Media Notebook--9-9-22

MEDIA NOTEBOOK

A curation of news items about the media from this past week, with a particular emphasis on Chicago…

 

 

RADIO/PODCASTS

 

*Chicago Radio Ratings

=Radio Insight has the full listings of Chicago radio’s Nielson ratings.  Just to give you a quick update, the Top Five stations (6+) in this past month’s ratings are The Drive & The Lite (tied for first), followed by WBEZ (NPR), WVAZ, and WBBM-AM (NewsRadio).

 

*Melissa McGurren drops her appeal

=It looks like this is the end of the line for Melissa’s appeal of her defamation lawsuit against her former employer WTMX. Her attorney filed a motion to withdraw the case, and on August 16^th, it was officially dismissed. Cynthia DiNicola’s case against the company, however, continues. 

 

*Audacy has lost a billion dollars since 2018

=When I worked at CBS Radio about 20 years ago, they were so cheap they kept a lid on who could use the good stationery. It inspired an amusing chapter in my novel $everance. Well, that was a company that was making money hand over fist. I can’t even imagine what is happening now. Those same stations that were once owned by CBS Radio are now owned by Audacy, and they are in the midst of an honest to goodness financial crisis. Over the last four years, they’ve lost a billion dollars. That’s billion with a B. The Philadelphia Inquirer did a deep dive on that story this week. 

 

*Health Updates

Two Chicago treasures are battling pretty serious health issues. In case you missed the updates posted via social media this week, here’s the latest news about Lin Brehmer and Hub Arkush…

=Lin Brehmer posted this on Facebook: Hi there. Remember me? Just taking in a view of the city I love. There are two issues I'm dealing with right now. I am recovering from the surgery to put a rod in my femur after it fractured. Using a walker and wheelchair to get around. By the way, never fracture your femur. It is very painful. And then there's my ongoing treatment for prostate cancer. Rolling with the punches. At least a couple more months of chemotherapy. Putting on a brave face. Miss you all.

=Arthur Arkush posted this on Twitter about Hub: Thank you all for Hub's well wishes. I'm woefully behind in responding to many of them, but please know your support means the world to all of us. It's NFL Week 1, but Hub is in Week 3 of his battle — with incredible strides coming nearly every day. Excited to share more asap.

 

*Award Winners/Nominees

=The INBA Crystal Mic Award winners were announced this week. Congrats to WBBM NewsRadio for winning Best Large Market Radio Station, and to Lisa Fielding for winning Best Reporter, and Jeff Joniak for winning Best Sports Report. The full list of winners is here. 

=The College Broadcaster Awards were also announced this week, and a few of our local universities were recognized. Glad to see that college radio is still alive and well. Congratulations to ISU’s radio station WZND. They brought home quite a few awards. Eastern Illinois’ station WEIU also snagged an award in the sports reporting category. 

=Sam Alex is a local boy who has made a big name for himself nationally. This week he was nominated for a Country Music Award for the Sam Alex show. Sam grew up in the Chicago area, and still donates a lot of time in the area but is now hosting a national show based out of Nashville.

 

*RIP Anne Garrels

=The NPR correspondent passed away this week at the age of 71. The New York Times has her obituary. 

 

*Podcast Corner

=At one time Call Me Daddy was one of the highest rated podcasts in the world. Then the co-hosts had a feud. It’s a tale as old as time. You can read about here. 

=One of the biggest news stories this week concerned the escape of the conman Fat Leonard. I’m sure you read about it, but did you know that he recently did a podcast? 

=George Ofman’s podcast features interviews and conversations with Chicago sports media celebrities. This week’s episode is about native Chicagoan Greg Gumbel, from Hyde Park to broadcast fame. Listen to it here.

 

 

MEDIA BIRTHDAYS/MILESTONES

 

*Bobby Skafish goes to the Loop (September 1983)

*John Howell’s birthday/September 4

=I interviewed the WLS night talker in 2007 when he was co-hosting a morning show with Cisco Cotto at WIND.

 

*Roy Leonard death anniversary/September 4, 2014

=I was lucky enough to have a lengthy chat with Roy back in 2010  and we covered his entire career. After I posted the interview he e-mailed me and said: “Did you actually post every word of our conversation? Nobody wants to hear that much about me.” I disagreed then, and I’m even more glad I did it now. Here's a little taste...

    Marcel Marceau was one of my first guests—and we really hit it off. Ironically, he wouldn’t shut up (laughs). We even had him out to the house. That’s one thing I never really talked about on the air—that I spent a lot of time with some of these people off the air—many of them came out to the house. I remember another time we had Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits over. He ended up in the bedroom upstairs playing guitar with my boys.

