It used to be Larry Lujack versus Dick Biondi. Jonathon Brandmeier versus Steve Dahl. Wally Phillips versus the world.
Now, it’s Brandmeier versus Dahl. Howard Stern versus Mancow Muller. And Bob Collins versus the world.
Morning radio in Chicago may change the names over the years, but it is never dull.
When Stern, the syndicated morning “shock jock” king who had found new life on WCKG-FM, lost a Chicago outlet last month for the second time in two years, he was picked up a day later by WJJD-AM.
“That’s just good business,” says WJJD general manager Harvey Pearlman. “You’re talking about the most individually successful personality in radio. He’s the only person in the history of radio to be No. 1 in markets more than just his own.”
Ten days later, the Arbitron summer book of audience shares came out, proving Pearlman right. In six months, Stern’s show had moved WCKG’s morning ratings from a 2.2 percent audience share and 18th place to 3.4 and a tie for eighth.
If Stern has a problem in Chicago, says WGCI-FM program director/operations manager Elroy Smith, it’s one of “serious competition–and that’s Mancow. . . . Maybe the battle is on.”
But that’s life in the high-profile, high-risk world of morning drive-time radio. Although, lately, it has become a dangerous place to work.
Stern, for instance, has blasted Evergreen Media executive Larry Wert because Wert dropped Stern from then-WLUP-AM (now WMVP-AM) back in 1993. Wert’s boss, Jim DeCastro, brought Brandmeier back to mornings on WLUP-FM. Muller, Evergreen’s skyrocketing contribution to local shock radio at WRCX-FM since his arrival in July 1994, has set his sights on Stern and WLUP’s Kevin Matthews, among others.
Stern and Muller, in fact, have gone at it like a couple of temperamental schoolchildren, from Stern talking about Muller’s behavior at a family funeral to Muller sending a sidekick to Stern’s Chicago outlet wearing nothing but donuts on his sex organ.
Brandmeier notes the change. “It sounds more like info-hatred radio,” he says.
Still, a lot of the diatribes and stunts are repetitious. How silly has it become?
“It’s like a farmer in his fields,” says Dahl, now the morning co-host on WMVP, who was the Mancow Muller of his generation. “He can only plant so many crops before the soil gives out. Based on what I’ve heard, I’d say we’re dangerously close to the soil giving out.”
And so it goes.
Sometimes, the loudest noises gets the most attention. But at the same time, people such as WGN-AM’s Collins, all-news WBBM-AM’s John Hultman and Felicia Middlebrooks, country WUSN-FM’s J.D. Spangler and Ray Stevens, and urban contemporary WGCI-FM’s Tom Joyner just go quietly along, doing what they do best–topping the Arbitron ratings.
Collins again checked in at No. 1 in the summer Arbitron book with a 10.8 audience share, up from 9.9 in the spring. Hultman and Middlebrooks again were No. 2 at 5.6 (down from 5.7) and Joyner was No. 3 at 5.1 (up from 4.7).
First, an explanation as to why there is such sound and fury is in order.
Morning drive-time is to radio what evening prime-time is to television. That’s where the largest audience is and where the sponsors get the biggest bang for their bucks.
“It’s prime-time radio,” says Pearlman. “If you have a home run in prime time, you charge a lot of money for it.”
Radio consultant Lorna Gladstone, a former WGN program director who has worked in Minneapolis and Detroit, says Chicago has an advantage not found in other big cities.
“Chicago has the best morning drive in the country,” says Gladstone. When industry executives discuss a “young talk” format, notes Gladstone, “they talk about Brandmeier. When they talk about the rising stars of morning radio, they talk about Mancow.”
Wert agrees. “You can make a case that Chicago morning radio right now has more competitive alternatives than any market in the country.”
“There’s a lot of choices out there,” says WCKG-FM general manager Michael Disney. “If you don’t like what you hear, you go to something else.”
As the city’s population has become more diverse, so has the listenership in mornings.
“There are 7 million people in Chicago,” Wert says. “These shows live on fragments of that population. The No. 1 morning show for some time now has only reached 10 percent of the total of the 12-plus audience.”
Brandmeier’s move
To Brandmeier, who first arrived in Chicago 13 years ago from Phoenix, it’s deja vu. When he got to town, the big names were Phillips, Biondi, Lujack and Dahl.
“I had to go against these institutions,” recalls Brandmeier. “They were hot at the time and they were going to run me out of town.”
