Media Notebook--6-2-23

MEDIA NOTEBOOK

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

(By Rick Kaempfer)

RADIO/PODCASTS

 

 

*Danny Bonaduce Having Brain Surgery After Health Scare

=TMZ.com reported the news early this morning. Danny is quoted in the article, and explains his diagnosis (hydrocephalus), and prognosis.

*Mary Sandberg Boyle Interview

=The June issue of Illinois Entertainer came out this week and included my interview with WGN GM Mary Sandberg Boyle. Here’s a short excerpt.

“I’m a no-bullshit kind of person,” she says, “and I knew there were some tough decisions to be made. I understood that business decisions wouldn’t always align with my personal feelings, but I also knew I would be able to separate that from what needs to be done. I’m a very clear message person, and I’m able to communicate very directly. My husband always says that I’m really good at delivering bad news. My producer training probably helped with that. Being a producer, especially of a very high-profile show, you have to be tough. You’ve learned to take the shrapnel. You’ve learned personality management. A lot of GMs come from the sales side. Coming from the programming side gave me an advantage. I knew what could work, and what couldn’t work. And I understood the sales side because all high-profile shows deal extensively with client integration. I had to do a lot of that before. My background meant that it wouldn’t be too difficult to absorb that part of the equation, which is obviously an important part of the job too.”

=Read the entire interview here.

 

 *National Black Radio Hall of Fame

=The National Black Radio Hall of Fame announced their 2023 class this week. Tom Joyner will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. The rest of the inductees are listed here.

 

*Sherman & Tingle Pitch New Beer

=They call it Driver Nation American Premium Lager.

 

 

*Terri Hemmert Update

=It’s been a few weeks now since her traumatic gun incident in New Orleans. This week she updated her friends and fans on Facebook, along with a treatise about how this all ties in to the great Harry Nilsson. 

 

 

*The Loop Files

=Tuesday is the day I post another of my Loop interviews. This week it was with former AM Loop Program Director Jack Silver. 

 

 

*Leon Colvin Retires

=Leon had an astounding career at WBBM, nearly 53 years in the saddle. His colleagues praised him all over social media. This little note (and photo of Leon & Rob) is courtesy of WBBM NewsRadio’s Rob Hart: “September 21, 1970 was a big day in broadcasting. ABC aired the first edition of Monday Night Football and Leon Colvin started at WBBM. Today is Leon’s last day at the midday editor’s desk before retiring. He worked with all the greats at WBBM and he worked with me. Congratulations, Leon! Enjoy retirement and we’ll miss you!”

 

 

*Podcast Corner

=Who really broke up the Bulls dynasty? Scottie Pippen’s opinion on the matter is here on Stacey King’s Gimme the Hot Sauce podcast. 

=Veteran Chicago radio and podcast producer Keith Conrad hangs out his shingle for free-lance podcast producing/editing work. 

=Nearly half of Gen Z members are podcast listeners. 

 

 

*Whip Saves a Cat

=WTMX morning show member Brian "Whip" Paruch saved a cat this week. Here's part one of the story. Below is the finale.

 

 

 

MEDIA BIRTHDAYS/MILESTONES

 

 

*May 29—Felicia Middlebrooks birthday

=The former morning co-anchor at WBBM NewsRadio is also an author and an award-winning filmmaker 

 

*May 30—Dave Eanet birthday

=Dave is the sports director at WGN and can heard daily on Bob Sirott’s morning show. He has also been the radio play-by-play man for Northwestern University football and basketball for decades. (Photo: Dave on WGN-TV for Cubs World Series postgame. Far left)

*May 31—Jerry Agar birthday

=Jerry had stints at both WLS and WGN in Chicago. I got a chance to interview him during that time. He’s currently working north of the border in his native Canada.

*May 31, 2005—Watergate source Deep Throat revealed

=Have you been watching The Plumbers on HBO? Mark Felt, the deputy director the FBI, is one of the characters. A minor one in the series. A major one in real life. He was 91 when he revealed the news to Vanity Fair.