 

*Johnnie Putman birthday/September 5

=The better half of WGN’s long-time overnight team Steve & Johnnie (that’s Steve description) talked to me for Illinois Entertainer back in 2016 

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*WGN-TV Morning Show anniversary/September 6

=On September 6, 1994, the WGN-TV morning show as we know it today debuted. I don’t think they could have possibly foreseen the ratings juggernaut it would become. I’ve written about the show a few times, including for Shore Magazine ten years ago. Here’s a short excerpt from that article…

                Of course it’s one thing to have a guest do something crazy, or to have your evil genius segment producer (Hoover) appear on camera and perform his dead-on Jerry Lewis, Christopher Walken or Neil Diamond impersonations, or to have a regular contributor like gifted comedian Mike Toomey do a wacky character on the show, but it’s another thing altogether for the anchors to do something like that themselves.

            Is there anything they’ve ever refused to do?

            “I won’t dress like a woman,” Potash admits, drawing the line.

            “I won’t dance,” Konrad adds.

            “Um,” Robin says, thinking about it. “Wow, well, let’s see. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever said no to anything before. Maybe that’s part of my problem.”

 

*Jonathan Hood birthday/September 7

=I interviewed the ESPN Radio morning co-host (with David Kaplan) in 2010. 

 

*Steve Scott birthday/September 7

=The former WLS Newsman is now a radio star in the big Apple (WCBS), but he hasn’t forgotten his Chicago roots. At least he still hadn’t forgotten them when I chatted with him in 2008. 

 

*Marc Silverman birthday/September 10

=2020 was a rough year for the ESPN radio afternoon co-host (with Tom Waddle). I talked to Silvy in the midst of his medical difficulties.  So happy to see he has recovered since.

 

*Norman Lear is 100!

=The legendary television producer/writer turned 100 over the summer, and the Hollywood Reporter talked to him about that milestone. Among the topics discussed, his thoughts about the abortion debate, 50 years after the controversial Maude episode.

 

*RIP Queen Elizabeth

=The Queen made it to 96 years old before passing away yesterday. She famously visited Chicago in 1959. Found this video on YouTube…

 

 

TV/STREAMING

 

*Award Winners

=The INBA Crystal Mic Award winners were announced this week, and a few Chicago TV stations brought home the honors. WGN-TV won for Best Breaking News for covering the Oak Brook Mall Shooting, and WLS-TV won for Best Digital Presence and for Best Weather Operation. The full list of winners is here. 

 

*YouTube vs. Traditional Television

Anyone with kids knows the power YouTube has over the younger generation. It’s hard to overstate it. Here are a few pieces written this week that further illustrate the current situation.

=8 numbers that show how big YouTube has become for younger viewers (Bloomberg). 

=Why millions are watching YouTube recaps instead of the actual TV shows (Daily Beast) 

 

*The Grass is Not Always Greener

=Local and network television is clearly struggling, but would you believe that streaming services are already facing an existential crisis? According to the Washington Post, that’s what’s happening, and the viewers are noticing. 

 

*RIP Bernard Shaw

=The former CNN Anchor passed away this week at the age of 82. Shaw was the first chief-anchor at the network. The AP has his obituary.  He was known for his stellar work at CNN, but Shaw was a native Chicagoan. He attended University of Illinois Chicago, got his broadcasting start here (at WNUS, which is now WGRB), and in 2002 was awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state’s highest honor) by Governor George Ryan.

 

*Kyle Long Lands at CBS

=The former Chicago Bears offensive lineman is now a part of the CBS Sports Network. More details on his new gig are here. 

 

*Cable News

=Is there a purge going on at CNN? The Washington Post tackled that issue this week. 

=Is there a smoking gun e-mail at Fox News regarding the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit? NPR reported this week that there was. 

 

*What Real Censorship Looks Like

=Both sides of the political divide in this country at one time or another are claiming they are being censored. If you’d like to know what real censorship looks like, take a look at this analysis of what China does to the show The Big Bang Theory. It’s fascinating to see what they clip out of the show. 

 

*New Streaming News Shows

=Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace is going to be part of the HBO Max/Discovery Plus channel (as well as CNN) 

=John Dickerson will be doing a nightly show M-Thursday for CBS News Streaming service. 

 

*The Creative Arts Emmys

=The full list of winners is here, and it’s a star-studded list, including the Beatles, Barack Obama, Adele, RuPaul, and Chadwick Boseman.

 

 

OTHER MEDIA NEWS

 

 

*The Salt Shed is a Hit but Nearby Businesses are not Happy

=The Salt Shed has become a very popular concert destination in Chicago, but for everything good it seems there is an unintended consequence. Two local recording studios are nearby, and they can no longer operate during the hours concerts are taking place because of the noise level. Block Club Chicago has the story. 

