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Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by WYTZZ95FM <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=WYTZZ95FM' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 15, 2023, 3:32 pm

I believe this confirms others stating on here WLS-AM is taking a very hard right lean. Thanks for the post Rick! (Credit linkback is below).

Z

*John Howell

=Last week I reported the John Howell news, that he was let go by WLS Radio. Axios followed up this week and Howell told them this… "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…I just didn't fit the bill anymore."

Link: Media Notebook - By Rick Kaempfer

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by Jeremy Andrews <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=Jeremy+Andrews' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 16, 2023, 9:05 am, in reply to "Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Sounds like an oxymoron trying to be the most conservative station in the country in a city like Chicago, that said they syndicate some of the most conservative programming on the dial and they have Premiere to compete with.

Westwood One is responsible for Ben Shapiro, Chris Plante, Dan Bongino, Matt Walsh, Mark Levin and now Rich Valdes who is seemingly more right wing than the late Jim Bohannon in addition to Red Eye Radio.

They also now distribute shows for Fox News Radio.

They obviously need to clear these shows, and they probably want to market Westwood One's talk programming as a more Conservative option than Premiere and WLS would probably be the platform to do it with.

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by JJSPC1372 <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=JJSPC1372' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 17, 2023, 6:18 am, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Perhaps to strengthen the TSL with the listenership they already have. Too expensive to blow it up and try something totally different.

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by WYTZZ95FM <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=WYTZZ95FM' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 17, 2023, 8:41 am, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

JJSPC1372, what else can they really run on there? They are moving away from live and local hosts, so they can run it even cheaper with national hosts on the bird.

Don't know, can they go even more right than WIND? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Z

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by JJSPC1372 <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=JJSPC1372' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 17, 2023, 3:51 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Z,there's always the folks out there who think WLS should go back to oldies. However, the wistful nostalgia factor doesn't change the fact that almost no one is going to listen to music on AM long term with the crummy receivers we have today.

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by John from Wisconsin <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=John+from+Wisconsin' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 17, 2023, 6:35 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Is it possible, and I mean POSSIBLE that nobody wants to sit on hold 20 minutes, to be cut off by the host? "We're up against a hard break" "Sorry I didn't get to ..." as host was blathering long, AGAIN!

You can kind of say what you want on-line, make points, give & take and not sit through another 8 minutes of commercials, and a weather forecast updated 10 hours ago. "This morning, it'll be cloudy..." ar 2PM. HELLO.

To me, it's cost cutting, like CBS Sports Radio, on 670, this whole station is filler, save AM drive!

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by WYTZZ95FM <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=WYTZZ95FM' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 19, 2023, 12:17 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

My friend, I understand your words. Most people don't. AM broadcast receivers are made like crap, cheaper components for receive fidelity, in turn the engineers then dumb down the fidelity going to the transmitter. When you have Ham Transceivers sounding better on AM transmission, you are in trouble on the Broadcast bands.

The US/Western World dropped the ball on AM band. AM Stereo (oh let the capitalism model sort it out..... no standard, died painfully). iBOC, lot of palm stroking and greasing went on there + no AM Stereo, while DRM and DAB+ dominated Europe and the other side of the pond. Where is iBOC today? Is there one iBOC AM signal present in Chicago? The Midwest? The AM band does not have to die, but the carnage leading up to day is necessitating it.

Z

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by Hunter <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=Hunter' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 17, 2023, 8:29 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

This is a lost cause. Nothing can save WLS-AM.

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by John from Wisconsin <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=John+from+Wisconsin' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 19, 2023, 3:47 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Ed Buterbaugh, now passed away, was a CE of CKLW-Windsor, and later, WJR-Detroit.

He was “very conscious of listener fatigue and how it is caused by distortion. “It’s most important to have a good clean signal,” (This was on AM. 1977!!!
Source: https://mcrfb.com/?p=28195

“He was serious about making his stations sound better. And not just better, but the best.”
Source: https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/buterbaugh-remembered-in-upper-midwest

Very lengthy, well written article. Anyone who ever heard "the Big 8, CKLW" in the 70's knew how CLEAN it sounded. Now? Forget it.

Mr.Buterbaugh, like a FEW of my good bosses, I'm sure might have been restrained by the suits! One only wonders....

I have a nice QSL letter from Mr.Buterbaugh for my reception of (then) CKLW-FM) 93.9 Windsor. DX'ed from Milwaukee. Total class!!!!!

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by WYTZZ95FM <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=WYTZZ95FM' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 19, 2023, 5:04 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

The last FM DX from Windsor for me, was CJOM-FM in 1989 right before they format and call sign changed. They were a CHR/HOT AC at the time. (Weird music mix due to the Canadian content law) It was a solid 30 minute window and I got about 20 minutes of it on tape.

That frequency is a joke these days. Bell Media has yanked the teeth out of majority of its signals, "saving money". Canada is just as bad as the US for terrestrial radio. Sans Zoomer Radio AM 740
& 96.7 Toronto! ❤️

Z

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by Jeremy Andrews <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=Jeremy+Andrews' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 19, 2023, 5:49 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Bell Media is Canada's iHeart, except it's much larger. They've beenn doing nothing but make cuts to both radio and TV.

I remember when shut down the Detroit studio, they kept the cluster running with the same format from the Windsor studio. It was really awkward. They had a full signal over Detroit. They kept IDing "CIMX Windsor-Detroit" but everything as far as contests, promotions and ads were only for Windsor.

They flipped it to a generic Country format while 93.9 went to the generic CHR format.

Bell Media licenses the iHeart brand, app, platform for Canada. However most of their stations are geoblocked outside of Canada. They run promotions for the iHeart platform, but none of the U.S. listeners can see them in the U.S. app. The Canadian side however does have the U.S. iHeart stations on the app.

They also do iHeart a favor by clearing Bobby Bones for "Detroit"

One thing they are able to get away with in Windsor is the cancon regulations. It's around 35% but in Windsor they are allowed 15% I believe. Even though they target Windsor, they still play less Canadian content on 88.7 and 93.9 than they do in London for example.

800 is still probably the most local station they have in that cluster aside for CKWW which is being sold and runs completely jockless.

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by Jeremy Andrews <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=Jeremy+Andrews' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 19, 2023, 5:50 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

Sorry about my typos in the above post.

Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…

Posted by John from Wisconsin <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/chicagomediachat/info/user=John+from+Wisconsin' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 19, 2023, 7:15 pm, in reply to "Re: Howell: WLS-AM "They told me that they intend to be the most conservative radio station in America…"

per Z and Jeremy, your comments on Bell Media are spot on. I know a dx'er from up there (Vancouver BC) for years. Absolute contempt for Bell!

https://radiowest.ca/forum/ or
https://radiowest.ca/ might be of interest.

"What's It Going to Take" is rather interesting:

https://radiowest.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12866603#p12866603

then go back as far as you want.

Thank you for the opportunity to have some intelligent discussion. I mean that.

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