Posted by Bud on November 11, 2010 at 20:14:34:
Putting a little dignity back into the 'G?
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November 11, 2010
PD Kevin Metheny, host Jim Laski out at WGN-AM 720
by Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune
Kevin Metheny, the WGN-AM 720 program director whose abrupt moves to grow the audience grew a well of resentment among some long-time listeners, is leaving the station along with his most controversial hire, former convicted Chicago City Clerk Jim Laski.
The station said Thursday a series of hosts will fill in for Laski, whose show airs weeknights at 7 when not preempted by sports play-by-play, until a new show is announced. Newsman Steve Bertrand is set to be the first substitute.
"The next step in the station’s evolution is the development of a show from 7 (to) 10 p.m. that best complements the rest of our evening programming—something on which we will be very focused going forward," Tom Langmyer, the station's vice president and general manager since 2005, said in a statement. "Our goal is to continue developing engaging and relevant programming, while still keeping the hometown connection that Chicagoans have come to identify with WGN radio."
Metheny's exit, after 23 tumultuous months in the job, comes less than three weeks after the resignation of long-time radio executive Randy Michaels as chief executive of Tribune Co., parent of WGN-AM as well as the Chicago Tribune. Metheny had enjoyed the backing of Michaels, who installed him in Chicago at what is currently branded News 720 WGN-AM.
Even before his arrival in Chicago, Metheny had a reputation for rubbing some the wrong way. He was immortalized by multimedia star Howard Stern first on the air and in his best-selling book "Private Parts" as "Pig Virus" and then caricatured as part of a composite character called "Pig Vomit" in the movie version of "Private Parts."
But his attempts to advise long-time WGN-AM midday hosts Kathy O'Malley and Judy Markey on the kind of show he wanted from them ultimately resulted in their sudden exit from the station in May 2009 in uneasy fashion that even those who supported the change thought could and should have been handled more gracefully.
Other changes on Metheny's watch at the 86-year-old Chicago broadcasting institution included bringing in Greg Jarrett from San Francisco to handle morning drive and Mike McConnell from Cincinnati for mid-mornings; hiring veteran Chicago radio personality Garry Meier for afternoon drive; moving John Williams in and out a variety of daytime slots; and not renewing the contract of midday host Steve Cochran, who was in line to succeed the retiring Spike O'Dell in the station's long-coveted morning slot until he failed to agree to terms on a new deal in 2008.
“We’ve solidified our daytime lineup, which now features Greg Jarrett, Mike McConnell, John Williams, and Garry Meier, and we’ve improved our news coverage as a result of our growing partnership with the Chicago Tribune,” Langmyer said Thursday.
The moves, a response to lagging ratings main dayparts, may have had a rationale. But the way many of the changes were made caused as much friction as the changes themselves, both inside and out of the station.
"They seem to be getting in trouble on style, in the way they're doing things," radio consultant John Gehron said in July. "People are not getting treated in a way that would make it easier to get through this adjustment. … Here's a radio station people were used to and were comfortable with and in a year everybody but John Williams has been changed out. … I don't know if reinventing it at the speed they're doing it is necessary. That would be my concern."
Metheny, who arrived at WGN the Monday after O'Dell's final Friday show, said the changes were the result of an overall plan that had not been adequately conveyed to others.
"Our plan may not have been the most elegantly or artfully executed of all possible plans, but we actually understand what it is we think we are trying to do and why we think we're trying to do it," Metheny said in an interview this summer.
Although he ultimately wasn't hired by WGN-AM, the station's flirtation a few months ago with provocative radio firebrand Bill Cunningham -- whom Tribune Co. signed to host a syndicated TV show and, like McConnell, a former Michaels associate from Cincinnati -- signaled a new era for what for many years had been a non-confrontational broadcast outlet.
But if Cunningham never made it to WGN-AM under Metheny, Laski did. Metheny in April named the argumentative former felon the replacement for the long-running "Sports Central" program, which lost its novelty and some of its audience over the years with the advent and growth of all-sports radio stations WSCR-AM 670 and WMVP-AM 1000.
Laski served time in federal prison after pleading guilty to one of the two bribery counts against him, admitting he accepted nearly $50,000 to steer city trucking business to cronies. Some of those who might have forgiven that transgression were unable to overlook his choppy on-air style.
"Is it where we want it to be? No," Metheny said of Laski's show in July. "Are he and I painfully aware of that every day? Absolutely. Do we work intensely on it? Yes, sir."