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What makes Roy blog? It’s a question of ‘civility’
Roy Leonard
After a broadcast career spanning more than 50 years and thousands of daily radio and television appearances, some people might find they have nothing more to say.
But Roy Leonard is just getting started.
With the launch this week of his redesigned website at RoyLeonard.com, the 81-year-old Chicago legend has unveiled two new blogs (both of which he plans to update weekly) and links to audio, video and photo archives highlighting his stellar career, most notably his three decades at Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM (720) and WGN-Channel 9.
Keller to end ‘extraordinary journey’ as Tribune critic
Julia Keller
Julia Keller, the Chicago Tribune cultural critic who won the newspaper’s only Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, says it's time to return to the academic world — and pursue a new career as a novelist.
Calling it “an exceedingly difficult decision,” Keller, 54, told her bosses last week that she plans to leave in June after completing several projects for the paper and participating in the Tribune’s Printers Row Lit Fest.
Starting this fall, Keller will join the faculty of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where she will teach writing classes in the journalism department. She previously taught at Ohio State University (where she earned a doctorate in English), Princeton University, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago. Just before joining the Tribune 1998, she studied technologies of literacy as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Urge to merge: WTTW combines national, local program staffs
Dan Schmidt
Claiming it will create “a more cohesive and efficient unit,” Chicago’s leading public television station is putting all its production eggs in one basket.
WTTW National Productions, which brought the world Soundstage, Sneak Previews, The Frugal Gourmet, The New Explorers and The McLaughlin Group, is being combined with WTTW11 Local Productions, the local programming department of WTTW-Channel 11, according to Dan Schmidt, president and CEO of parent company Window to the World Communications.
“With this new focus, we are better able to leverage the creativity, experience and expertise of our existing staff to develop programming that appeals to local, national and international audiences,” Schmidt wrote in a memo to staffers.
Daytime drama: How will ABC 7 make room for Katie & Kelly?
Kelly Ripa
Katie Couric and Kelly Ripa are coming to the station that Oprah Winfrey used to call home. But adding their daytime talk shows to WLS-Channel 7 will mean disrupting a lineup that has led the ratings in Chicago for more than 25 years.
The big question is: Where will they go? And the bigger question is: Will viewers follow?
Starting September 10, Katie, the new syndicated talk show hosted by the former Today host and CBS Evening News anchor, and distributed by Disney-ABC, is expected to air here at 3pm Monday through Friday, leading into the ABC-owned station’s 4pm newscast.
Back at CBS 2, weatherman Curran enjoys ‘warm reception’
Ed Curran
More than two years after he left WBBM-Channel 2 in a contract dispute, Chicago broadcast veteran Ed Curran is back on the CBS-owned station — and very happy about it.
It’s just a temporary gig for now, but Curran’s comeback as fill-in meteorologist marks a return to television following a nine-month detour at Merlin Media all-news WIQI-FM (101.1). His afternoon news anchor position was eliminated last month in a budget cutback at the struggling radio news operation.
At CBS 2, he’ll be filling in Friday for morning meteorologist Megan Glaros, who was hospitalized this week with issues related to her pregnancy with twins, according to her Facebook posts. Curran also will be working Saturday and Sunday night newscasts this weekend.
Recalling the disaster that brought humanity to radio
The Hindenburg
Robservations on the media beat:
- Seventy-five years ago this week — on May 6, 1937 — the zeppelin Hindenburg exploded in Lakehurst, New Jersey. The catastrophe was immortalized by Herb Morrison, a 31-year-old reporter for WLS-AM (890), who was there to record the arrival of the German airship when it suddenly burst into flames, killing 36 people. Arguably the most famous actuality ever produced by a Chicago station, it marked a turning point for radio news. Every disaster broadcast since — up to and including September 11, 2001 — is measured against Morrison’s chilling, horrific account, punctuated by his plaintive words: “Oh, the humanity!” Morrison died at 83 in 1989.
- Officials of Wrapports LLC declined to comment on a report in Crain’s Chicago Business Wednesday that they were buying the Reader in a $3 million deal with Atalaya Capital Management LP. But they were eager to trumpet their latest investment in social media. The parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times announced that it has made a significant investment in High School Cube, a Chicago-based startup that uses a social streaming platform to broadcast live high school events, including sports, concerts and graduations. The new company is headed by Larry Cotter and Kevin Doyle, formerly with the online advertising firm Classified Ventures. In announcing the strategic partnership with Sun-Times Media, Wrapports CEO Tim Knight said in a statement: “We’re looking forward to working with High School Cube because it supports our vision of providing valuable content that millions of fans and communities want on a daily basis.”
