In a literal sense WBEZ swapped places with WGN. 10 years ago WBBM and WGN were neck and neck in the morning. Then WGN replaced a news show with Jonathan Brandmeier’s 5th comeback and they lost the information audience for good. WGN never recovered from Brandmeier.

In depth news coverage is being rewarded, which is nice. If another station wants to enter the spoken word arena they place themselves in between WBBM’s headline service and 15 minute NPR stories about the last Spencer’s Gifts in Outer Mongolia.