Wow! Exodus at WLW… Bill (“I’ll call him Hussein if I want to”) Cunningham and Mike (“Your Shill for Reality”} McConnell are both leaving WLW to join WGN-AM in Chicago, the station I playfully refer to as the #1 radio station in the 80+ demographic. Tribune company is still extricating itself from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, which folllowed shortly after it became known that Governor Blago was leaning on them to fire members of their Editorial Board [Won’t it be great when newspapers are staffed instead with Americorps employees?] and Candidate Obama put pressure to have WGN uninvite a quest to the Milt Rosenburg show.
Tribune is headed by Randy Michaels who was a Clear Channel wheeler dealer in the good old days. He lured away enough of Clear Channel’s management talent to ultimately provoke a lawsuit from Clear Channel.
Back then (before the collapse), it seemed like Tribune was making a move to become a major player in Radio – right now, they only own the one AM radio station. They used to own the Cubs baseball team which was sold off as part of the bankruptcy process (and of course they own TV and cable TV properties and the Chicago Tribune Newspaper…
WLW is owned by Clear Channel – and Premiere (owned by CC) syndicates both McConnell and Cunningham. It seems likely that syndication will be ended, but nothing specific in the news stories I’ve read so far
Interesting fact (Art, I’m sure you know this already) but one of Michaels’s key hires away from CC was Sean Compton, a.k.a. Sean Sommers, the son of truck-talk host Dale “Truckin’ Bozo” Sommers. Sean’s brother, Steve Sommers, is still at WLW doing overnights. How long that lasts, I don’t know.
Even though WLW has a major selling point about being local 24 hours a day, you have to think that if this happens, the first thing they’re going to do is pull Beck and Limbaugh from sister station WKRC and plop them right into the WLW slots. Maybe even C2C if they can get Steve out the door, too.
All the news stories are still in the “we think this is going to happen” stage. WGN apparently wants to get into syndication, but I don’t see how that exactly works. Their own station is not critical mass for a national network – it will be like another WOR Radio Network with just a few random small town stations that turn on the satellite feed for the night when the owner leaves for the day….
I don’t see either of them actually fitting in Chicago. The Chicago market adapts to new people very slowly. Bob & Tom doing a simulcast on WGN’s cable channel is probably the general model of what they have in mind.
WGN already has a mini-network up and running for Cubs games and farm reports, so they’d have the infrastructure for it. The other thing I could see– you mention Bob and Tom– is that they just sign a deal like they have with Bob & Tom so that Premiere and CC still have radio rights but WGN gets TV rights.
Cunningham is doing a tryout of that type already with WGN. At least Bob & Tom have naked chicks. I stopped watching TV 15 years ago. Please don’t turn radio into a lame attempt at TV.
I like McConnell I’m glad he’s getting this break. Cunningham? In Chicago? On WGN? Oh Boy! That’s like throwing gas on a fire. Protesters will be forming a line outside of WGN’s studios in five,four,three,two…………..
If WLW is going away from 24/7 local, there’s always Jerry Doyle.
WLW confirmed today that McConnell is no longer employed there.
He is still on the Premiere web site for The Weekend show. People with good memories may remember that Premiere tried to syndicate McConnell on weekdays, but that went nowhere.
Tribune is now confirming that McConnell is coming to WGN. John Williams would be the obvious time slot – he’s already haflway out the door, already doing a show for CBS’s WCCO in Minneapolis / Saint Paul
Premiere confirms that McConnell will stop doing “the Weekend”. They plan to keep the show but with a new host.