Chicago radio’s Winter book results

The winter books are here, and according to Arbitron (click here to see daypart info): WINNERS: WGN-AM: This could be the beginning of a long reign for longtime leader WGN-AM on top of the radio hill in Chicago, as the station fended off WGCI to remain numero uno in Chicago’s Winter Arbitron book, and is expected to remain number one […]

The Fall Arbitron books

Here are your radio Fall Arbs (+12) for: Chicago Quick analysis: Tribune’s WGN is first, but stumbled. Clear Channel’s Urban Contemporary WGCI is back in second place, while sister Urban AC WVAZ fell from fifth place to eighth (they announced a huge schedule change today – more on that later, so watch the blog.) CC’s WLIT surged to fifth place*, […]

Da Trends

The second set of trends for the Arbitron fall book for Chicago radio stations are out, and there is some movement on the chart among several radio stations. Thoughts… – It looks like WGN is going to be #1 for the foreseeable future. – WGCI rebounded to third place this trend, perhaps silencing critics (such as yours truly) -WLS-AM rebounded […]

Kurtis and Jacobson to teach course at Columbia College

Former WBBM-TV anchors Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson are reuniting to teach a graduate level class at Columbia College on a lecture course regarding local journalism. Starting in January, both men will serve as professors. Click on this link to see Kurtis and Jacobson speaking together at the Chicago History Museum last March, as part of the “Chicago Treasures” series […]

WGCI drops to 5th in first fall Arbitrend

Usually don’t report on trends, but WGCI is continuing to pay for dropping Howard McGee and replacing it with Steve Harvey’s morning show. It was a bad trend for Clear Channel, with just two of its stations showing an increase and WLIT bottoming out to an all-time low. The station recently flipped to Christmas music. But the unlikely winner was […]

Q101 dumps Morning Fix

After fourteen months on the air (and maybe a moral victory for Mancow), Alternative outlet WKQX (or Q101) has deep-sixed the The Morning Fix. The station is dumping comedy elements from its morning show and is keeping a skeleton staff on hand to do traffic, weather, and sports and re-foucsing its efforts on music in the daypart. The move comes […]

It’s Fresh

Anyone who had WCKG become Fresh 105.9 in the format pool – you win! The new Adult Contemporary format launched at 5 p.m. today. The station’s target audience is women 25-54 (or somewhere in between), the same as crosstown competitor WLIT, who switched to Christmas music on Friday. According to yes.com, here are the first five songs played on the […]

It’s AC for CKG

Robert Feder is reporting that WCKG is expected to flip to an Adult Contemporary format, which could occur anytime between 7 p.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Monday. The format would target women 25-54, and would put it in direct competition with WLIT-FM. WLIT is expected to flip to Christmas music sometime in the next few weeks. Last year, WLIT flipped […]