HOW GOOD IS CHICAGO RADIO?

On Nov. 2, 1920, KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the Warren G. Harding-James M. Cox presidential election returns. And thus the first regularly scheduled radio station was born.

But what started out 75 years ago as a broadcasting vehicle ago filling the airwaves with news, vaudeville acts and dance bands has become a commercial vehicle for just about every conceivable form of entertainment–except vaudeville acts and dance bands.

There are all-news stations, there are all-sports stations, there are all-sports-talk stations, there are all-talk stations. There are stations for nearly every type of music–from classical to hip hop.

And there are many more stations from which to choose. As recently as 1980, there were only about 30 major radio stations in the Chicago area.

Today there are 40 major radio stations here, and just about as many small stations. WGN-AM, which then dominated the listenership with more than 20 percent of the audience, continues to top the Arbitron ratings–but with only a 10 percent share.

And as the number of stations has increased, the audience has become more fractionalized. Nearly 20 stations share between 2 and 4.5 percent of the audience. And those stations vary from black contemporary WVAZ-FM to personality-driven WLUP-FM.

Fifteen years ago, FM penetration in the Chicago market was still in its infancy. Today, the proliferation of FM stations, along with the constant format changes, is responsible for making the city as vibrant as any in the nation.

As veteran WBBM-AM program director Chris Berry says, “The pieces of the pie have gotten smaller.”

In light of these changes and to mark radio’s 75th anniversary, we ask: How well does Chicago radio serve its listeners? To answer that, we have divided the medium into nine categories: pop music, country, jazz, classical, talk, traffic, news, sports radio and comedy.

Pop music

Only a few years ago, Chicago rock radio was turning into a wasteland of nostalgia, dominated by classic-rock station WCKG-FM 105.9, which made sure everyone in town never wanted to hear “Stairway to Heaven” again, and a handful of mainstream album-rock stations that considered Don Henley cutting edge.

My, how things have changed. The emphasis these days is on “new music” as embodied by WKQX-FM 101.1. The station puts on a feisty display of attitude with its wiseguy deejays and noisy song list, but is actually a bedrock of conservatism. In applying a Top-40 mentality to what was formerly underground music, Q-101 will beat all your favorite songs into the ground in a matter of days. Still, a 20-minute blast once a week will keep you in touch with what the 15-year-old suburban hipsters are listening to at the shopping mall.

WXRT-FM 93.1 remains the broadest-based commercial rock station in town, and quite possibly the country, as it continues to play everything from Nirvana to Buddy Guy. But the youthful repackaging of Q-101 has pushed ‘XRT more solidly into the realm of heritage artists such as John Hiatt and Little Feat and away from the newer acts it once exclusively championed. Once the coolest act in town, ‘XRT now must settle for merely being the classiest.

Sadly, none of the rock stations in town will touch a black artist outside of Hendrix manque Lenny Kravitz, and to hear some of the forbidden hip hop–the most vital pop music of the last 10 years–one must turn to WEJM-AM 950. WBBM-FM 96.3 remains the choice for house and dance music, particularly late night on weekends, and WCBR-FM 92.7 is a fine, eclectic rock station–sometimes more adventurous than ‘XRT and always less annoying than Q-101–but its signal is weak.

For a dose of the old mainstream blandness, there’s still WCKG reliably pumping out “Layla,” and WRCX-FM 103.5, which mines the lowest-common-denominator vein by playing a turgidly unimaginative mix of classic rock and new mainstream bands.

– Greg Kot.

Country

`Today’s hot country” boasts Chicago’s leading country station, WUSN-FM 99.5. It’s nothing to brag about, for Top 40 country is less like the caucasian soul music it can and ought to be and more like some schmaltzy stepchild of the Little River Band.

WUSN has become one of Chicago’s leading radio stations, and one of the nation’s leading country stations, by hewing slavishly to the “hot country” format: a flow of current hits interrupted by lengthy commercial blocks and slick deejay patter in a style reminiscent of old AM radio; zero sense of country music history because most fans of country, the format believes, are new fans of country; and an unwillingness to use its mighty power to push the envelope in the slightest.

