Posted by chicagomedia.org on October 29, 2008 at 07:10:00:
The 6 factors that merged to tame wild morning radio
"Mancow's Morning Madhouse" it is not.
And that is the plan.
At 9 a.m. Monday, Erich "Mancow" Muller, bad boy of Chicago radio for the last 15 years, signed on as host of a talk show on the venerable WLS-AM 890. Across the way stood Pat Cassidy, for two decades the respected voice of news radio in Chicago, first at WMAQ-AM 670 and more recently at WBBM-AM 780.
Muller says he hopes to talk about everything from restaurants to Chicago politics. That includes his plans to vote Libertarian, an eyebrow-raiser on the conservative-leaning WLS, where Muller fielded a congratulatory phone call from Rush Limbaugh during his first show.
"You want real change? You're not going to get it from Obama or McCain," Muller told his listeners.
What in the name of Howard Stern is going on around here? What happened to the era of the morning-drive shock jocks in Chicago radio?
You can certainly find "morning zoos" at Chicago stations—a host or two with a cast of supporting characters—but the outrageousness has been tamped down. "Crazy" Howard McGee, a longtime fixture at WGCI-FM 107.5, was dumped and replaced by the syndicated "Steve Harvey Morning Show."
For all his raunchy humor, WOJO-FM 105.1's Rafael "El Pistolero" Pulido is a charity-minded community organizer among Spanish-language fans. Besides, he got bumped to afternoon drive by the syndicated Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo.
Even Eric Ferguson and Kathy Hart, the extremely popular morning duo at The Mix (WTMX-FM 101.9) whose billboards blanket the Chicago area, made their mark as regular folks whom listeners could trust, not loose cannons you'd be wary of in an on-air phone conversation.
Derrick Brown, program director at WVAZ-FM 102.7, says the use of the portable, electronic people meter instead of Arbitron paper diaries is one reason Muller and other radio personalities are reinventing themselves.
"I don't think the shtick he did would play today, especially in the era of electronic measurement," Brown said. "The diaries were all about remembering a brand name and writing it down. Now, you're going to be judged by your content. Brand names aren't good enough anymore."
The size of the morning shows has shrunk too, Brown added.
"Large morning shows have become very expensive. We have to judge: Is it worth the expense to have a crew of 12, or can we get the job done with two, or one?"
Radio observers see six reasons for the disappearance of the in-your-face deejay:
1. Federal Communications Commission fines
Several years ago, the FCC cracked down on Howard Stern and others with hefty fines for their language and antics. Compounding the issue: Fighting the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court requires money the budget-minded conglomerates weren't willing to spend. So they paid the fines and told their stations and personalities to cool it.
WVAZ's Brown says a television incident also played a pivotal role in the radio crackdown.
"It all started with the Super Bowl in 2004," he said, referring to the Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson breast-baring incident. "Following that, Howard Stern lost a lot of affiliates, and there was an increased focus on indecency from special-interest groups."
"Clearly, there is a different mood in the country and at the FCC," said John Gehron, president of Harpo Radio (Oprah Winfrey's radio division) and a longtime leader at several Chicago stations. "That has created a chill on what companies are willing to allow and what talent is willing to try."
2. Jocks have matured
The two shock-jock pioneers in Chicago radio, Steve Dahl and Jonathon Brandmeier, are still around, of course, and both are now back on morning drive, Dahl at Jack FM (WJMK-FM 104.3) and Brandmeier at the Loop (WLUP-FM 97.9). But their shows have changed as they have changed, and they are now as much the wealthy, established deans of local radio as Wally Phillips and Clark Weber were when Dahl and Brandmeier were starting out.
Muller is the first to admit that he's not the same person he was when he was trying to make a name for himself.
"It's not going to be like it was when I was on an alternative-rock station back in the day," Muller said of his WLS show, which he is adding on top of his workload as host of his nationally syndicated morning show.
"The fact is, I've evolved."
He said this in a phone conversation while tending to his young children, who presumably are not allowed to listen to tapes of his early years.
3. Advertisers don't like it
Paula Hambrick, head of the Hambrick and Associates media buyer group, said she had a number of clients who specifically said they did not want their commercials to be part of the old Mancow show on Q-101 (WKQX-FM 101.1).
"Most clients want to avoid controversy—they don't want to be lumped together with anything that they think is going to become controversial," she said. "That's even more important in a bad economy. People may not buy your product."
4. What's so shocking?
If the shock jocks broke down the barriers during the last 30 years, other media and society have charged through them. And, as the FCC fines have demonstrated, terrestrial radio is more tightly policed than it was even 10 years ago. Yet anything goes on the Internet and cable television, making a morning-drive shtick seem tame by comparison.
"You're competing against what in most cases are unregulated distribution channels," said Harpo's Gehron. "They have a lot more freedom."
5. The absence of Stern
Stern, feeling constrained by his employers and the FCC, made out like a bandit by jumping to Sirius satellite radio, even if his listeners never made the jump in sufficient numbers to reward Sirius. But with Stern off the dial, some say, there was less of a need to be outrageous.
"He certainly was a competitive thorn in all these markets he was in," Hambrick said. "There were people who felt they had to out-Howard Howard to compete with him. With him off the field, the game has changed."
6. The tenor of the times
"These," said Muller, "are crazy times."
From war and terrorism to a bitterly contested election and a scary economy, there is a lot of upheaval, a lot of angst. Muller says he hears anger and edginess in his listeners and doesn't feel the need to egg them on.
"I feel like they do in police negotiations—you know, keep 'em talking and you can save them. There's a lot of upset people out there."
Hambrick agrees.
"People don't want to be yelled at," she said. "We've had a polarizing, contentious political campaign that's gone on for two years. I think folks would like to take a step back. That whole genre of 'in-your-face' isn't going to be as popular given the tone of the country.
"They don't need a shock jock," Hambrick added. "All they have to do is look at their 401(k)s."
(Patrick Kampert, Chicago Tribune)