*Politico’s New German Owner

=Sounds like a real peach. Read this recent profile and see if you agree.

 

*Social Media Corner

=Instagram is being punished for the way they handled teen users information in Ireland. The fine is a measely $400 million. Read more about that here. 

=Truth Social is on the verge of collapse. The Washington Post headline describes the situation pretty well: Truth Social in Limbo as Merger Partner Grapples with Another Failed Vote.

 

*Photography Corner

=Paul Natkin is not only the go-to-photographer for every media person in Chicago, he’s also one of the greatest rock photographers of all time. Now he has a book out. Find out more about that here. 

=Everyone is a photographer these days thanks to the phone in our pocket, but some people are better than others at creating memorable iPhone photographs. Take a look at these 20 photos that are winners of the 2022 iPhone photography awards.

 

*Printer’s Row Litfest

=Chicago’s premiere literary festival is taking place this weekend in Printer’s Row. Hundreds of authors will be out there, including me, and about a dozen authors from my company Eckhartz Press. It runs on Saturday and Sunday from 10am-6pm. My co-publisher David Stern will be there with Randy Merkin (Behind the Glass) and Paul M. Banks (Transatlantic Passage) on Saturday. I’ll be there on Sunday along with fellow authors John Owens (Chili Dog MVP), William Wagner (Talking Bout My Generation), Margaret Larkin (Wicker Park Wishes), and Ken Korber (the Grace book series). Come on out and say hello!

*MEDIA NOTEBOOK site

I have moved all of the previous Media Notebook columns to it's own site, and will continue to post each of them here. If you'd like to bookmark this page, you can find them all in one place. 

If you have any media stories (Chicago or national) that you think I might like to share in future columns, feel free to drop me a line at rick@eckhartzpress.com or amishrick@yahoo.com

WGN's 100th birthday

 If you listened to WGN Radio yesterday, you heard a day long celebration of the radio station's 100th birthday. Congrats WGN!

I've appeared as a guest on WGN radio for more than 20 years now on dozens of shows, and met many impressive pros. But I've also been interviewing WGN personalities for more than 30 years as a media writer, and in that time I've written about more than 50 of them. 

Today, as the station starts it's second century, I wanted to post a few highlights from some of my favorites...

ROY LEONARD

I interviewed Roy in 2010, and we spoke at length about his incredible WGN career (1967-1998). I had never heard the story of how he came to Chicago...

In 1967 my station in Boston went rock and roll. They were a WGN-type station before that, #3 in the market, but they wanted to be #1. And that’s what they became. They were #1 in seven months. They asked me to stay on, but I didn’t want to be a rock and roll disc jockey. I liked the music, but I didn’t want to play it on the radio. One of my best friends was Curt Gowdy, he was a neighbor, and I asked him if he knew anyone that would hire me. He called his buddy in New York, and it turned out that he repped WGN.

At the time, WGN had marvelous ratings in the afternoon because of Cubs baseball, but after the season ended, they got no numbers. So, I bought three Chicago newspapers, The Trib, Sun-Times, and The American, went through them, and made a tape of what I thought my show would sound like in Chicago. They liked the tape, and Wally was taking some time off, so they paid me to fill in for him, and that Friday after filling in for a week, they asked me to work for them in the afternoon slot, 1 to 4 PM. I had been getting up at 3 in the morning, so I said, that’s great! But, my family was in Boston, and I have six kids, and I couldn’t just pack up and leave. So they agreed to fly me home to Boston when the Cubs were in town that summer of 1967. That made the move a little easier. We were able to sell our house and move out here before school in the fall.

As for my style of radio, you’re right, nobody is really doing that kind of show right now, but then again they weren’t doing it before I got here either. I listened to Chicago radio as much as I could (Howard Miller, etc.) when I first came to town. I tried to find what nobody was doing, and make that my own. Nobody was talking about theatre or film at the time, and I enjoyed both immensely, so when I first started, that’s what I talked about.

I remember Aaron Gold was representing the Ivanhoe, and he heard me talking about theater, so he asked me to come out and see their latest show. And that’s when I started getting these great guests.

Marcel Marceau (photo) was one of my first guests—and we really hit it off. Ironically, he wouldn’t shut up (laughs). We even had him out to the house. That’s one thing I never really talked about on the air—that I spent a lot of time with some of these people off the air—many of them came out to the house. I remember another time we had Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits over. He ended up in the bedroom upstairs playing guitar with my boys.

ORION SAMUELSON

On the eve of his 50th anniversary with WGN Radio, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Orion Samuelson. I asked him to tell me about the stories he covered that were most memorable to him...

Well, I’ve also done a television show for many years too, and with my crew we’ve gone to forty three countries. That’s one thing.

