Morning personalities Tony Sculfield and Nina Chantele were forced out Monday in a programming shakeup at urban contemporary WGCI FM 107.5.
Sole survivor of the morning team is Leon Rogers, who will stay on with soon-to-be-named new hosts. Until then, Rogers will co-host mornings with weekend personality Rob Nice.
Also out after nine months as program director of WGCI is Kenard Karter. His duties will be assumed by Derrick Brown, director of urban programming for iHeartMedia Chicago.
“Like any business, we periodically review our operations and programming to ensure that we are meeting our listeners’ needs and providing them with the best and most relevant content,” an iHeartMedia Chicago spokeswoman said in a statement. "Occasionally this means that we need to make some changes and offer other programming that we believe will resonate well with the audience.”
Billed as “The Morning Riot,” Sculfield, Chantele and Rogers were assembled in April 2009 when Steve Harvey’s syndicated morning show moved from WGCI to urban adult-contemporary sister station WVAZ FM 102.7. Their last show together aired Monday.
Chantele doubled as midday personality on Top 40 WKSC FM 103.5. The revised weekday lineup at Kiss FM will feature Christopher "Brotha Fred" Frederick and Angi Taylor from 5 to 10 a.m., Ryan Seacrest from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Jordan (Ryan Gorman) from 2 to 6 p.m., Brady Broski from 6 to 11 p.m., and Rufio (Kevin Santiago) from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.
All of the moves follow the appointment in late September of Matt Scarano as market president for the iHeartMedia Chicago cluster. He succeeded Earl Jones, who was promoted to senior vice president of urban operations for the company.
In the latest Nielsen Audio survey, WGCI ranked 15th in mornings with a 2.5 percent audience share and cumulative weekly audience of 464,000. Among listeners between 18 and 34, the station ranked seventh in mornings with a 5.1 share and weekly cume of 210,400.