 

*June 1, 1974—WCFL Chart

=The Watergate scandal dominated the news. Larry Lujack was the star DJ on the station. And this is the list of songs WCFL was playing (courtesy of Chicago Radio Timeline)

 

*June 1, 1980—CNN Debuts as First All-News Network

=This was Ted Turner’s brainchild, and it was widely mocked at the time. (Who is going to want news 24 hours a day?). The husband/wife team of Dave Walker and Lois Hart were the first anchors. The headquarters was in Atlanta, but the network also had bureaus in Washington, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.

 

*June 2—Dave Hoekstra birthday

=Hoekstra is one of Chicago’s most enduring writers, having written extensively for the Chicago Sun-Times over a 30-year period. Dave’s books include “The Supper Club Book,” “The People’s Place (Soul Food Restaurants and Reminiscences from the Civl Rights Era to Today” and “The Camper Book (A Celebration of a Moveable American Dream),” all published by Chicago Review Press. He’s also hosted a show on WGN Radio. This is a photo of Dave (right) with legendary DJ Bobby Skafish (left) after an interview at WGN.

 

*June 2—Geoff Dankert birthday

=Geoff is well-known behind the scenes in Chicago’s radio and television community. His trophy case is bursting with a Peabody, Murrow, and an Emmy award. Dankert is currently a writer/editor at WBBM NewsRadio.

 

*June 3—Jim Kirk birthday

=Jim is the publisher and executive editor of Crain’s Chicago Business. Before coming to Crain’s, he was the editor-in-chief of the LA Times. He also worked at the Chicago Tribune, covering a beat that I hold near and dear: the media.

 

*June 3—Dan Deibert birthday

=The former WGN Radio host is working as a comedian specializing in corporate gigs.  

 

TV/STREAMING

 

 

*Mike Flannery Calls it a Career

=Flannery was a great political reporter for Channel 2 and Channel 32 in Chicago for nearly 50 years. The Sun Times has the story about his retirement.

=My all-time favorite Flannery interview was the one he did with Congressman Gus Savage in 1989. It was a classic audio clip we played on the radio for many years after it happened. I couldn’t find the audio, but I did find this Tribune article describing it perfectly.

*Britain’s TV News Sex Scandal

=It involves the most popular morning show on British TV, and the scandal is almost exactly the same as the fictional scandal on the Apple+ TV show “The Morning Show”. The Washington Post has a pretty good primer on the story. 

 

 

*Succession Scores Huge Numbers

=The HBO series finale was the highest rated episode in the entire run of the series. The Hollywood Reporter has the details.

 

*Danny Masterson Guilty

=A jury of his peers found That 70s Show star Danny Masterson guilty of two counts of rape. He faces up to 30 years in prison.

 

*Cable News Corner

=There's a new COO at CNN

=Brooke Bower has left CNN, where she had been managing editor of CNN Politics, to become the executive producer of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC.

=Another former CNN contributor, Lisa Ling, was hired by CBS News this week. 

=The suspected source of Tucker Carlson, Fox News leaks was revealed this week in a bombshell report. Fingers are being pointed at a Tampa Bay area media consultant.

*TV Star Deaths

Both of these 1960s TV stars were in their 90s.

=R.I.P. George Maharis

=R.I.P Ed Ames

 

PRINT/DIGITAL MEDIA

 

*Jim Avila’s 5 Media Sources You Can Trust

=I love this piece by former TV reporter Jim Avila. He spells out the legitimate news sources you can trust and describes how you can use those sources to inform you on what is really going on in the world in less than two hours a day. Consider this a disinformation-avoidance technique.

  

*Gannett Journalists to go on Strike

=Gannett owns 200 newspapers, and a few dozen of them across seven different states are facing a strike beginning on Monday. More information about that here.

*Journalism’s Essential Value

=New York Times publisher A.G Sulzberger has penned a lengthy piece for Columbia Journalism Review about the value and necessity of objective journalism. 

