In 2007, a guy named Sam Zell took over Tribune Company in Chicago – the company that owned WGN, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, 23 TV stations and had been part owner of the WB TV network (and other assorted media and online ventures). [FCC rules prohibit a newspaper from owning radio stations in the same markets where they publish a newspaper – WGN was grandfathered]
Tribune Corporation was taken private, but quickly failed and wound up in bankruptcy in December 2008. The Cubs baseball team independently declared bankruptcy so it could be divested from the parent company. Tribune Company has been stuck in bankruptcy since then.
Now the point of the story – radio. When Clear Channel was teetering on the brink itself in 2008, several senior Clear Channel managers wound up at Tribune Company joining Randy Michaels. Mr Michaels had been named EVP in December 2007 after Mr Zell had control of the company. Mr Michaels was CEO of Jacor (which owned Premiere Broadcasting and Rush Limbaugh), and became CEO of Clear Channel during the era of wild speculation after Clear Channel acquired Jacor. (Randy left CC in 2002). The exodus of senior managers from Clear Channel to Tribune Company resulted in a lawsuit from Clear Channel to stop them from hiring away more CC employees.
Well, a few weeks ago, the creditors trying to save Tribune Company and get their money back showed Mr Michaels the door, and his staff of ex-CC folks are all headed out with him. This group of high powered radio people were not there just to run WGN-AM, but whatever Sam Zell’s ultimate plan was died before it was born. The banking crisis of September 2008 probably was a factor, along with the Clear Channel “going private” transaction almost failing to close and setting off panic in the valuation of radio media properties.
Which brings us to Mike McConnell – you may remember that he “jumped ship” a few months ago – he had a nice job at Clear Channel’s WLW in Cincinnati and a syndicated show on the weekend (called “The Weekend”) on Premiere radio. He decided to “go for the brass ring” and quit WLW and Clear Channel to go work for WGN-AM in Chicago. He surfaced in the news shortly after his Chicago debut when Tribune management were caught ordering Tribune Company employees to call into McConnell’s show because he wasn’t getting any calls from smart people.
So today the programming changes are starting at WGN, ripping out the influence of Randy Michaels. This has an eery similarity to the Mel Karmazin / Howard Stern / Don Imus “takeover” of CBS, where Viacom and Sumner Redstone reverted CBS back to its sleepy “safe” radio instead of that Howard Stern, FreeFM “crap” which had arrived with Infinity Broadcasting taking over CBS. The Tribune Company is a very Conservative company (not politically, but in a business sense).
Randy Michaels is an aggressive, young(ish) bold innovator who pushes rules to the limits. Just as Mel was forced out of Viacom, and went on to create Sirius/XM, Mr Michaels is now “free”, and WGN’s listeners can go back to talking about their favorite Frank Sinatra songs. Keep an eye on Mr. Michaels.
