Nice girls don`t do radio.
”Even after all this time, they`re pushing that sex stuff. The all-American girl doesn`t exist on radio, not like the all-American boy does,”
says Brenda Montgomery, who hosts a talk show from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays on WGCI (AM 1390). ”So if you look at morning drive, it`s all guys or the women are just accessories. At 6 a.m., the stations want someone listeners can punch with.
”And when women rock, we`re still called raunchy.”
Radio may be a 24-hour-a-day proposition, but real prestige means morning drive. That`s when the most listeners are tuned in. For disk jockeys, talk-show hosts and news anchors who can stand the hours, any other shift is like taking second prize, though afternoon drive is a close second. The point is reflected in their paychecks. The really big money is in drive time.
And only one female jock, Terri Hemmert of WXRT (FM 93.1), is going it solo during rush hour in Chicago. Hemmert, who put in seven years of nights, two in New York, before winning the morning-drive slot in January, 1981, is the woman other female deejays mention in the same breath as their career possibilities. More than seven years after she broke ground, she`s still alone out there on the airwaves.
”When I was first on the air, people used to call me up and say, `You sound really good for a girl,` ” Hemmert recalls. ”Wanting to do radio then was considered a pipe dream. When I was trying to get a job, they`d say, `We already have a woman” and look at me like I was a silly thing. It`s definitely still a token thing at this point.
”But that will change.”
In the meantime, radio buffs will find those low and throaty female voices much easier to catch at odd, off-peak hours. Chicago`s airwaves are filled with women in the middle of the morning, early in the afternoon and late at night. But come morning and afternoon drive, the men take over again. Many local radio stations do not feature a single woman prominently in their drive-time programming; if they do, it`s only in partnership with a man. Some of the women showcased during crucial drive times are still known affectionately as ”traffic girls.” On the music stations, straight women bounce off funny guys. Think of ”sidekick” as radio parlance for ”the little woman.”
”I`m not the Budgirl anymore because Budweiser backed out of being a sponsor of our show,” says Maureen Callaghan, the producer and sidekick on Fred Sanders` syndicated overnight radio show, which is carried locally on Aurora-based WAUR (AM 930) and KXEL (AM 1540), out of Waterloo, Ia. Callaghan once came close to being nicknamed the Buschgirl. ”We`re shopping around for other sponsors. But for now I`m just the cute wacky producer when I get on the air.”
Female broadcasters are taken more seriously at Chicago`s all-news stations. Their drive-time formats tend toward co-anchors, doubling a woman`s chances of getting equal time. Felicia Middlebrooks, for example, is half of the morning team at WBBM (AM 780), which features another female co-anchor afternoons. Nancy Benson anchors her own 20-minute news segment mornings on WMAQ (AM 670), which has two women anchoring 30-minute segments each in the afternoon. Eileen McIntyre does the morning news at WBEZ (FM 91.5), responsibilities handled by news director Cheryl Corley during the afternoon drive; and Leigh Hamilton has been 3 p.m.-to-7 p.m. deejay on WVAZ (FM 102.7) since the station went on the air last October. In the winter quarter Arbitron report, her show tied for third place in the ratings.
But the number of women in prominent on-air positions is still so small that radio stations can easily list them over the telephone.
The all-talk WGN (AM 720) does not have one woman hosting a show on her own. Neither does the comedic WLUP (AM 1000), where Carrie Cochran does afternoon drive-time news; the Loop`s only female co-host was half of a late- night husband/wife team that got canned last year. WFYR (FM 103.5) has an on-air roster to fit its oldies format, but the retro station has just one female jock. And she`s on from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Saturdays.
Even some supposedly high-minded stations are guilty of on-air chauvinism. The classical/fine arts station WFMT (FM 98.7) has Lois Baum cohosting its Lyric Opera Opening Nights and local news announcer Kate Remington. And that`s it.
No one, however, is sure exactly why women haven`t made greater gains in Chicago or, for that matter, in other major markets across the country.
”Most stations still feel one woman on the air is fine,” says WBBM-AM`s Kris Kridel with a sigh. Kridel, who is on maternity leave from her afternoon co-anchor position, adds, ”Most of them are not progressive enough to have women co-anchors. Of course, we`re a rarity in programming, anyway.”
WBEZ general manager Carole Nolan, one of a handful of women in her position in Chicago, blames the problem on management`s reluctance to take a chance on female broadcasters. It is compounded further by the paucity of female program directors or general managers. Until more women work their way to the top of the management side of the business, she says, mentors in the front office will remain scarce.
”We have to learn to network the way men do and help other women along,” Nolan says. ”Women have personalities, too. They can develop them. That`s what radio is all about. But right now there`s a reluctance to go ahead and do it.”
There are some other notable exceptions.