 

 

SOCIAL MEDIA

 

*Why TikTok Wants Trial To Be Held in Illinois

=Justin Kaufman of Axios explains why the social media giant is making this play in court.

 

*Twitter Could Soon Be Banned in Europe

=If Twitter doesn’t take steps to curb the flow of disinformation (which has exploded since Elon Musk took over), there’s a very good chance the EU will ban Twitter. More information here at the Wrap.

=This story certainly won’t help the cause.

EXCLUSIVE: Twitter is failing to remove 99 percent of hate speech posted by Twitter Blue users, new research has found, and instead may be boosting paid accounts that spew racism and homophobia. https://t.co/M4WA0HZrzy

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 31, 2023

As always, if you have any media story you’d like to share or think that I might be interested in sharing, drop me a line at rick@eckhartzpress.com or amishrick@yahoo.com. If you're in Chicago media and wondering why I didn't mention your birthday, it's probably because I don't know it. Drop me a line and let me know and I'll put you on my calendar.

If you're interested in some of my other projects from this week...

The Fifth Edition (2023) of EveryCubEver is out now!  Buy your copy today

The Fifth Edition (2023) of EveryCubEver is also on amazon. Buy your copy today.

Minutia Men: Rudolf the Red Nosed Mayor

Minutia Men Celebrity Interview: Mrs. America

Minutia Men Celebrity Interview Classic: Actress Molly Hagan

Free Kicks with Adam & Rick: Final Relegation Battle

Meet the Eckhartz Press Author: Andrew Langert

From the Eckhartz Book Shelf: GelStrong by Mark Gelinas

My latest novel: Back in the D.D.R

Windy City Reviews Back in the D.D.R.

Podcast Interview about Back in the D.D.R: Military Family Museum Podcast

Media Notebook--9-16-22

MEDIA NOTEBOOK

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

RADIO/PODCASTS

 

*Rest in Peace

Lost a few broadcasting icons this week...

=Ramsey Lewis

The all-time jazz great leaves behind a tremendous legacy. His biggest hit (The “In” Crowd), three Grammys, and 80 albums will always be remembered, but in Chicago we were also lucky enough to have him as a daily companion during his days as the morning host at WNUA. He also hosted a nationally syndicated show called “Legends of Jazz.” Jazz was obviously his life, and Chicago played an important role. This is a quote he gave to Neal Samors in an interview from many years ago…

”In Chicago, unlike New York City, a jazz musician could allow himself to be influenced by a wide variety of music and play whatever appealed to him, including gospel music, which has always been important to me. So, growing up in that atmosphere and then, coming from a family that encouraged me to be whoever I was, musically, I enjoyed that freedom as I still do. The environment in Chicago is still one of quite a bit of musical freedom.”

=Jim Russell

Russell was an NPR staple. He created the show Marketplace. Talking Biz News has more information about Russell’s impressive life.

=Lowry Mays

He was definitely a broadcasting pioneer. Radio Ink has a very positive obituary about him.  Inside Radio does as well. Pieces like these focus on him as a “tough competitor” or “shrewd businessman”. He was that. On the other hand, one thing they gloss over, or even put a positive spin on, is something that was definitely not a positive for the radio business. It was Mays who led the consolidation charge after the 1996 telecom deregulation as the CEO of Clear Channel.  Mays was insatiable when it came to acquisitions. He bought Jacor and AMFM, both of whom were big companies who had gobbled up hundreds of radio stations themselves. At one point Clear Channel owned over 1200 radio stations. In some smaller markets, they owned every single station in town. Jobs were cut, formats were genericized, and an unprecedented number of commercials flooded the airwaves. Mays and a handful of others acquired massive personal wealth in the process, but they left wreckage in their wake. The entire industy was hollowed out and hasn't remotely recovered. It wasn't just Lowry Mays. But he was one of the main architects.

