Tom Skilling retires…so what’s next for local TV?
His departure leaves a void as linear usage declines and cord-cutting continues
When Tom Skilling stepped down from his longtime role as meteorologist at WGN-TV Wednesday night, it marked the end of an era for Chicago’s longest-tenured television personality after 46 years on the air at the same station.
But it also marked the end of an era for Chicago TV in general as we may not see the likes of him ever again, as television has undergone quite a change during his time on the air – some positive (such as HDTV), others not so much.
When Skilling arrived at WGN from then-CBS affiliate WITI in Milwaukee in 1978 (the station switched to Fox in 1994 as part of the New World deal), TV was a different place. There were only three broadcast networks. Laverne & Shirley was the top-rated show. Cable would be years away from coming to Chicago. And WGN was more known for Bozo, the Cubs, and Star Trek reruns than for news and faced stiff competition from fellow independents WFLD-TV and WSNS-TV.
Skilling was the first to take advantage of advancements in weather technology, using terms such as “jet stream” and other terminology. WGN’s newscasts became competitive with the network-owned stations, and its signature 9 p.m. newscast started outdrawing WBBM-TV ‘s woeful 10 p.m. newscasts. Skilling’s weather forecasts were popular not only in Chicago but also across the country on the former WGN Superstation. He formed a bond with viewers who trusted him with something we take very seriously in this city.
Skilling persevered through the cutthroat corporate era with the same trust that kept him going during local television’s numerous changes – many of them not positive. The “it bleeds, it leads” era of the 1990s filled with crime images and obvious copaganda hurt local news’ credibility, thanks to “consultants” like Joel Cheatwood, who pioneered the format at WSVN Miami and made it an industry standard. The FCC loosened TV ownership rules, enabling station groups to get larger, leading Nexstar to acquire Tribune in 2019 – a company formed some twenty years after Skilling began to work at WGN.
As a result of deregulation, conglomerates such as Nexstar and Sinclair now own a majority of the nation’s local television stations – the latter infamous for forcing their lead anchors to read an on-air statement about local news in 2018, and their conservative slant prevents meteorologists from addressing important issues such as climate change as Skilling did and would’ve been a problem had Sinclair bought Tribune.
In the last 20 years, stations demanded cable and satellite operators pay them for carriage, leading to blackouts if they didn’t. Some Chicago viewers lost WGN and Skilling as Nexstar and DirecTV got into such a spat last summer.
And yet – throughout all this – there he is, still working with those weather maps and fancy graphics.
As a weather genius, Skilling is kind of similar to the Young Sheldon kid – without the annoying know-it-all persona that makes you go into an uncontrollable rage. A gifted meteorologist who respected the viewer and was a nice person on-screen and off, illustrated in his comments when his former WGN colleague Allison Payne died in 2021.
In a media business filled with incompetent executives and evil CEOs, Tom Skilling stood out as a class act. That’s why Chicago loved him so much.
Given the audience fragmentation, no local TV news personality can achieve the same type of “GOAT” status and universal respect Skilling achieved as television is in a different era now – one where more people are skeptical and outright hostile of the media, “fake news” and all. Judging by what I’ve seen on local newscasts in recent years, the next big Chicago TV personality may very well turn out to be “community activist” and south suburban Dolton trustee Andrew Holmes, given the large amount of screentime he gets these days at crime scenes as his connections to controversial Mayor Tiffany Heynard have come into question.
And that would be…quite sad.
Very nice article about Tom Skilling! I have been thinking the same thing that we will likely never see a local TV personality in Chicago with Tom’s longevity. It’s amazing to think back how he started at WGN-TV in 1978 when many of Channel 9’s former big personalities were still at the station: Bob Bell, Ray Rayner, Frazier Thomas, Jack Taylor, Phil Donahue (though his was a nationally syndicated talk show based out of WGN’s studios), and so many others. It is like Tom is a connection to WGN’s past and its present day. It’s also impressive to think that Tom had been with WGN-TV for more than half of the station’s existence.
Tom was also the last of the original team when WGN started The 9 0’Clock News in back in, I believe, 1980 with John Drury, Bill Frink, and Len O’Connor. As the above article mentioned, WGN’s 9 p.m. program seemed to really gain in popularity with the team of Steve Sanders, Allison Payne, Tom Skilling, and Dan Roan! That team held together for at least 10 years with Tom and Dan being the last two originals until their retirements. Remarkable to think back on Tom’s working with trusted anchors Jack Taylor, John Drury, Denise Cannon, Rick Rosenthal, Pat Harvey, Allison Payne, Steve Sanders, Mark Suppelsa, Micah Materre, Joe Donlon, and Ray Cortopassi. Tom’s career at WGN was not only Hall of Fame-worthy for his part in it but also the people he worked with along the way. Truly, Chicago was very fortunate to have Tom Skilling on the air all those years as one of Chicago’s Very Own! Thank you, Tom Skilling and thank you, WGN-TV!