Tag: Rick Kaempfer
Media: December 2018
As 2018 comes to an end and a new year begins, it’s time once again to pay tribute to the people who passed away this year. Once again, we lost some of the all-time Chicago greats. Among them, the long-time anchor and reporter Warner Saunders. Saunders’ award-winning 29-year stint at NBC-5 in Chicago touched countless […]
Media: November 2018
When Eric Ferguson started working at WTMX (The Mix), the studios had just moved from Skokie to downtown, and they were considered state of the art for their time. That time, unfortunately, was the 90s. Now, he is working in state of the art facilities again–brand new studios that are still under semi-construction. “Like anything […]
Media: August 2018
WDRV disc jockey Byrd is a rock jock out of central casting. He looks and sounds the part so much that you get the feeling if there was ever an injury to a band member of any group he was introducing on stage any given night, Byrd could fill in at the drop of a […]
Media: July 2018
WBMX midday host Diana Steele may be a new voice on the Chicago radio dial, but she isn’t new to radio, and she isn’t new to Chicago. It’s just that her two worlds had never collided like this before, and she’s really enjoying the ride. “It is the coolest thing on the planet for a […]
Media: June 2018
WSCR (The Score) Morning host Mike Mulligan has the background that Chicago sports fans seem to require. He is one of us. “I grew up on the South Side, and went to school at Quigley, and college at Loyola.” He also grew up listening to the radio, and he understands our unique market history. “I […]
Media: May 2018
If you’re a big fan of WFLD-TV News (Fox 32) in Chicago, you might have noticed that their ace investigative reporter Dane Placko hasn’t been on the air for about a month. Don’t worry. He isn’t the victim of budget cuts. He hasn’t been demoted. He didn’t get hired away by the networks. He just […]
Media: April 2018
I was 23 years old the day I walked into the Loop offices for the first time. After getting rejections from the other rock stations in Chicago (and there were quite a few at the time), I had thrown a Hail Mary pass to the biggest of them all, The Loop. I wrote a letter […]
Media: February 2018
When I called Chicago radio legend Fred Winston (WLS, WMAQ, WFYR, WCFL, WPNT, WJMK, WLUP, and just about every other station on the dial), the gentleman farmer now living in Southwest Michigan, was in the middle of a project. “You caught me repairing a doorknob. Thank God for the internet. There are scores of YouTube […]
Media: January 2018
If you’ve listened to rock and roll radio for the last three decades, you’ve undoubtedly run across the work of Steve Seaver. He’s been rocking Chicago since 1991 at stations like The Blaze, The Loop, and currently The Drive (97.1 FM). He’s one of those rare personalities who can be identified by one name, […]
Media: December 2017
It’s become a year-end tradition in this space to honor some of the broadcasters we lost in the past calendar year. All of them touched countless lives in the Chicago area, maybe even your own. The Chicago media community is diminished by their absence. JOE COLLINS – Collins was a veteran traffic reporter in Chicago best […]
Media: August 2017
It’s been ten years since I wrote my first novel $everance (ENC Press, 2007). That book was a satire about what had become of the media business since the original deregulation in 1996. It was intended to shine a light on the dangers of entrusting so much control over news and information in the hands […]
Media: July 2017
When Len O’Kelly was working in Chicago as a music director and disc jockey for radio stations like WJMK (104.3), academia was the furthest thing from his mind. At the time he was a college dropout and working in one of the top markets in the country. He thought he’d be doing that the rest […]
Media: June 2017
When WXRT night jock Ryan Arnold says he grew up on WXRT, he doesn’t just mean that he listened to the station. His mom Marge Arnold worked there when he was growing up, and he spent a lot of time in the hallways. “I literally grew up in the bowels of WXRT back when it […]
May 2017: Media
When Wally Phillips retired from WGN Radio, the afternoon man Bob Collins replaced him. When Bob Collins died in a plane crash, the afternoon man Spike O’Dell replaced him. When Spike O’Dell retired, Steve Cochran was doing the afternoon show at WGN. “They offered me the job, and it was the worst deal offered to […]
Media: April 2017
Charlie Meyerson has been a part of the Chicago media landscape now for four decades as a newscaster for WXRT, WNUA, WGN, the Chicago Tribune and more. Just last year he brought home an Edward R. Murrow award for a report he did at Rivet Radio. “One night at Rivet,” he explained, “we had a […]
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