Even before morning man Erich “Mancow” Muller got his walking papers Tuesday from WKQX-FM 101.1, the idea of being a “shock jock” was an anachronism.
From Howard Stern on down, the most jarring radio personalities have long rejected the description. It just doesn’t sell the way it once did.
Advertisers are wary. The Federal Communications Commission has become aggressive. And audiences, well, they’ve heard it all before.
“You can’t do anything on the radio that’s really dirty because the FCC will fine the hell out of [a station] … but on a deeper level, what’s shocking in our society these days?” said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, a trade publication. “Look at the Internet. Look at billboards. Look at movies. Look at cable television. It’s crazy to label yourself a shock jock. … You’ve got to be funny. You’ve got to be creative. You’ve got to be intelligent. You’ve got to be entertaining. But shocking? There’s nothing shocking anymore.”
Which is a bit of a jolt in and of itself.
Muller, 40, a Chicago radio bad boy since 1994 who has spent the last eight years at alternative rock station WKQX, said he expects to land at another local FM station soon but declined to name which one. “Within six months,” he allowed, “it’s going to be a much different landscape I believe in Chicago radio-wise.”
But the landscape already has changed, as has Muller. Though he rejects the “shock jock” tag–“I’ve never done shock radio; I have never called myself that”–he admits that he’s a different broadcaster than he used to be.
“I am beyond the voyeuristic shows I did when I first came here and was in my mid-20s,” he said. “I want to broaden the appeal of the show, talk about more varied topics.”
According to Marv Nyren, vice president and general manager of Emmis Radio Chicago, WKQX declined to re-sign Muller because research showed “Mancow’s Morning Madhouse” drew very different listeners than the music programming that filled the rest of the station’s programming day, and syndication had taken away much of the show’s local flavor. But he also cited advertisers’ uneasiness with Muller.
The parting was amicable–“We shook hands, I walked him out and he’s gone”–but Nyren contends there just isn’t the same old appetite for outrage.
People can get their thrills elsewhere, and with the federal government issuing six-figure fines over content issues and advertisers shying away, radio observers say they will have to.
These are the forces–along with hundreds of millions of dollars–that encouraged Stern to take his act to Sirius Satellite Radio, a pay-service free of government regulation.
Others, including Muller, have toned down their act.
But Muller, Nyren said, was a polarizing figure on arrival in Chicago “and the ad community and even listeners never really forgot it,” Nyren said. “I would have people call and they would say, `My ad just ran behind the porn star from California who’s running for governor.'”
What once made Muller one of Chicago’s top-paid radio stars was starting to cost.
Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications shelled out $300,000 in 2004 to settle FCC fines, many of which were scored by Muller, and the FCC recently upped its fines on so-called indecent material tenfold earlier this month.
“This wasn’t really involved in our decision, but I won’t lie: When I saw the new fines … I see my job,” Nyren said. “That’s not a fine I want to pay.”
Said Shane “Rover” French, the struggling morning man at CBS Radio’s WCKG-FM 105.9 who desperately wants a piece of Muller’s audience: “When they’re increasing the fines to $325,000 a pop, that can certainly be the death knell for shock jock sort of antics.”
Still, longtime local radio executive John Gehron, now with Harpo Radio, setting up an XM Satellite channel for Oprah Winfrey that’s supposed to launch this fall, said he was surprised Q101 would part with its most identifiable star even if his audience didn’t overlap with its music format.
“You certainly like synergy, but Howard had very little synergy on almost every station he was on,” Gehron said. “The key is to make things fit together as best you can.”
In the most recent Arbitron ratings survey covering the first quarter, Muller’s show was the 11th-most popular in the morning among listeners 12 and older with a 2.9 rating.
Harrison scoffed at the idea Muller had limited appeal, holding WKQX back. “I’ve seen some of the greatest babies thrown out with the bath water in an attempt to broaden demos or make higher ratings,” he said.
WKQX will run “best-of” shows the rest of this week, then switch to a music-oriented show hosted by James Van Osdol as a prelude to launching a new morning show in September.
Nyren said he had not received one formal complaint about Muller’s content in the last 18 months because Muller had changed.
Muller says that what he wants to do is more along the lines of what he contributes to cable’s Fox News Channel, which said Muller’s commentary on its “Fox & Friends” morning show will originate from its Chicago bureau until he gets a new radio home.
Similarly, Oregon-based TRN-FM e-mailed affiliates to reassure them that Muller’s exit from WKQX “will not affect our agreement to provide the syndicated broadcasts of `Mancow’s Morning Madhouse.'”
According to Mancow.com, his “Morning Madhouse” airs in 22 markets outside Chicago. But Chicago is one of only three in the top 20. He has only six in the top 50 and less than half his affiliates are in the top 100. “Baby steps,” Muller said.
Nyren said he would have been more willing to sacrifice the local nature of the show had Muller been able to become more of a national radio draw.
“With radio in the state it’s in today–whether it’s [competition from] satellite radio or Internet radio or iPods–you’ve got to be local and we lost that with him,” Nyren said.
Muller, according to Emmis, accounted for $6.5 million of the Q101’s $15.5 million in revenue. By comparison, with non-syndicated and milder Jonathon Brandmeier in morning drive, sister station WLUP-FM 97.9 will bring in $8 million of its $18.2 million total revenue in that critical slot. Brandmeier’s show was tied for seventh in the most recent ratings period.
Muller is willing to redefine himself, but he wants to be the one deciding how.
“In the past I have been told not to have an opinion on anything,” Muller said. “They don’t want politics. They don’t want religion. They don’t want a lot of the things that I want to do.
“You’re going to snicker when I say this,” he said. “But just as Rush [Limbaugh] saved AM, I want to save FM radio.”
Now that’s shocking.
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philrosenthal@tribune.com
