there's been a shake up and sell off of Chicago's two major rock radio stations, bought by Randy Michaels
who has had a shaky relationship in the radio market over the decades. here's a good link for the story . . .
http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/news/1722-wlupwkqx-sold-to-new-company-owned-by-randy-michaelsapparently, Q101 will be going to an all talk format, firing most of the on air personalities
except the morning show of Sherman and Tingle, and the Loop will become an 80's rock radio station
here's an excerpt from the above link, showing what a whackjob this guy is . .
This is not the first time Randy Michaels has dabbled in Chicago radio. His past time here was a "hellish" disaster, though. In 1991, Michaels was hired as a consultant to see if he could raise the ratings for WYTZ-FM. At the time, the frequency at 94.7 FM was owned by Capital Cities and ABC Radio. Michaels then used the airwaves of WYTZ-FM to audibly assault other radio stations, other radio station's programmers and then Chicago radio listeners in general. He would air promos in Spanish that would slam other Chicago hit radio stations and the names of those programming them. Since the vast majority of listeners were English speaking, they did not understand the verbal attacks and were confused by the rambling Spanish words. Soon after, the station played nothing but a few dance tracks over and over again, with the exception of some news updates, which were again all in Spanish, inexplicably. After three weeks of annoying Chicagoans, Michaels flipped the station to "Hell Radio." The station would use slogans like "Go To Hell" and "You've Gone To Hell," upsetting some listeners. The station would also air attack promos (this time in English) that slammed beloved local media icons like Oprah Winfrey, Terri Hemmert and Johnny B, which did not draw a positive reaction. The "Hell 94.7" experiment lasted only one week before a highly embarrassed ABC Radio pulled the plug on the idea. Shockingly, Randy Michaels was given a few more chances to do something good with the frequency, which was now being called "Hot 94.7." Michaels fired the morning crew and brought to Chicago his friend from Florida, Todd Clem, aka "Bubba the Love Sponge," to do mornings. The station's low ratings fell even lower and advertisers were becoming fewer. After less than three months, ABC Radio flipped the station's format yet again, firing Todd Clem and letting Randy Michaels know that his consulting & programming services were no longer wanted.