 

 

*Chicago Rock Radio Documentary

=This film is an interesting find. It’s called “Static” and it tells the tale of rock radio in Chicago, mostly focused on the hard rock world (The old Loop, WMET, Z-Rock, etc). Former Loop jock Pat Capone is one of the people interviewed on camera.

 

*Rush Limbaugh book

=A new book about Rush is coming out in October. It will be called Radio’s Greatest of All-Time, a title that Rush himself could have proclaimed. It’s a compilation of radio commentary by Rush. His widow and brother are involved in curating the info. .

 

*Smashing Pumpkins on Q-101

=If you’ve been listening to Q-101 this week you might have noticed a bit of a Smashing Pumpkins motif. The station is all in on a big promotion with Smashing Pumpkins and the Metro, which is celebrating its 40^th anniversary with a live Pumpkins show. The brand new Smashing Pumpkins single will debut on Q-101 the same day. The station will also be selling t-shirts at the event (September 20) which will raise money for Highland Park Community Foundation’s 4^th of July Highland Park Shooting Response Fund.

 

*Podcast Corner

=Edison Research came out with the list of the top ten most listened to podcast networks this week. Not a lot of surprises here: Spotify, SXM Media, iHeartRadio, Audioboom, NPR, New York Times, Audacy, Wondery, Cumulus Podcast Network, and PRX.

=Charlie Meyerson from Chicago Public Square posted a great podcast this week, interviewing Axios Chicago’s Justin Kaufman and Monica Eng. The audio is here. The unedited YouTube video is here. There’s even a transcript. And, now Justin and Monica also host their own podcast. You can listen to the latest episode here.

=Anderson Cooper has a new podcast out, and it deals with the subject of grieving. He starts the recording while he is packing up the belongings of his late mother, Gloria Vanderbilt.

=The New York Times posted a recommendation of their Top 6 TV Recap podcasts. These are podcasts that focus on a single television series and hyper analyze the shows.

=Sportswriter Jeff Pearlman has a great podcast called Two Writers Slinging Yang. Pearlman made news this week when he disavowed his book about Bret Favre after hearing the news that Favre knowingly accepted money from a Mississippi welfare fund to help out his daughter’s college volleyball team. Pearlman’s tweet-storm is worth a read.

 

MEDIA MILESTONES/BIRTHDAYS

Lots of them this week…

 

*Former Chicago radio and television sportscaster Bruce Wolf’s birthday was September 11. I interviewed Bruce for Illinois Entertainerback in 2014.

 

*Maura Myles’ birthday was also September 11. I chatted with Maura back in 2009 for Chicago Radio Spotlight.

 

*September 12, 2014, Tommy Edwards announced his retirement from radio. I interviewed Tommy a few times over the years, most recently in 2011.

 

*The Drive’s Janda Lane celebrated a birthday on September 12. The Marconi-nominated broadcaster/podcaster was my featured interview in this summer’s June issue of Illinois Entertainer.

 

*The great Rick Kogan’s birthday was September 13^th. It’s always a pleasure speaking to Mr. Chicago. I last interviewed him for Illinois Entertainer in 2019.

 

*The legendary Dick Biondi turned 90 years old September 13. I worked with Dick for ten years at WJMK and I’ve done a few radio shows and podcasts with him over the years (the photo here is from 2014—on Lossano & Friends). Nobody in the world has better stories than Dick Biondi.  I have tried many times to talk Dick into writing his memoirs, but I could never convince him.

 

*Brian “Whip” Paruch shares a birthday with Kogan and Biondi. I interviewed the WTMX morning show team member during the pandemic in 2020. None of the news about Eric had broken yet.

 

*He may be officially retired these days, but former WLS Newsman John Dempsey is still beloved by his former co-workers in the business. I got a chance to speak with him for Illinois Entertainer in 2015. John’s birthday was September 14.

 

*September 14, 1993, Steve & Garry broke up. Nobody believed the break up would last, but it obviously did.  Except for one glorious day on the beach more than a decade later when Garry showed up unannounced to a live Steve Dahl remote.