WUSN ghettoizes cutting-edge, new and older country into a few weekend hours each week.

WUSN’s only competitor is the low-wattage WCCQ-FM 98.3, located in Crest Hill. Serving a primary listenership area of Will, Kendall and Grundy Counties, WCCQ at least mixes some older songs into its contemporary hits format and runs a weekly show devoted to playing Chicago-area acts.

– Steve Johnson.

Classical

Among the nation’s metropolitan radio outlets, Chicago is a remarkable anomaly: a major city with two commercial classical radio stations. Successful stations, at that.

Neither WFMT-FM 98.7 nor WNIB-FM 97.1 has succumbed to the kind of dumbed-down, peppy-classics programming that is becoming the norm at commercial “good music” stations across the country.

Both stations offer their listeners an intelligent, sophisticated mixture of recorded music and live-concert broadcasts. WFMT carries the Chicago Symphony and live broadcasts from the Lyric and Metropolitan operas; drama and Studs Terkel also find a place in its program mix. In addition, the station showcases various local musicians and ensembles via live Sunday-morning broadcasts from the performance studio at the broadcast facility it shares with WTTW-Ch. 11 at 5400 N. St. Louis Ave.

Once little more than a classical jukebox, WNIB has in recent years jumped bigtime into the syndicated-broadcast fray and now airs taped concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and Vienna Festival. It also goes in for oldtime-radio nostalgia (Chuck Schaden’s “Those Were the Days”) and announcer Bruce Duffie’s oddball birthday tributes to composers and performers.

WFMT pitches its programming pretty much to a hard-core audience of classical cognoscenti and regular concert- and operagoers; WNIB casts its net wider, pulling in jazz, Broadway and movie-music buffs. Oddly enough, it is WNIB (the station of Mr. Music Appreciation, Karl Haas) that airs more contemporary music.

WNIB’s friendly, non-stuffy approach to the classics has made many friends for the station and in fact has beaten WFMT in the Arbitron ratings for the last four periods.

Problems? WFMT can still project an image of smug self-regard, even though (or perhaps because) its announcers are some of the most knowledgeable in classical radio. One of that station’s most courageous decisions is its refusal to run canned commercials; only announcer-read ad copy is used, at a loss of thousands of dollars in revenue that must be made up by listener contributions to WFMT’s Fine Arts Circle.

WNIB, by comparison, welcomes prerecorded ads and its loyal listeners are accustomed to getting commercials for muffins and clothing stores between doses of Mozart and Mahler.

Still, the fact remains that classical radio in Chicago boasts a quirky intelligence that is unmatched at most such outlets in the nation, and, very probably, the world.

– John von Rhein.

Jazz

That Chicago, one of the great capitals of black music, lacks a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week jazz station remains one of great mysteries of broadcasting in this city.

Still, there’s plenty of jazz scattered across the Chicago dial, even if every station featuring the music has its shortcomings.

WBEE-AM 1570 stands as the best and most authentic station with a jazz focus: The playlist emphasizes virtuosos past and present, the deejays offer more music than talk. The station’s main drawback is its weak signal, which can be heard only on the South Side and across the south suburbs, though there are tentative plans to boost the station’s power.

WDCB-FM 90.9, Glen Ellyn’s public radio outlet, is the rising star among the jazz stations, with fully 100 hours of the music a week, most of it clustered between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays (plus various weekend slots). To its credit, the station offers more music than talk, plus a lively mix of new recordings and classics. Unfortunately, not all of the station’s announcers are equally accomplished and knowledgeable.

WBEZ-FM 91.5, Chicago’s public radio station, has the most sophisticated playlist among the jazz outlets, with rare gems from the past and adventurous music from the present. Though the station allows its announcers to chat too much, Dick Buckley’s jazz archives show (1 to 4 p.m. Sundays) and Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” (noon to 1 p.m. Sundays) represent essential listening.

