It’s 5:45 a.m. and Erich “Mancow” Muller is scribbling notes on sheets of paper while pinching and pulling switches on the control panel at Q101’s studio in the Merchandise Mart.
Mancow’s full of energy, despite having woken up at 2:30 a.m. nearly every weekday for more than a decade. His zeal is contagious as he takes calls from listeners, rants about high gas prices and calls on his various sidekicks for comments.
RedEye joined Mancow for a broadcast, watching while his studio buzzes on coffee, and passersby try to catch a glimpse of the DJ in action through a large window.
During a commercial break, one person gets his attention, gesturing provocatively at Mancow from the hallway.
“This is not a TV screen, [bleep]!” Mancow yells back before resuming his fidgeting.
A surprising amount of work is being done in an office that looks more like a fraternity house. Portraits of Pamela Anderson and porn star Tera Patrick dressed only in skimpy outfits hang on the walls, and behind Mancow’s command post hangs a banner that features a beast–half man, half cow–between two women with breasts the size of their heads. It reads, “Born on a mountain … raised in a cave … booze and broads is all that he craves.”
In this environment, it’s hard to see the political, moral side of Mancow that his representatives hope will make him the FCC-friendlier alternative to Howard Stern when the New York shock jock moves his show to Sirius satellite radio. The weightier stuff is in the show–Mancow spouts opinions on everything from the price of hybrid cars to illegal immigration–but he still knows how to lighten the atmosphere by pondering questions like, “If you sleep with a clone of yourself, are you gay?”
Mancow said he has found a winning combination that will propel his show to national success.
“We’re going to have the biggest morning show in the nation within the next five years,” Mancow said.
It helps that there will be a void to fill. Stern’s “departure has created a moment where people will be looking for options,” said Tom Taylor, editor of industry magazine Inside Radio.
“It changes the chess board for everyone, and it creates an opportunity for Mancow.”
Mancow has seized that opportunity. In January, he signed a contract with the Talk Radio Network, which syndicates radio personalities such as Laura Ingram and Michael Savage, and TRN chief executive officer Mark Masters said he is pushing Mancow in all of radio’s major markets.
The effort began to pay off when Mancow was picked up by XTRA-AM 570, a popular sports talk station in L.A., the country’s second-largest radio market. The show is scheduled to begin in L.A. on Monday, and Masters said several other markets are poised to pick up Mancow this summer.
“If he can make a dent” in L.A., Inside Radio’s Taylor said, “other places may be willing to look at him.”
Mancow is already syndicated to several stations in the Midwest, including Des Moines and Knoxville, Tenn.
“We were looking for someone who could be successful and create an audience for national advertisers in the post-Janet Jackson era,” Masters said. “We were prepared to go head-to-head with Stern. His departure just increased the prospects in our business plan.”
Mancow said his show has had to walk a fine line since the FCC’s crackdown in the post-Nipplegate era–the sexual content has been toned down in favor of more social and political commentary–but he mainly attributes his show’s evolution to his personal growth.
“I don’t understand why people still label me with an image I had 10 years ago,” he said. “When I first started the show, it was for a 22-year-old guy. What I’m interested in now has totally changed, and the show has changed.”
Mancow said he now aims his show toward a 26-year-old man who is more mature, and that the content is a mix of fun and socially conscious material.
Mancow has had his share of FCC woes in the past.
Emmis Communications, which broadcasts “Madhouse,” paid $300,000 last summer to settle more than 30 indecency complaints against the show filed to the FCC by David Smith, a volunteer for conservative watchdog group Citizens for Community Values in Illinois. Mancow personally sued Smith for $3 million last spring, alleging his complaints were harassment, but the suit was dropped.
Mancow has not received any complaints since the Smith case was settled, said Emmis Communications spokeswoman Kate Snedeker.
Despite his run-ins with the FCC–or perhaps because of them–Mancow ranks No. 1 among Chicago’s 18- to 34-year-old men in the 6 to 10 a.m. time slot, according to Arbitron.
Being that successful at the national level the way Stern has been for years will be a challenge, Taylor said.
“It’s not necessarily Howard leaves, Mancow comes,” Taylor said. “Syndication is a market-by-market, grind-it-out process. He’ll have to win each market one at a time.”
XTRA-FM 570 station General Manager Don Martin said he wanted to sign Mancow because he liked the number of listeners Mancow attracted in Chicago.
“The audience I go after is men 18 to 34,” Martin said. “Mancow brings in numbers. If there’s somebody out there that is going to be ‘the next’ in the syndicated world, he’s got the best shot at it. He’s got mass appeal.”
Mancow is attractive to advertisers because he delivers the highly sought-after and hard to reach 18- to 34-year-old male audience, said Paula Hambrick, owner of Orland Park-based media buying company Hambrick and Associates.
Mancow’s appeal beyond young men is another story. In Chicago’s 6 to 10 a.m. time slot, if you count the audience above 12 years of age, he is tied with WLEY-FM 107.9 for 13th place out of 40 stations, according to Arbitron.
TRN’s Masters is more optimistic about the show’s future than Mancow, predicting that the Chicago star will be a national fixture within 18 months.
That may prove challenging, though, said morning show DJ Lin Brehmer, Mancow’s local competition at WXRT-FM 93.1.
“The radio is so splintered,” Brehmer said. “It would be hard for any single person to dominate.”
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mcarberry@tribune.com
SCREEN TIME
Mancow isn’t wasting any opportunities to boost his national profile with the young male audience. He said he is shopping a TV show to several networks, including the Fox news cable channel, where he already has a weekday segment on “Fox and Friends.” He also has accepted bit roles in TV and film. He appeared as a member of the Russian mob on a recent episode of “The Shield” and will give commentary in a VH1 program called, “When Jerry Springer Ruled The World” this month. He also will appear as a bully in the movie, “5-25-77” and a radio personality in the zombie movie “Dead Rain.” Neither film has announced a release date yet.
–Maegan Carberry
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ON THE RADIO
Although Mancow ranks first among Chicago male listeners 18-to-34, he faces plenty of competition for the wider audience in the city, the nation’s third largest radio market. Here are the top shows in the 6 to 10 a.m. weekday time slot among general listeners (ages 12 and older) from the winter 2005 Arbitron ratings.
Rank Station Host(s)
1. WGN-AM 720Spike O’Dell
2. WBBM-AM 780 Felicia Middlebrooks & Pat Cassidy
3. WGCI-FM 107.5 Crazy Howard McGee
3. WVAZ-FM 102.7 Tom Joyner
5. WLS-AM 890 Don Wade & Roma
6. WTMX-FM 101.9 Eric & Kathy
7. WLIT-FM 93.9 Melissa Forman
7. WNUA-FM 95.5 Ramsey Lewis
9. WBBM-FM 96.3 Eddie & Jobo
9. WUSN-FM 99.5 Big John & Ray
11. WOJO-FM 105.1 Rafael “Pistolero” Pulido
12. WJMK-FM 104.3 Paul Perry
13. WKQX-FM 101.1 Mancow Muller
13. WLEY-FM 107.9 El Chokolate
15. WPPN-FM 106.7 Cesar Osmar
16. WCKG-FM 105.9 Howard Stern
17. WDRV-FM 97.1 Steve Downes
17. WXRT-FM 93.1 Lin Brehmer
19. WKSC-FM 103.5 DreX
20. WPWX-FM 92.3 Baby Girl & Leon Rogers
20. WSCR-AM 670 Mike North
Source: Arbitron
