Scott Childers out at Alpha Media

Longtime Chicago radio vet’s position was eliminated

Scott Childers, an on-air voice and engineer at three suburban-based Alpha Media radio stations, has exited the company after two decades.

Announced Monday morning, Childers’ position, or positions were eliminated in yet another round of cuts at the cluster. Childers was Chief Engineer and on-air voice for three Alpha stations: Joilet’s WSSR-FM (Star 96.7)/WJOL-AM (1340) and Aurora’s WERV-FM (95.9 The River).

Since arriving at Alpha Media in 2004, Childers has done everything at the cluster and I do mean everything. In addition to being an on-air personality, Childers served as webmaster, imaging director, traffic reporter, and the aforementioned chief engineer, where he oversaw upkeep for the Aurora and Joilet facilities and was responsible for FCC compliance.

“They truly are the best, most hard-working crew. Each and every one of them I consider family and will miss interacting with them on a daily basis.” Childers said in a statement.

Before he worked at Alpha Media, Childers had a long career in Chicago radio, with on-air stops at the former WWBZ and at WTMX, and hosted middays at the former WPNT/WPPD from 1996 to 2003, when the station changed formats.

While at Alpha, Childers also did work for MetroNetworks and Total Traffic as both news anchor and traffic reporter, for their respective stations, WGN-AM (from 2003-09) and WLS-AM (in 2019 and 2020.)

Childers isn’t quite ready to call it a career as he is looking for his next opportunity. A 37-year veteran of Chicago radio, Childers is also a local radio historian as he runs the WLS History Website detailing the history of the 100-year iconic radio station on both the AM and FM sides of the dial, and is the author of the 2008 Images of America book Chicago’s WLS Radio.