I wonder why. He did a really good job running the place.

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Into the ground.

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No, Langmyer was the guy who righted the ship after all of Randy Michaels's guys (Greg Jarrett, Mike McConnell, Jim Laski, The News Junkie, Simon Badinter) ran the place into the ground.

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Agreed. When Randy Michaels and ex-Program Director Kevin "Pig Vomit" Metheny called the shots at 720 WGN Radio, their decision to bring in their own guys absolutely backfired. Listeners tuned out, ratings & morale all went down.

Randy Michaels and Merlin Media are doing that again. They've ruined 97.9 The LOOP and remember the fiasco that was "FM News 101.1"?

I listened to the Loop a few weeks ago and it sounded exactly as it did when I consumed it intravenously circa 2001-2002. I think I heard a set of "Welcome to the Machine," "Lights Out London," and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love."

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Uh, SHARK, I believe that you're referring to Kevin "Pig Virus" Metheny. The name "Pig Vomit" was a name used for a COMPOSITE character in Howard "I invented everything" Stern's movie "Private Parts" whereas "Pig Virus" was actually the nickname assigned to Kevin Metheny.

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I thought I heard Mac refer to Kevin Metheny as "Pig Vomit", not "Pig Virus".

Simon Badinter was fun-bad radio for the archives, at least. For those who missed it, it was an advertising executive from France who would deign to host a radio show in which he asked "I NO-TEES DAT ZEE AM-AIR-EE-CANNZ, IT IS THAT THEY SHOULD LIKE TO EAT THE MAC DONALD'S. WHY EES EET YOU ARE SUCH THE PIGS?" and goad midwestern gomers who listen to 720 for Orion Samuelson into yelling at him. It was like a late 1980s wrestling gimmick.

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You THOUGHT? Dude, you've gotta step up your reporting game.

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The Loop is horrendously bad now. It went from a station that was awful when Emmis sold it, to being horrendously bad now.

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In hindsight, I wonder if Emmis made a bad deal selling The LOOP & the former Q101 to one of the biggest frauds in all of radio in Randy Michaels...

According to Feder, WGN ranked 26th among listeners between 25 and 54, with a 1.6 percent share and cumulative weekly audience of 311,100. That's People Meter data, which can be erratic, but still. 'GN was virtually never not in the top 3 overall, at least top 10 in this demo, until the last few years.

http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/chicago-media-blog/15809831/wgn-radio-boss-langmyer-exits-very-special-place

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

What changed? I know they were trying to be more like the Drive, but I didn't notice. Small sample size, of course. And besides, if they did try to rip off the Drive, that would just mean less butt-rock, so that's not even a bad thing.

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Their listeners are dying, or moving out of the 25-54 demo. That's not very surprising.

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The Randy Michaels thing ruined that station forever. I mean, I guess something had to change eventually--we couldn't have had Kathy & Judy doing middays forever--but there was too much tinkering, too much bad radio.

Funny you cite PPMs as being erratic. WGN was at the top because Arbitron diaries were so unreliable as to be useless. "They still have people writing in that they listen to Wally Phillips," so goes the old joke in Chicago radio.

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I've noticed The Drive sounds a lot more like The Loop used to.

It's not just the vast variety of classic rock that they now play, but The Drive recently added John Kempf, the ex-Loop jock better known as "Byrd" on weekends.

The Drive used to be a great station now they're about equal to the bad version of the Loop from a few years ago.

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In my Loop-listening heyday, their slogan was "Classic rock...that ROCKS." Tell me more about this "worse" Loop.

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That slogan was stupid, CH.

That's a lot of it. WGN did so well forever because the audience were all in nursing homes and couldn't get up to turn the station. They're dying off. A lot of the ones left think Garry Meier is a little too profane. Who are they targeting?

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"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." ~ H.L. Mencken

This just in...Midday host John Williams is on his way out at 720 WGN Radio; shifting full time to WCCO Radio in Minneapolis, according to BOTH ChicagolandRadioandMedia.com & TimeoutChicago.com's Rob Feder's respective Twitters.

Damn. John Williams is like the quintessential good-feelings WGN guy. Always did whatever was asked of him, even did mornings for a while after Spike retired. I thought he'd have a job for life there. Obviously these two moves are connected; you get the feeling Langmyer was a huge John Williams guy as he managed to stay afloat while everyone else drowned in the shit.

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It's my understanding, CH, John Williams was doing double duty in recent months. Based on what I've read, John was doing middays/early afternoons at WGN Radio here, but afternoon drive at WCCO Radio in Minneapolis, too. He was doing his 720 WGN show from WCCO before today's news that he's now devoting full time at 'CCO.

Williams used to be on WMBD down here. I couldn't believe when he got hired by WGN. His laugh alone should be cause for dismissal.

You had Williams doing his show for MN and saying WCCO repeatedly on WGN. This is what I mean by Langmyer buring a brand.

Michaels built the grave, he drove the hearse into it.

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