MEDIA NOTEBOOK
A curation of news items
about the media from this past week, with a particular emphasis on Chicago…
Radio/Podcasts
*Daily Herald media critic/writer Robert
Feder stepped down last week after more than 40 years on the media beat. That’s
a big loss for the local media community. Everyone, and I mean everyone, read
him. I’ve always wanted to interview him, but he always politely declined over
the years. Now that he’s stepping away from the beat, however, he did do this
interview with his old friend and rival Eric Zorn (Read the whole interviewhere). I thought this was the most interesting quote, about
what a successor (if any) should write about…
“I can't imagine they would focus on radio as much as I did.
Radio has a declining role in the market. My daughter doesn’t even listen to
radio. I’m sure your kids don’t, either. You could probably say the same about
TV news and print newspapers. I would think the coverage in the future would be
more about digital, about nonprofit newsrooms, about streaming, about new
financial models, about all these new platforms that matter now.”
*Local Chicago radio and television showed their worth this past week with
their coverage of the shooting in Highland Park. Despite the small weekend
staffs, radio stations like WBBM-AM and WGN-AM did a fantastic job of covering
the story. The national trade publication Radio Ink spoke with WGN
Radio’s Sean Compton about their coverage. Here is what they wrote:
Like many other businesses WGN had a
skeleton crew in place due to the long 4th of July holiday weekend. Once in
place Compton says the radio team went live to cover the local press
conferences, interview people at the scene and take calls from listeners and
Chicago officials. Compton said, “it’s what we do. It’s the business we’re in.”
The station had been playing a best-of talk show at the time of the shooting.
Host Jon Hansen took over live after the 90 minutes of coverage from WGN-TV.
The Daily Herald’s Jim O’Donnell also talked to long-time Chicago television producer and host Mike Leiderman about his hometown of Highland Park. Jim’s piece is here.
*Julian “Jumpin” Perez steps away from radio. From Friday’s RAMP newsletter: Longtime Chicago mix-master extraordinaire, Julian "Jumpin" Perez, whose four-decade Windy City radio career has taken him to WGCI, WVAZ (V103), B96 (twice), WKSC (103.5 Kiss FM), and WBMX (104.3 Jams), to name just a few, announced his departure from radio and his intention to "start his next chapter."
*Media Monitor released their list of the top radio advertisers in the country. #1 right now is Indeed. I haven’t seen the list for top podcast advertisers, but if Athletic Greens is not on the list, I’d be shocked. I hear their ads on virtually all the podcasts I listen to (and I listen to a lot of them).
*Lewis
Black is suing Pandora. The music streaming giant also has spoken word content,
and if this lawsuit is to be believed, they haven’t been ponying up the
royalties. From Billboard:
Pandora is facing
yet another lawsuit claiming it has failed to pay legally-required royalties
for comedy, this time by from comedian Lewis Black. In a complaint filed Thursday (July 7)
in California federal court, attorneys for Black said Pandora “took and
exploited his works solely to make themselves money while knowing it had no
license and had not paid, and would not be paying, royalties to Lewis Black.” The
case is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed
by comics, including the estates of George Carlin and Robin Williams, who say Pandora is violating
copyright law by refusing to pay the equivalent of publishing royalties for
spoken-word content.
*In my opinion,
the best podcast in the world the past few years has been Gilbert Gottfried’s
Amazing Colossal Podcast. I never missed it. The network has continued
re-posting old episodes since Gilbert passed away a few months ago, but they
have never had an episode with his co-host Frank looking back on his time doing
the show with Gilbert. I wish they would. In the meantime, if you are a
Sirius/XM subscriber, you can hear the last long form interview Gilbert gave.
The RAMP Newsletter reports:
SiriusXM announced the release of a special
installment of its audio documentary series, which will fondly remember comic
legend Gilbert Gottfried, who passed away on April 12 at 67. Obsessive
Comedy Disorder: Boomers - The Gilbert Gottfried Is Dead Special debuted
yesterday on Comedy Greats Channel 94. In what is believed to
be the last long-form interview done with the voice that became comedy gold,
this 90-minute conversation is an expansive and hilarious deep dive into the
mind and memories of one of comedy's most brilliant and unique talents. It was
February 13, 2020, when Obsessive Comedy Disorder producer and
host Dan Pasternack got together with Paul Provenza,
director of the hilariously profane cult comedy The Aristocrats, to
interview Gottfried about his experiences leading up to and during the comedy
boom of the '80s.
*The Joe Rogan podcast was in the news again this
week. And it wasn’t even for something that happened on his podcast. It’s for
what has not happened on his podcast. Despite having the reputation of
being pro-Trump (probably because of his anti-vax and/or mask views), Media-Ite
reported that Rogan said the following on a podcast hosted by Lex Friedman:
“I’m not
a Trump supporter in any way, shape or form. I’ve had the opportunity to have
him on my show more than once — I’ve said no, every time. I don’t want to help
him,” Rogan revealed. “I’m not interested in helping him.”
*A few local Chicago radio
folks are celebrating birthdays this week. (The year I interviewed them in parenthesis, interview at the link.)
July 6—Nick Digilio (2022)
July 6—Steve Touhy (2008)
July 7—John Gehron (2009)
July 9—(the late) Dick Orkin (2012)
*For my old
Loop pals…
=Former WLUP
program director Jack Silver was in the news this week. He was one of the
victims of the Cumulus/Westwood One “reorganization”. The RAMP Newsletter had
the news:
Jack Silver joined
the company in July 2012, after programming Cumulus News-Talk KABC-AM and
Classic Rock KLOS/Los Angeles. Silver previously served as a
programming and air talent consultant, but is probably best known for his 11
years with CBS Radio Los Angeles, where he was VP of FM Talk Programming and PD
of KLSX until it flipped to Top 40 as KAMP (97.1
AMP) in Feb. 2009. He can be reached at JackSilver36@gmail.com.
=15 years ago…July 8, 2007—my Dave Benson interview
=3 years ago…our memorial for Chet Coppock in Arlington Heights
Television/Streaming
*I don’t quite understand this move, but TV Newser reported it this week: ABC News correspondent Kaylee Hartung is reportedly leaving the news outlet to join Amazon as the streamer’s first-ever Thursday Night Football sideline reporter.
*Attention soccer fans. The Associated Press reported this news for those of us who can’t get enough soccer on television/streaming: Streaming service Amazon will broadcast some live Champions League games in Britain for the first time when the competition expands in 2024. Amazon said Friday it secured rights to the top pick of the Tuesday games each week from the new expanded league stage through to the semifinals — a total of 16 each season — for the three years from 2024-27.
*The billion dollar lawsuit against Fox News for its reporting during the election aftermath now has a local Chicago angle. The LA Times reports: Fox News has hired veteran trial attorney Dan Webb to lead its defense against a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims made during the channel’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election…Webb, co-chairman of the Chicago-based firm Winston & Strawn, replaces Chip Babcock, a Houston-based litigator who specializes in First Amendment cases. Webb‘s appointment is an indication that Fox News expects to go to trial in the Dominion case, in which the voting systems company is seeking $1.6 billion in damages.
*If you have any media news to share, e-mail rick@eckhartzpress.com. Rick Kaempfer
is the media critic/writer for Illinois Entertainer and has written three books
about the media, The Radio Producer’s Handbook (co-written with John Swanson),
$everance (a satirical novel about broadcasting), and Records Truly Is My
Middle Name (co-written with John Records Landecker). Rick also worked in radio
for 20+ years at the Loop (WLUP AM/FM) and WJMK (Oldies 104.3)