Elsewhere on the dial, there’s “smooth jazz” on WNUA (95.5 FM), avant-garde on WNUR (89.3 FM) and a mixed bag on WHPK (88.5 FM).

– Howard Reich.

Talk

Talk radio is the fastest-growing format on the dial. More than one-tenth of the 10,000 stations in the country are devoted exclusively to talk.

No wonder the talent is so thin.

WGN-AM 720, WLS-AM/FM (890/94.7) and WJJD-AM 1160 are the dominant all-talk stations in the city and each has its ups and downers.

WGN remains a bastion of the cuddly and friendly, though the Kathy and Judy show, recently expanded to four afternoon hours, might prove nicely edgy. WLS can almost be forgiven for being the home to dull outsider Rush Limbaugh because it has made a home for that pleasant pair, Ed Curran and Al Lerner. WJJD can almost be forgiven for being the home to nutty outsider G. Gordon Liddy because it has made a home for wild outsider Howard Stern and created inspired pairing of Ed Vrdolyak and Ty Wansley.

You can find anything on the talk dial here, from the intimately outre (Seka on sex Saturdays on WLUP-FM 97.9) to the politically incendiary (Roe Conn on WLS). But not enough of it gets the blood boiling in ways more interesting than you might find around the water cooler.

The interplay between hosts and callers is packed with the potential for real drama, whether in the form of tear-soaked confessions or explosive confrontations.

And yet, the best talkers on local radio take few or no listener calls. WGN’s Milton Rosenberg can often be too high-minded and erudite for the masses, but he’s fighting the good fight. And then there’s Studs Terkel, booted around the clock on WFMT but still a distinctive Chicago voice.

– Rick Kogan.

Traffic

Highway commuters are by nature impatient and selfish. (If not because they won’t take public transit, then because the daily commute makes them that way.) They also listen to the radio a lot. So traffic reports had better be accurate and timely and useful–but are they?

Technology has been the motorist’s friend since the first electronic sensor went into an area highway in 1962. Airplanes, helicopters, commuter correspondents with car phones, and now video cameras help keep the dispatches up to date. So there’s no doubt that accuracy is improving all the time.

The trouble lies in the delivery. If you’re a motorist deciding which route to take to work, do you wait till your wacky drive-time personality decides to take a break and let the traffic reporter on, whenever that will be, or switch to one of the news stations–WBBM-AM 780 or WMAQ-AM 670–that make their punctuality a selling point?

You’re not necessarily better off with the latter. Even when you know exactly what route you’re listening for, it’s all too easy to miss it when the reporter charges down the list at a breakneck speed. Wait, was that 25 minutes from Mannheim to the post office or on the Kennedy express lanes?

Some stations are cruel enough to hook you on getting your traffic fix at a prescribed time, then withhold it at will. If WMAQ, for example, has a sports show on and you’re just getting off work, all you’re going to get “on the 1’s” is ticked off.

One hates to pick on the stations that make the greatest effort to help motorists. This is just a tap on the horn, not a long blast accompanied by the finger. Perhaps the only thing that will satisfy us selfish, impatient drivers is all traffic, all the time.

– Nancy Watkins Wood.

News

`Good morning. And here are the latest headlines, temperatures and traffic conditions at . . .”

That, in a nutshell, seems to be what most Chicagoans are most interested in when it comes to all-news radio in the morning.

WBBM-AM and WMAQ, the competing all-news radio stations, rank second and sixth, respectively, with a combined 9.4 percent of listening audience, according to the latest Arbitron ratings.

The rest of the day, however, belongs to the other formats in town. And some of them, such as WXRT and WGN, have news departments worthy of any of the all-news stations. When a big local weather story breaks, like a snowstorm or tornado, WGN sometimes outdoes the all-news stations in coverage.

