Chicago's WWWN Stunts With On-Air Tune-Up

From Robert Feder, TimeOutChicago,com

Honestly, I’ve heard college radio stations deliver smoother newscasts than the ones they’ve been airing on Merlin Media’s new 101.1 FM. Since last week, the station (which officially changed call letters from WKQX to WWWN) has been supplementing its music stunting with hourly, six-minute newscasts testing various combinations of anchors and contributors. Granted, they’re still in rehearsal/test mode, and they’re struggling without the right equipment in place. But you’d think they’d work out their choreography off the air before subjecting listeners to samples of a format that’s clearly not up to par. A few of the clumsy trial runs I heard only made me appreciate the polished professionalism of all-news WBBM-AM (780) that much more.

Merlin Media’s plans to roll out a full-time news format on FM continue to have repercussions up and down the dial — even if rival station bosses would like us to believe they’re not reacting. CBS Radio execs tried to pretend that the impending competition wasn’t behind their decision to simulcast Newsradio 780 on WCFS-FM (105.9), starting next week. And now WGN-AM (720) managers are insistent that nothing should be read into the sudden return of “The Voice of Chicago” as the Tribune-owned news/talk station’s on-air slogan. Let’s hope CBS doesn’t try to deny the obvious now that it’s touting WXRT-FM (93.1) as “Chicago’s Original Alternative” on the heels of Q101’s demise.

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