I joke about it pretty much any time the subject comes up. WGN in Chicago is the station for old people. People who listen to WGN listen to nothing but WGN. People who don’t listen to it regularly don’t know it exists.<\/p>\n
Back around 1990, I spent two years in Chicago – at the time WLUP was the “hip” talk station on FM. Steve Dahl and Garry Meier were on WLUP-FM like 6 hours a day… there wasn’t a day that didn’t go by when they would make fun of WGN and all the senile old people who called in and listened – and the clueless hosts like Eddie Schwartz. (Eddie died in 2009). Mostly Steve and Garry would kill six hours talking about something Steve’s wife had said the prior day, something they watched on TV, how stupid Steve’s son was, something going on with sports, etc…<\/p>\n
Jonathon Brandmeier (Johnny B) was the other big guy on WLUP He was the really hip guy. He had his own band… he’s a little like mancow – he would weave music in with “bits”, and about 80% of it I had no idea what he was talking about \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
So Gary Meier has been at WGN-AM for about a year. Steve Dahl had been working for CBS at “Free FM” and CBS is paying off his contract in return for him staying off the air (He’s doing the “podcast thing”) right now.<\/p>\n
Starting next week, Johnny B is going to be the morning guy at WGN… Mike McConnell’s hours get cut back to only 3 hours a day.<\/p>\n
WGN is still the station for old people – the difference is now the people who are old. Payback is a bitch.<\/p>\n
WGN is still an oddity – it’s the #2 rated station (per Arbitron) in the #3 market. Tribune (which used to own the Chicago Cubs and still prints the Chicago Tribune) has no other radio stations. WGN is a heritage station before Congress made laws that prohibited a newspaper from owning a radio station in the same town.<\/p>\n
Good luck guys – be sure to keep the drool cups close to the console just in case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I joke about it pretty much any time the subject comes up. WGN in Chicago is the station for old people. People who listen to WGN listen to nothing but WGN. People who don’t listen to it regularly don’t know … Continue reading