station stands pretty far […]
