Introducing Milt Rosenberg… When I saw his name in a headline list, my first guess was he was there for an obituary.
If you have been here forever, there is a chance you remember his name. He had been on WGN-AM forever doing a late evening show. Milt is a very smart, well educated thoughtful man – college professor type. Not a dogmatic left/right sock puppet.
A lot of his career was in obscurity. WGN used to carry Cubs games, which meant Milt often had to sit around waiting for the game to end. He got his 15 minutes of Drudge Report fame in 2008 because of a young Chicago politician running for President – some guy named Barack Osama or something. Milt was having on a guest to talk about the relationship between Barack and Bill Ayers. The Obama campaign exploded at the management of WGN to stop the interview
WGN finally gave him the retirement watch in 2012. The news is that Milt will be replacing Glenn Beck on his Chicago affiliate. If you are from Chicago, you might be scratching your head – Glenn Beck has an affiliate in Chicago? WLS? WGN? WIND? WBBM?
In syndication, it is important to fool advertisers telling them “we are carried in all of the top 25 markets”, ignoring that the show isn’t live, isn’t carried for the entire show, and is on a station that carries mostly Christian preaching in Korean. Beck has been carried on such a station WCGO-AM, located in Evanston, the northern suburb along the lakefront.
WCGO-AM is owned by a family trust, operates at 10kw during the day, 2500w at night (class B). It is at 1590 kHz, about the worst AM frequency to get a signal out. It looks like Beyond the Beltway also found its home there. The station does stream, although I just found that today. Milt is on from Noon to 2 PM Central currently and will move to 4-6 PM shortly. It’s worth tuning in. He also has podcasts.
The man who owned the station is probably more interesting than this news. Frank Kovas died in 2005, but had a very interesting life. His death story is Here
Here are the 10 most recent topics:
The Cosmos & Dark Matter
By the People (Charles Murray)
End of Discussion (Guy Benson)
Combatting the Killer Diseases
The Skeptic’s case against Anthropogenic Global Warming
What Every American needs to know (E. D. Hirsch)
Space Exploration: a history, current affairs and a look toward the future
The State of Radio, Newspaper and Free Speech (John Kass)
Gay Marriage wins 5-4 SCOTUS decision
Building the H bomb: a personal history
Wow, can’t believe Milt is still doing his thing at 90. I used to listen to him 25-30 years ago. I always appreciated his approach, quite different from most of the political hacks and wannabees of the past 20 years.
The show with John Kass is the first one I listened to . John was the man who briefly was teamed with the late Jake Hartford after Don Wade died. John is a very smart and interesting guy, something you would never know from the dumbed down WLS morning format. It’s pretty rare when I listen to two hours non stop
At some point they were talking about Rush Limbaugh – that he’s not a Conservative… Hard to figure out what he is… And remembering that at some point in the past he was entertaining, but no more. That pretty accurately matches my opinion.
Rush, Hannity – all of these folks wear thin. How many times can I be told the wrongs being done and the bad things to come without one word of solution: how to fix, who to call, etc. If all they do is whine, then what exactly is the point again?
I want stimulation and critical reasoning to entertain the few brain cells I have left. I car not for constant carping especially as it’s own end.
In the very beginning of Rush, the Internet wasn’t yet available to the public. Rush spent money to have access to Compuserv and Lexus/Nexus where he was able to do research and dig up quotes and audio clips pointing out contradictions in people’s positions.
Every once in a while Rush still picks up on an angle other people have missed, but rehashing the “news” I already read on Drudge isn’t a good use of my time.
Friday’s show was two hours with Milt and the SAG-AFTRA players, a group of Chicago old-timers from the golden era of radio, recreating the sounds of old time radio. They do five live shows a year at a theater
http://www.sagaftra.org/locals/chicago/get-involved/radio-players