Chicago Action: WNIB Sold for $165M, CD94.7 Flips to 80s
Jeffries, Mark
First of all, Bill Florian, Chicago's last ma-and-pa FM station owner,
announced that he was selling his classical WNIB to Bonneville for $165
million. The sale should close in February and most observers believe that
the station will change formats after Bonneville takes it over, despite the
fact that the group owns classical stations WGMS in Washington and KDFC in
San Francisco. Bonneville currently owns in Chicago hard-leaning classic
rocker WLUP (the Loop), AC WNND (Windy 100) and modern AC WTMX (The Mix).
The sale and possible format change ends an almost-46-year continuous run
with classical music at WNIB, which Florian and his wife Sonia have owned
from the beginning. It also ends the last competitive situation between two
commercial classical formats, with Window to the World Communications' WFMT
the victor. WNIB played second-fiddle to 'FMT (which celebrates its 50th
anniversary this month) for many years until they moved their stick to the
Amoco Building in the early 80s and added repeater station WNIZ in Zion for
the north suburban and Milwaukee markets (WNIZ is included in the sale to
Bonneville). As WFMT was taking its profits from its highly-successful
Chicago magazine to do a lot of live performance broadcasts and commission
composers to write music for them, 'NIB stuck to a basic easy-listening
style classical format during the day like New York's WNCN (without the
AC-style announcers, however) and soon started drawing listeners away from
'FMT (along with advertisers, who chafed over 'FMT's long-standing
no-recorded-spots, no excessive supluratives policies, where the station's
continuity department often did extensive rewriting of agency copy before it
got on the air). As 'NIB bore down and surpassed 'FMT in the Arbitrons,
'FMT experienced some very trying times. WTTW (the PBS station that runs
'FMT as a for-profit) sold Chicago magazine from under them, clamped down on
spending and even ended their advertising policies. (After a hue and cry
from many in Chicago's cultural community, the station reinstated the
no-recorded-spots policy--although they allow a lot of things in copy they
never allowed in the old days--and started taking listener contributions as
a way to make up the revenue they would've received from running recorded
spots.)
Meanwhile, 'NIB continued to outpace 'FMT in ratings and revenue (although
'FMT has rebounded in the last few ratings books to lead over 'NIB in what
was still a very close race). Florian told the Chicago media that he was
selling WNIB because he wants to retire and he wasn't sure that anyone in
his family could continue to run the station.
The funny thing was that Florian resisted offers to buy for many years,
including Bonneville. He supposedly ended one discussion with a rep from
Mormon church-owned Bonneville with a loud "I AM AN ATHEIST AND RELIGION IS
THE OPIATE OF THE PEOPLE!" An avid Harley rider, he also said that he would
rather trust his buddies at his favorite biker bar with 'NIB before he'd
sell it to Bonneville. All of which gives you an idea of his quirkiness,
which extended into the station, where stray cats and dogs were taken into
the station's River West studios and could sometimes be heard meowing and
barking underneath the station's announcers as they were introducing Mozart.
He also broke format on Saturdays for Chuck Schaden's long-running old time
radio showcase "Those Were the Days" and overnights for Alfred "Mr. A"
Hudgens' blues and R&B show (a holdover from the days when 'NIB did some
brokered programming). All of that will soon be gone--and Chicago radio
will be much poorer for it.
No indication has been given yet where the syndicated programming 'NIB
carries (which includes "Adventures in Good Music" and NPR's "Performance
Today") will be going, or where "Those Were the Days" will land. Bonneville
also isn't saying what they're flipping 'NIB to, although it's rumored that
it could be CHR or 80s oldies.
Well, forget the 80s oldies. Yesterday at noontime Disney/ABC's classic
rocker WXCD (CD94.7) flipped to 80s oldies with the air-name "The Zone,"
joining in what's become the national format-flavor-of-the-month. Along
with the format switch, all of the station's air staff were fired except
morning man Kevin Matthews and his group of boot-licking sidekicks, putting
on the street Chicago AOR veterans Bob Stroud, Patti Haze and Alan Stagg
(whose evening "Sanctuary" recreated the attitude--if not the playlist--of
late 60s free-form radio) and weekenders Mitch Michaels and Kitty Loewy.
The station's running jockless except for Matthews in the morning, but PD
Bill Gamble is still in charge.
This makes ABC's sixth format change at 94.7 since they flipped from CHR
WYTZ to a simulcast of WLS' talk format in 1991. When the flip was made
from WKHK "Kicks Country" to CD94.7 in 1997, the move was successful at
first as the station was able to profit from WCKG's move to young-skewing
talk and 70s oldies WYSY's sale to SBS and subsequent format and call-letter
change to WLEY (La Ley). Also, initially Gamble went with a larger library
than a lot of classic rockers and included some R&B and pop songs (and
avoided sledgehammer metal) in an attempt to get more than just the usual
male target audience. But when Bonneville took over the Loop in the summer
of '97 and flipped the anemic modern AC format to classic rock, PD Greg Solk
decided to take his station back to its days of black T shirts and "Kick Ass
Rock & Roll" in the late 70s and early 80s and went to a hard-rock-intensive
playlist (and they especially benefited from WRCX flipping from active rock
to urban oldies WUBT). Meanwhile, CD94.7 started to slip in the
ratings--and brining the fading Matthews in as morning man has done nothing
for the station and even angered some listeners who were led to believe that
CD94.7 would never have high-profile, heavy-talk morning shows (Lesson: You
never believe anything you hear on the radio). GM Zamira Jones told the
Sun-Times that CD94.7 had plateaued and it was time for something else.
Like most of the other 80s stations, the new Zone is heavy on the MTV New
Wave bands and light on more mainstream pop (although George Michael and
Phil Collins have popped up in listening so far). It is definitely more of
a rocker than Big City's WXXY/WYXX metrocast (The 80s Channel), which has
done nothing in the ratings since it started in August 1999 (the *last*
English-language FM flip in Chicago until yesterday), despite high-profile,
high-salary jocks Robert Murphy and Fred Winston. The liners are pretty
standard and Matthews doesn't exactly sound enthusiastic about the format
(although he said this morning that he was glad he won't have to play
"Stairway to Heaven" again). You can listen for yourself at www.cd947.com
(the old site's been taken down and replaced with a Flash movie and one link
for the webcast).
At this point, we should point out that WXXY/WYXX's old format was urban
oldies and that they got out of that one because of the initial success of
WUBT. Will ABC make Big City change formats again--or will the 80s oldies
format be reaching its 15th minute soon? Will Matthews, as rumored, get out
of his contract with ABC and replace Steve Dahl in afternoon drive at WCKG?
What will Bonneville do with WNIB? And, as rumored, will Clear Channel be
flipping either WLIT or WUBT soon--and what will they flip it to? Looks
like Chicago radio could have an interesting winter ahead.
Mark Jeffries
mjef...@krw.com
chiw...@aol.com
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