Brandmeier did leave town, for Los Angeles, but continued doing his show long distance for WLUP in afternoon drive time. The station brought him back to mornings–and Chicago–in September because, Wert says, his “energy and pacing is most appropriate in mornings. It would never have been our choice to lose him some years ago. But after 10 years, he wanted a new challenge. And after three years, we asked him to revisit a long-term commitment to morning radio. A combination of his competitive spirit and missing radio prime-time allowed us to reach agreement.”
Coincidentally, the Arbitron ratings for Matthews, who had inherited Dahl’s morning spot, had slipped to a 2.4 share and 17th place during the spring and summer.
“I’m pretty much trying to stay out of the way,” says Dahl, whose WMVP-AM adult (25-54) ratings had risen from the ashes of two years ago when then-partner Garry Meier surprisingly walked away only to fall back. In the spring, Dahl was in third place in that demo with a 5.1 share; in the summer, he dropped to 12th with a 3.6 share.
“I figure if I do good shows that’ll catch up with me at some point,” Dahl adds. “Right now, I’m happy. The only problem I have there is that three different stations and it doesn’t have the resources to adequately promote and back three morning shows. You really have to scrap for your piece of the pie.”
Collins, having inherited the top spot from Phillips 10 years ago, doesn’t have to scrap.
Says Gladstone, “The one thing WGN did successfully that no other AM giant in the country has been able to do is the morning-drive transition from Wally to Bob. Bob stepped into that role without skipping a beat.”
“I don’t think the basics have changed,” says Collins, who started at WGN as the afternoon drive-time host. “I still think morning radio should be what we do. It shouldn’t be abrasive. I really dislike the Howard Sterns, especially the Mancow What’s-His-Name. They do a disservice to the community and to the business.
“Morning radio should be friendly, informative and there’s too much shock in the world, both in radio and in almost every element of society. I’m kind of sick of it.”
Things change
Brandmeier and Stern aren’t the only morning jocks to play on the merry-go-round. Just recently, newcomer Jeff Wicker replaced 20-year veteran Dan Walker at ’70s rock station WYSY-FM. Two months ago, Top-40 station WBBM-FM general manager Don Marion dumped Terry Jacobs and Wild Bill Cody in favor of George McFly and Frankie “Hollywood” Rodriguez.
The result? Hardly a ripple. WYSY had dropped from a 1.7 to 1.6 share of listeners 12 years old and older and held steady at 2.5 in the 25-54 age category. WBBM-FM went from a 3.0 to a 2.9 share among listeners 12 and older, and from a 2.2 to a 2.4 in 25-54 group.
And a few months earlier, WKQX-FM moved in rockers Lance Towzer and Doug “Stoley” Stoll, members of the Lupins rock band who had been hosting a late-night program on the station, to replace Robert Chase. The station’s morning share tumbled over the summer, from 3.1 to 2.1 in 12-plus and from 2.5 to 1.9 in 25-54. Bad numbers for a station that overall averaged 3.4 in both 12-plus and 25-54 for the summer.
Dahl, who entered the market more than 15 years ago with all the bluster of the young shock jock he was, has mellowed.
“Dahl has become a little more conservative in contrast to some of the other young morning shows,” Gladstone says. “He shouldn’t be a shock jock anymore. He’s not 32 anymore.”
Even Collins has noticed a difference.
“He’s changed drastically,” says Collins. “Don’t you think that’s also part of being 40 instead of being 25? If you don’t evolve, you’re a fool. How long can Mancow be Mancow? At what point does that become even more embarrassing and foolish than it is now?”
Dahl may have changed, but he says the morning-drive battle hasn’t. “I’m concentrating on doing new stuff as opposed to going back and working the old stuff,” he says. “I hear things Mancow’s doing and they seem like things I’ve already done 10 or 15 years ago. It just comes back around again. Most of it doesn’t interest me when I hear it. I guess I am getting older.”
Philosophizes Dahl about the morning wars: “It’s been apparent to me that in time these things equal out. If you have talent, you’re doing a good show and you have loyal listeners who appreciate what you’re doing for them, you survive. A lot of this in-fighting only helps us, too, because at some point, you can’t take listening to it anymore.”
Adds Brandmeier: “It’s all about competition. And competition is good for . Because you are forced to be there every day. I come in every day like I just got the new job.”
