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 […]
Syndicated radio personality Delilah is out at WLIT-FM after seven years at the station. Her last show was on Monday. Her replacement is John Symons, late of WILV-FM and its predecessor, WNND-FM. He is bringing his Love Notes show to the station beginning on Thursday. Love Notes originated on WNND in 1997. Symons will host Love Notes live Monday through […]
WCKG planned to switch to Christmas music at 7 p.m. tonight. That is, until WLIT launched its all-Christmas format at 8:30 this morning. Speculation centered on two Christmas formats competing for listenership. But late this afternoon, WCKG abandoned that plan at the last minute. Instead, they are running Dahl clips, as they have been doing all week long, until at […]
As of 8:30 this morning, WLIT is now your Jingle Bells all the time station, ahead of WCKG, which is switching to all-Christmas tonight at 7 p.m.
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 […]
Clear Channel-owned WLIT-FM (The Lite) in Chicago has axed Whoopi Goldberg’s poorly-rated syndicated morning show and has reinstated Melissa Forman as morning personality. Since August 2006, when Melissa Forman was replaced by Whoopi, the morning drive ratings dropped like a rock. Among adults 25-54, the daypart went from 11th place with Forman to 19th place with Goldberg. Forman was let […]
A clean sweep of every major daypart kept WGN on top of the ratings in Arbitron’s summer book. WGN’s dominance started with Spike O’Dell in the mornings and went through John Williams and Cubs baseball in the afternoon. Other news of note: Mornings: – WGCI paid dearly for replacing top-rated (in 18-34) Howard McGee with syndicated Steve Harvey, with WVAZ’s […]
First trend for Chicago stations – WGN a dominant number one (thanks to the Cubs), with WGCI (and WLIT) performing like the White Sox…
For Chicago and Milwaukee. Random thoughts: -WGCI-FM, WVAZ, and WPWX all are down from last book. The Howard McGee debacle at WGCI certainly won’t help them as they might not see No.1 for a very long time. – WBBM-FM got pummeled by WKSC-FM (Kiss), falling out of the top 10 and recording their worst numbers since 1982. Time for some […]
Arbitron released the Winter Chicago radio ratings yesterday. Analysis: * As Robert Feder points out, the stations that benefited the most were the black and Hispanic-targeted stations, taking 5 out of the top 10. WGCI-FM remains No.1 (In other words, don’t write off hip-hop yet.) *Urban AC WVAZ-FM (V103) was a big winner, moving up to fourth place. *Top 40 […]
I guess the wicked weather isn’t the only thing hammering Chicago… another person got canned today which scores the hat trick – this time it’s CoCo Cortez’s afternoon show at WLIT-FM. These things do come in threes…
The Arbitron radio books are out today for Chicago, Milwaukee, Peoria, Rockford, South Bend, Bloomington, and The Quad Cities. Robert Feder analyzes the Chicago book for the Sun-Times, while Tim Cuprisin does the same for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Chicago Winners: Urban Contemporary WGCI-FM Chicago’s tops the fall ratings book. WLIT ought to thank Santa for its Christmas music-fueled ratings jump. […]
Welcome to the first annual T Dog Blog Turkey Awards. We’re here to reward stupidity and simpletonism in the fields of broadcasting and in media in 2006 (so far.) Judging by the long list of winners (or shall we say “losers”? ), 2006 was a busy year for being stupid, ignorant, lame, boring, moronic, etc… You get the point. So, […]
This has ramifications for both the television and radio industries. Details here: Clear Channel Sold for $26.7 Billion May’s Family Finds Buyers for Clear Channel, TV Stations for Sale Clear Channel Goes Private in $26.7 billion deal List of TV Stations to be sold by Clear Channel (courtesy of Michigan Buzzboard) List of radio stations to be sold by Clear […]
Yes, it’s only November 3, but WLIT has decided to flip to Christmas Music — fifty-something days until Christmas. A quote from Feder’s column in today’s Sun-Times: “When I saw a snowflake this morning, that’s when I decided,” said Darren Davis, vice president of programming and operations for Clear Channel Chicago. “I hadn’t planned on it. It just felt right.” […]