WLNR (FM 106.3), a cross between urban funk and New Age music, appears to discriminate in reverse by hiring only female jocks. Carolyn Grisko hosts a midmorning talk show, and Sondra Gair hosts a noontime international-affairs program on public radio`s WBEZ, which while not radio prime time are not bad times. WCEV (AM 1450) has a half-dozen or more women anchoring its ethnic programs. Then again, the Migala family owns the station, and ”we have more women in the family,” says Lucyna Migala, vice president and program director.
For now, however, the standard is to not take risks and keep women on nights. Unfortunately, being a late-night broadcaster is not the same as being an overnight success. As far as Arbitron is concerned, the overnight shift doesn`t even count. The hottest, most happening late-night deejay couldn`t get the attention of the ratings folks if she tried. While she`s working, they`re asleep.
The problem with this system is obvious. Program directors are not known for putting great faith in female broadcasters. So they put them on nights, where there is no way to measure the job they`re doing. A woman triumphs. A woman bombs. The program director never knows for certain, and she`s condemned to radio hell forever.
”I`m up against five or six women at night,” says Amy Scott, who works the late-night shift as the one female jock at WJMK (FM 104.3), an all-oldies station. ”There aren`t five or six women working the whole daytime.”
The female jocks even have their own theory about these late-night assignments. Actually, they say, male program directors have a theory.
It goes something like this: Women, with their sexy-sultry-silky-smooth voices, are what the low-key audience wants at night. Mornings, listeners need the jolt of a strong man`s voice to get them up and moving.
”Unfortunately, some women still try to sound sultry and sexy,” says WXRT`s Wendy Rice, a late-night jock. ”When I hear that, I`m disappointed. I think women can sound interesting, and that should be enough.”
As the female deejays point out, anyone working late nights is bound to adjust her voice to the hour. ”We`re heading into midnight” works at midnight, whether the speaker is male or female. ”Get your butt out of bed” is better at 7 a.m. Given the chance, the female jocks say they could rock with the best of them, even if they can`t get away with acting as wild and wacky as listeners allow and expect men to be. And women have already proven they can anchor serious news programs.
As Hemmert has proved, the notion that a woman can`t handle her own morning show is silly. It is also entrenched, which means the discrimination is more insidious than overt. Program directors are used to putting male deejays on morning, women on nights. Listeners tune in. Advertisers buy 15-and 30-second spots. Why mess with a successful formula?
”I hope there are men out there who are enlightened enough to hire women, not for political reasons, but because it`s good business,” says Hemmert, who teaches broadcasting classes. ”Before, they would hire women off the street and say, `See, women can`t cut it.` But women today are better prepared. They`re starting at the bottom like everyone else, and they`ve got to work their way up.”
Dan Fabian, general manager of WGN radio, says the lack of women on the air at the station ”made us nuts for a long time. But when WGN started featuring women prominently after ”deciding it was a glaring omission,” he says, the audience was wildly negative. That has changed. And so last spring, The Tribune`s Kathy O`Malley and the Sun-Times` Judy Markey took over Roy Leonard`s show one day a week, from 9:30 a.m. to noon Mondays. Fabian also notes that five of WGN`s eight department heads are women, ”and that`s a long climb from not too long ago.”
Robert Mulholland, director of the broadcasting sequence at Northwestern University`s Medill School of Journalism, disputes that on-air slots are an adequate measure of women`s success in radio at all. ”What difference does it make?” he asks, pointing to the dozens of writers and producers who are female. The overwhelming percentage of his students are also female, he says, indicating that women do believe they have a solid future in the business.
”I listen to radio. I hear women on radio,” Mulholland says. ”But not all the kids who go into broadcast news want to go on the air.”
That may be true. But it`s also true that women outnumber men in entry-level positions on both the editorial and business sides of radio, as they do in other media outlets. A national study funded largely by the Gannett Foundation found that women in radio and other media still suffer from a severe ”pay and power gap.”
In radio, the researchers found the most women in data processing, promotion and community service. Just 8 percent of the stations` presidents and vice presidents, 3 percent of the people in technical positions and 23 percent of those in production were women. One the other hand, 76 percent of the data processors and 43 percent of the people in community service were women.
Still, the women on Chicago radio are hopeful. They see themselves becoming part of drive-time teams more and more. Since few of them expect to be going it alone any time soon, they consider this the next best thing. Even Hemmert, who expected other women to follow her on the air years ago, says she is ”encouraged.”
”I don`t think you should ever say never,” says Patti Haze, the deejay on the 7 p.m.-to-midnight shift at WLUP-FM. ”If you practice your craft and strive for the best, you can always make improvements, even if it means you have to change stations or markets. My attitude has always been put your head down and work as hard as you can. That`s the way to break stereotypes.”
And the truth is that anyone-male or female-is lucky to get on the radio in a hot market like Chicago. This is a town, and a business, in which jocks and news anchors can pay their dues to the penny and never hit it big.
”I don`t bring it up too much, but then I`m very happy to have a job,”
says WJMK`s Amy Scott, who is using her days to break into TV as an entertainment reporter on Channel 32. ”Anyway, my boss says things are fine, just great.”
She laughs a great radio laugh.
”He says, `Why change it?`