I’ve been asked about this a lot in the last few weeks, and I suppose the one that comes to mind is the day that Senator Kennedy came to Green Bay in May of 1960. He held a press conference in the Northland Hotel, and I asked him several questions about farm and dairy issues. After the press conference was over, a gentleman in a suit came over to me and said, “Senator Kennedy would like to speak to you privately.” He wanted to learn more about farm issues. So we sat in the bar of the Northland Hotel and discussed farm issues for about twenty minutes.

Then, on November 22, 1963, I happened to be on the air when the news came over the wire. I was in the middle of a weather forecast, and I remember it was a warm and rainy day in Chicago, when the yellow teletype was handed to me. I thought it was a joke at first, because of course, that’s the sort of gag we liked to pull on each other, but when I saw the faces in the control room I knew it was for real.

You have to remember, this was before we had the internet, and before we had computers—we were totally reliant upon UPI and AP to give us the news. That was all we had. At 12:33, all I had was this one or two sentence bulletin stating that the President had been shot. I didn’t know what to do. The program director was at lunch, so we couldn’t ask him. The record turner was at lunch, so we couldn’t go to music. So I just went back to reading my forecast, then read the bulletin again, then went back to the forecast. Finally, someone found the record turner, and we went back to music. Walter Cronkite announced that Kennedy was dead around 1:00. I’ll certainly never forget that day.

On the other end of the spectrum, another highlight for me was being the announcer on the WGN Barn Dance. I grew up listening to WLS, the Prairie Farmer Station, and the Barn Dance was a regular Saturday night feature, and had been since the 1920s. They held it at the old 8th Street Theatre. Well, on April 30, 1960, WLS signed off as a farm station, and the next day they became a rock and roll station. This infuriated every single farmer in the Midwest. I said to Ward Quaal, that it would be a shame to let the Barn Dance die, and he agreed. We brought it to WGN, and from 1960-1969, I got to meet some of the greats of the business, including Johnny Cash, and boy you name it, they were all on the show.

I still talk to 4-H clubs with some regularity, and I always tell young people, if you don’t remember anything else I’ve said, remember this: You can’t dream big enough. As a kid sitting on a three-legged milking stool in Wisconsin, I never would have believed the life I had in front of me. Thanks to the power and influence of WGN, I’ve met seven presidents. I even went to a dinner at the White House once when Richard Nixon was president. I never would have believed that could happen to me.

EDDIE SCHWARTZ

Eddie was the overnight man at WGN Radio for many years and became a legend in this town. I interviewed him in 2007, shortly before his death. I asked him how it was he get on WGN Radio in the first place, and was pleasantly surprised by his answer...

During a very long and successful run at WIND 560 Bob Collins from WGN invited me out to dinner. He shared his hopes for the future. The retirement of Wally Phillips was on the horizon and Bob knew the WGN morning show was going to be his biggest challenge. Replacing an icon like Wally was no small assignment.

Uncle Bobby knew how to read a rating book and he realized that WIND was #1 in both male and female demos and had been so for years. He wasn't looking forward to hitting the air every morning with a competeing station having a larger audience. He knew it would take him longer to get each morning off the ground with a 3 or 4 share when WIND had 12's and 14's. So Bob proposed I join him at WGN and work overnight as his lead-in. I was a bit stunned, but it was something I had always hoped for and didn't know how to make happen. WGN was the home of Franklyn Macormick, Jay Andres, Mike Rapchak and the Meister Brau Showcase. My kind of act had never played there at night.

The opportunity Bob presented came at the perfect time. WIND had just welcomed a new G.M. He was a corporate guy from back east. The station was doing well with all time slots well established and this new dude comes in and tells us it's his station now and we all better get used to his ways. He also told us he was looking at the entire schedule with the possibility of juggling some of us around. I knew at that moment I wasn't going to put my future into the hands of a guy with his poor people skills. I had my agent make a deal and a few days after my WIND contract expired without a new deal ready it was the time to jump. I called a friend with a truck and one night after my show I just moved out and never said goodbye. It was a tough but correct decision.

WIND was scrambling to replace me and Larry King's program which had been on for a while at WCFL with no perceptible audience so WIND made him a pitch and his syndicated show moved into my old slot. King, when asked by Irv Kupcinet in the Sun-Times how he intended to procede said that "He wasn't concerned about me and my program. I spent most of my time interviewing the sewer commissioner."

The next day one of his minions called to "apologize" for the unkind remark and said that Kup misquoted King. He said Larry didn't really mean that. I knew from that point my mission was three-fold. 1. Build an audience 2. Support Bob Collins and 3. Kick King's ass bigger than he'd ever been kicked before. And that is just what I did. He was a total failure on WIND. He is the most ill-prepared interviewer I've ever seen or heard.