 

*September 17 is Bobby Skafish’s birthday. Bobby was my very first interview for Illinois Entertainer back in 2013. He later authored a book for my publishing company Eckhartz Press called We Have Company.

 

*September 17 is also Score co-host Matt Spiegel’s birthday. Spiegel got the Chicago Radio Spotlight treatment back in 2010.

 

*September 17 is Randy Merkin’s birthday as well. The ESPN producer is also an author now, having published Behind The Glass for Eckhartz Press in 2021.

 

TV/STREAMING

 

*Svengoolie Interview Tease

=My next interview for Illinois Entertainer will be posted on October 1^st. This month I spoke to Rich Koz, the great Svengoolie. Here’s a little bonus quote from Rich that didn’t make the final cut of the article…

            I went to WCIU when Neal Sabin made Channel 26 a true independent, and then it just progressed from there. They got the national Me-TV network and decided to put me on there, and now it’s become this pretty amazing thing. We basically have our own studio. It’s a permanent set up now. We used to have to fold up the set so that other things could go in front of it, but now we have the lights set up permanently, and our set is there permanently, so every time we need to go in there, everything is ready. For a national show we do have a pretty small staff. There’s me, and I’m writing and playing Sven and helping out with various production elements, and we have Chris Faulkner who is our director and also our chief editor, and Jim Roche is the executive producer and helps out in all sorts of ways, and then there’s our audio guy Chris DeQuick, and that’s our main group. We also have a floor director and somebody to run teleprompter, but other than that, it’s just us. That’s a small number of people to be putting out a national show.

 

*Sean Compton interview

=The man leading NexStar (owner of WGN in Chicago, among other media outlets) sat down for an interview with Media Village. Among the many topics of conversation, NewsNation.

 

*Franmil & Whitney

=A fun moment from Sunday night’s Cubs telecast on ESPN-TV. Who knew that Cubs DH Franmil Reyes could sing?

 

*High School Football Returns to WCIU

=The High School Game of the Week, a staple over the past few years at WCIU, returns Friday September 23^rd. "Once again this season, our viewers will get best of prep football, boys soccer and boys and girls basketball on The U and CW26, with the ‘Game of the Week’ and IHSA Championship broadcasts,” said Steven Farber, Weigel Broadcasting Senior Vice President of Operations.

 

*The Emmy Awards

There are a few stories coming out of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards broadcast.

=The full list of winners.

=The ratings were the lowest of all-time.

=A bit that Jimmy Kimmel did during the broadcast caused him to apologize and invite Quinta Brunson on his show.

 

*TV Ratings

=Why is the NFL considered a goldmine? In an age when there is no such thing as appointment television, football is the only thing that unites us as a nation. Of the top ten shows in the ratings last week, nine of them were football related.

 

*Cable-News corner

=A Q&A with the new host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. Also at Fox News, national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has been signed to a long-term deal.

=CNN’s new direction continues to get attention and scrutiny. Slate.com examines “the poisonous side effects of false balance.”

=CNN is moving Don Lemon to the morning show, along with Kaitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow.

 

*Gayle King

=Oprah’s best friend gets recognized for her journalism…

Congratulations to our @GayleKing, who is being honored with @ASU’s prestigious Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism! pic.twitter.com/6CsPcjQR12

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) September 13, 2022

OTHER MEDIA NEWS

 

*Second City Names a New CEO

=And he comes from Sesame Street. Details in the Hollywood Reporter.

 

*Victory Gardens Theater

=The Chicago institution is no more. They announced this week they will no longer produce shows, and they dismissed their staff. The theater itself will be rented out.

 

*Was there a Chinese spy working at Twitter?

=That appears to be the testimony from the Twitter whistleblower to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Seems like kind of big deal to me.

 

*Jan Wenner profile

=This is a pretty great New York Times piece about the founder of Rolling Stone magazine. 

*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