- With the Sun-Times’ acquisition of the Reader practically a done deal, it’s been amusing to track the reaction of the Reader’s media critic, Michael Miner, who’s been a disgruntled ex-employee of the Sun-Times since he lost his job there in 1978. When Crain’s first reported the possibility in March, Miner sniffed: “We’re a little surprised that the Sun-Times, not long out of bankruptcy itself, can afford to buy anybody.” The following day he called rumors of the Sun-Times' interest in acquiring the Reader’s entertainment listings “the kind of outcome that sets teeth on edge here.” Last month he made a public plea to new Sun-Times editor-in-chief Jim Kirk to “please call” if he knew more about talks to buy the Reader. On Wednesday, Miner’s desperation boiled over when he singled out Joe Mansueto, owner of Time Out Chicago who also happens to be an investor in Wrapports. “Puritans would blink at Mansueto owning most of one magazine and a piece of its chief rival, but everyone's too busy these days dreaming dreams and trying to survive to worry much about appearances,” Miner wrote.
Emily Barr leaves ABC 7 on top — but doesn’t go far
Emily Barr
Emily Barr, who ran the most successful television station in Chicago for 15 years, is moving on to new challenges. But she’s not moving away.
Barr, 54, resigned Tuesday as president and general manager of ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7, a unit of Walt Disney Co., to become president and CEO of Post-Newsweek Stations. From offices in Chicago, she will oversee the chain of six stations owned by Washington Post Co. in Detroit, Houston, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio and Jacksonville. After a two-month break, she’ll start her new job in July.
From the moment she was approached about the job, Barr knew she would be staying in Chicago. Although it means she’ll be traveling a lot, she’ll still be able to raise her two daughters here and remain active in the community she and her husband have called home since 1997. “It will be very different for me because I won’t be coming in to a station with a big studio every day, but I’ll be visiting all those places regularly,” she told me.
Wiser goes digital as Tribune exec producer
Jim Wiser
It’s back to Tribune Tower for veteran Chicago producer Jim Wiser. But after almost 30 years in local radio and television, he’ll now be working strictly online.
Wiser, 48, has been named executive producer for video programming at chicagotribune.com, the digital platform for the Chicago Tribune. He started Tuesday.
Until last December, Wiser had spent more than nine years at Tribune Tower as a top producer at news/talk WGN-AM (720). At the Tribune Co.-owned station, he rose to executive producer of programming and ran morning shows hosted by a succession of personalities, including Spike O’Dell, John Williams and Greg Jarrett. He was forced out when the station replaced Jarrett with Jonathon Brandmeier.
When it comes to news, is WGN Radio all talk?
Photo: Charles Meyerson
With the layoff of award-winning Chicago radio veteran Jim Gudas as midday news anchor last week, news/talk WGN-AM (720) is becoming less “news” and more “talk” than ever.
Bill White, director of programming and news at the Tribune Co.-owned station, said the move was made solely for financial reasons. Gudas will not be replaced, and his duties have been divided among others in WGN’s dwindling news department.
Tribune’s Kamin sketches plans for Nieman Fellowship
Blair Kamin
Robservations on the media beat:
- Blair Kamin, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, has been awarded a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Named the 2013 Arts and Culture Nieman Fellow, he’ll spend a year of study on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus. The move will reunite him with former Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski, now curator of the Nieman Foundation. “During my Nieman year, I hope to plunge back into the world of ideas, exploring the latest thinking in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design in a more deliberate way than daily journalism permits,” Kamin told me. “My aspirations for the fellowship are straightforward: To return to my job refreshed and refocused, so I can provide our readers with the most sophisticated, discerning coverage of architecture — and, in the process, to demonstrate anew why newspapers should cover this inescapable art.” Kamin, 54, who joined the Tribune in 1987, won the Pulitzer for criticism in 1999.
- Shortly after 7pm Sunday, Merlin Media signed on its new alternative rock format on WKQX-LP (87.7), the low-power station it's leasing from Venture Technologies Group. "Yep, we just birthed this bitch," the station tweeted in its opening minutes. "WKQX and Alternative are back in Chicago on 87.7FM!" Calling the shots is Jim Richards, newly hired operations manager of Q87.7 and classic rock WLUP-FM (97.9), and a protege of Merlin Media CEO Randy Michaels.
- Friday night had to be bittersweet for veteran Chicago newsman Mark Suppelsa. At the same time he was announcing plans to enter an alcohol rehab program, the WGN-Channel 9 news anchor won three Peter Lisagor Awards for exemplary journalism from the Chicago Headline Club. Suppelsa was cited in two investigative reporting categories and for multimedia collaboration. Among other Lisagor winners Friday was graphic artist Greg Good, cited for work at the Chicago Sun-Times. While the paper took credit for the award in its report Saturday, it failed to mention that Good had been laid off in a budget cutback last December.
