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Published on Thursday, 28 July 2011 22:18
Two weeks ago, the entire on-air staff at WKQX-FM said their farewells in advance of their station flipping formats. Tomorrow, Friday the 29th, will be another day of radio farewells, although not quite the sad & joyful ending that the Q101 DJs went through.
Tomorrow will be the final day on the air for the on-air personalities of WCFS-FM, known for now as Fresh 105.9. As announced on July 14th, the same day as the Q101 DJs said goodbye, Fresh 105.9 goes away this weekend and
gets replaced by the simulcast of WBBM-AM/Newsradio 780 on Monday. Tomorrow's shows for Scotty Smith, Rebecca Ortiz, Brooke Hunter and Eric "Shark" Austin will be their last. (Part-timer Jeff Corder has already done his final show earlier this week.)
Since one of the biggest reasons Fresh 105.9 failed to keep an audience was that the DJs were almost never allowed to speak their minds or show off their personalities, don't expect any long goodbye speeches and drawn out salutes, as was the case with WKQX-FM's last day. Tomorrow will be more of a formality. The DJs will do their shifts, collect their paltry* severance checks and begin looking for work elsewhere. (*CBS insiders are claiming that the WCFS severance checks being handed out to their faithful employees are a "laughable" two weeks' pay, less taxes.)
Heading for some time "on the beach" are Smith, Hunter, Austin and Corder. Rebecca Ortiz will continue with her part-time weekend job at WBBM-FM.
WCFS-FM will remain jockless for the remainder of the weekend, until the station flips to the simulcast of the AM News format begins early Monday.
They are not the only exits tomorrow, however!
The temporary
stunt hire of one-time Chicago radio superstar Robert Murphy at WWWN-FM comes to a close tomorrow, as well. Murphy began working the morning show at WWWN-FM (then still with the call letters of WKQX-FM) on Tuesday, July 19th. He didn't even last two full weeks, as his job there will be complete after his morning shift on Friday. The station had been doing a temporary Hot AC format, with multiple news breaks, after the demise of WKQX-FM's Alternative Rock format. At some point after Murphy's show ends at 10:00am, the new, permanent format will be taking over -- as permanent as any format can be in radio, that is. (More details on that to follow soon...)
Be ready for some more "goodbyes" to some more of your favorite radio personalities tomorrow. It has been a month of quite a few "goodbyes" for Chicago radio fans.
