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Published on Thursday, 17 May 2012 18:44
Today's News & Notes is another large helping of local media stories, including: Roy Leonard returns to his blog; WDRV drives backwards down Alphabet Street; WGN Sports Night goes to Des Plaines; Tommy Edwards becomes a permanent fixture; K-Hits visits its fans; John Symons deals up a new career; WLFM moves to Ohio; Matt Dahl gets hitched; Freak will soon be getting hitched; Gaynor Hall already got hitched; CSN Chicago covers the crosstown classic; Nancy Pender shows who is "Boss" on TV, and the streets of Chicago will soon be seen all over national television next fall. All of the details are right here for you...
* * Former WGN-AM/WGN-TV great Roy Leonard has returned to blogging after a very long absence. In April 2011, exactly one year after he started his blogsite, he had announced he would be
stopping his frequent blogging to instead focus on the health woes of himself and his wife. Roy Leonard lost Sheila, his beloved wife of over 58 years, in
March. He now has decided to return back to connecting to his fans via his written work. He had his website
RoyLeonard.com redesigned and this week relaunched with new blogs and new audio archives.
* * WDRV-FM/WWDV-FM is doing its semi-annual rocking trip through the alphabet, playing a full week of songs, alphabetical by title. Instead of doing their normal promotion of "The Drive A to Z," the station has decided to flip the promotion over and is instead doing "The Drive Z to A." The "Z" songs started late Tuesday with "The Zoo" by the Scorpions and will continue on through the first half of next week. The station has plenty of deep album cuts planned, making it hard to guess what the next track played will be.
* * For its next live remote stop on its monthly "Hometown Voices Tour," WGN-AM is sending out its "WGN Sports Night" crew to Des Plaines tomorrow night. Friday evening from 7:00pm-10:00pm, hosts David Kaplan, Brian Noonan, and Andrea Darlas will be broadcasting live from the Des Plaines Golf Center (353 North River Road). Fans are welcome to come out to the sports complex and watch the radio magic unfold.
* * Although there has been no formal announcement, Tommy Edwards, who has been the "interim" midday host on WJMK-FM/K-Hits 104.3 since
the end of February, has had the "interim" tag removed and is officially the station's midday host. Edwards replaced Gary Spears, who moved to afternoons to replace Bo Reynolds, who exited on February 24th. "Little Tommy" Edwards has famously worked in Chicago radio since 1972.
* * Speaking of WJMK-FM, much of the K-Hits on-air staff will be out & about on Saturday. Gary Spears will be at the Arthritis Walk at Lincoln Park (starting at Grant's Statue in Lincoln Park, south of Lincoln Park Zoo entrance) from 9:00am-11:00am. The event is put on by the Lets Move Together to raise funds and awareness to help fight arthritis. George McFly will be at the Abri Credit Union (1350 W. Renwick Rd, Romeoville) from 10:00am-Noon. There will be a pet adoption service on site, and McFly will have concert tickets, as well as other prizes to hand out to visitors. Tommy Edwards will be set up at the Sears in Downers Grove (925 Odgen Avenue) from 2:00pm-4:00pm. Among the prizes he has to give away are tickets to see Madonna from the K-Hits suite.
* * John Symons, the former highly-rated WNND-FM/WILV-FM & WLIT-FM nighttime host, continues to look for his next radio job. In the meantime, he has begun working at a new job, that is less of a "gamble" than radio. Symons is now a dealer at the brand new Horseshoe Casino in downtown Cleveland, OH. The giant new casino just opened up this week.
* * Speaking of Cleveland, Venture Technologies, the legal owner of the Chicago radio/TV station WKQX-LP, is keeping the call letters of WLFM-LP, which were displaced when the owners gave programming rights to Merlin Media, who brought back the classic WKQX call letters. Venture has asked the FCC for permission to transfer the WLFM-LP call letters to its Cleveland-based low-powered TV station, currently known as WXOX-LP. This will release the WXOX call letters. That Cleveland station has been silent since October, 2009, when it lost is transmission tower lease.
* * For Chicago Alternative music fans, who
just recently had two new Alternative-formatted radio stations launch, there is yet another... radio alternative for you. Every other Saturday at 11:00pm, Mike Sabbath hosts an Alternative/Punk program on WPNA-AM 1490. The next show is this Saturday, May 19th. It can be streamed online live
HERE or heard on demand as a podcast afterward
HERE.
* * Congratulations to in advance to Matt Dahl. The son of Chicago radio legend turned trailblazing podcaster Steve Dahl, and a former radio host himself from WCKG-FM and a podcaster from long before it was fashionable, will be marrying his longtime girlfriend Justine on Saturday.
* * Congratulations to Walter "Cap" Kozielski, who is best known to Chicago rock radio fans as "Freak." The WYKT-FM PD/MD/DJ recently became engaged to his longtime girlfriend Betsy. Best wishes to the couple as they plan their future wedding.
* * Congratulations to Gaynor Hall. The WGN-TV news reporter and CLTV news anchor was married earlier this month to her longtime boyfriend, Devin.
* * Comcast SportsNet Chicago will be broadcasting this weekend's big "BP Crosstown Cup" series between the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox. They will televise the first and third games of the three-game series. (The second game is shown nationally only.) For Friday afternoon's game, CSN Chicago will air the game as a "White Sox" telecast with Ken "Hawk" Harrelson and Steve Stone behind the microphones. For Sunday afternoon's game, it will be a "Cubs" telecast with Len Kasper and Bob Brenly calling the action.
UPDATE/CORRECTION: In addition to CSN Chicago showing Friday & Monday's Cubs/Sox game, so is WGN-TV. When CSN is showing the game with White Sox announcers, WGN is showing the game with Cubs announcers, and vice-versa. The games will be shown on BOTH Chicago stations at the same time.
* * Producers of the Starz network original drama series "Boss" continue to try and keep the series as authentic as possible. Yet again, they have hired a local Chicago news personality to play a news reporter on the show. Last month, "Boss" used former WLS-TV/WBBM-TV anchor Diann Burns for an episode. The latest hire for an episode was former WFLD-TV anchor/reporter Nancy Pender. This will be Pender's second appearance on the the highly-acclaimed, as she played a reporter in the first season, as well. "Boss" is currently filming its second season in and around Chicago. The 10 episode second season of "Boss" -- about a complicated, but fictional Chicago Mayor, played by Kelsey Grammer -- begins on Starz on August 17th.
* * "Boss" isn't the only TV show in town, either. Starting in mid-July, filming will begin on "Chicago Fire," a new NBC drama about the lives of the brave public servants working in a station for the Chicago Fire Department. The weekly series starring Taylor Kinney is set to debut in late September. FOX has just picked up a new drama for its fall schedule called "The Mob Doctor" staring Jordana Spiro. That show will also be filmed this summer and into the fall in Chicago. The series is about a young, beautiful, and brilliant Chicago surgeon, who secretly works medically on organized crime figures to repay a debt her family owes to the Chicago mob. (The show was originally entitled "Dirty Medicine" when the pilot was shot here a few months back.) Also still filming around Chicago for the rest of this spring and summer is the new MTV series "Underemployed." Of course, the new
Steve Harvey daytime talk show begins taping at NBC5 studios in August.
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