Non-commercial WBEZ, between its affiliation with National Public Radio and a hustling news department of its own, celebrates the long form of in-depth reporting that only WBBM can match. Sometimes, however, the steady diet of social and political issues can be overwhelming. Lighter fare seems restricted to weekends.

WMAQ, unlike its all-news rival, has had the problem of incorporating live sports events (White Sox, Bulls, Notre Dame football) into its schedule.

In addition, the Group W station gambled on gavel-to-gavel coverage of the O.J. Simpson, only to get burned during the dog days of DNA testimony during the summer.

CBS-owned WBBM, with a 19-year head start, plays it strictly by the script–news, news and–with the exception of a Northwestern football game here or a Chicago Marathon there–more news. Even afternoons, once the home of Bob and Betty Sanders’ homey talk show, is now devoted to news.

– Steve Nidetz.

Sports talk

They’re opinionated, they’re loud and, sometimes, they’re right.

They’re the people who drive sports-talk radio–the fan.

After generations of bland sportscasters interviewing even blander athletes, sports-talk radio has added a third element–the spectator, usually armed with a cellular phone.

And, while it would be hard to tell by the ratings numbers, WSCR-AM 820 and WMVP-AM 1000 have carved out a nice little niche for themselves in the Chicago radio market by taking different approaches.

WSCR, which hit the airwaves first in 1992, has been forced by its technical limitations (a daytime-only license), to concentrate on call-in shows.

Its hosts range from the ridiculous to the sublime, often at the same time, such as the mid-day pairing of Mike North and Dan Jiggetts. Another dynamite duo is Terry Boers and Dan McNeil, who do almost as much arguing between themelves as they do with their callers.

Any hopes of The Score obtaining the broadcasting rights to one of the city’s five major pro teams, however, has been stymied by its daytime-only programming. While the FCC finally awarded the station a 24-hour license, work on a new transmitter has been slow.

Which, in turn, has left the field open for WMVP to copy the successful format of New York’s pioneer all-sports station, WFAN-AM. They both have strong, non-sports morning drive-time shows and lots of game coverage.

In a $31 million deal earlier this year, the Evergreen Media station captured the rights to White Sox and Bulls games for five years starting in 1996, which will be a double-edge sword. On one hand, the station will have to put on a positive spin as partners with the teams. And, yet, some call-in show hosts likely will go out of their way to rip those same teams just to show how independent they are.

Also, what differentiates ‘MVP from The Score is morning drive-time, where Steve Dahl and Bruce Wolf prefer humor and satire to the nuances of the shovel pass at the former while Tom Shaer and Jim Memolo dive deep into zone coverage on the latter.

Both stations have excellent reporters, such as George Ofman at WSCR and Bruce Levine and WMVP, who try to beat each other when trades, hirings and firings are made.

– Steve Nidetz.

Comedy

During radio’s 75-year history, such stars as Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Jack Benny had people sitting around their radios engulfed in laughter.

Comedy is still alive and well on radio, just tailored to fit the times.

Instead of the “theater of the mind” set of special audio effects, full orchestras and studio audiences, the humor now leans towards bang-bang jokes, phony phone calls, goofy interviews and sexual innuendo–actually most of it is more graphic than innuendo.

WLUP has taken a page from television by using standup comics as hosts. Standups work two of the Loop’s all-important “prime time” shows, Kevin Matthews on mid-days and Danny Bonaduce in the afternoons.

Other stations pepper their shows with comedy performers, including morning personalities Steve Cochran of WPNT-FM 100.3 and George Willborn of WVAZ-FM 102.7. WLUP’s Jonathan Brandmeier and WRCX’s Mancow Muller don’t work the comedy stage, but with their individual styles of humor, they probably wouldn’t have any problems.

The comedy on the radio is pretty much the way it is at any comedy club: There are times when it’s inspiring and there are times when it lands like a thud.

– Allan Johnson.

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Originally Published: October 22, 1995 at 1:00 AM CDT