Johnnie D

As iHeartMedia Chicago continues to redefine its urban contemporary brands, the company has hired a new assistant program director with old ties to a competitor.

One day after iHeartMedia raided rival Crawford Broadcasting and lured two top personalities from WPWX FM 92.3, it announced the hiring of Johnnie D as assistant program director of urban contemporary WGCI FM 107.5 and urban adult-contemporary WVAZ FM 102.7, effective June 1.

Johnnie D (whose real name is Johnnie Glover), previously held programming positions at Power 92 here as well as at stations in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Chicago native most recently was music director and morning show producer at WVEE in Atlanta. Continue reading →

Matt Knutson

Matt Knutson, a line producer of “Windy City Live” since its debut in 2011, has been promoted to executive producer of the Monday-through-Friday talk and entertainment show on ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7.

Knutson, whose appointment was announced Wednesday, succeeds Marlaine Selip, the show’s founding executive producer, who voluntarily stepped down in April. Continue reading →

Tone Kapone

In a talent raid reminiscent of an earlier era in radio, iHeartMedia Chicago lured two top personalities Wednesday from Crawford Broadcasting’s competing hip-hop station.

In one fell swoop, iHeartMedia urban contemporary WGCI FM 107.5 stole midday host Frankie Robinson and afternoon host Tone Kapone (whose real name is Anthony May), both mainstays of Crawford Broadcasting’s WPWX FM 92.3. Continue reading →

Jeffrey T. Mason

Jeffrey T. Mason, who’s been filling in since the legendary Tommy Edwards retired as midday personality at WJMK FM 104.3 last fall, has landed the job permanently at the CBS Radio classic hits station.

Making the long-awaited promotion official Wednesday, program director Todd Cavanah said Mason signed a multiyear contract to host from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays on K-Hits. Continue reading →

ABC 7's Mark Giangreco, Cheryl Burton, Ron Magers, Kathy Brock and Jerry Taft

In a last-ditch effort to stave off defeat in the May sweeps, perennial market leader WLS-Channel 7 is pulling out all the stops — and some of the commercials — from its 10 p.m. Monday through Friday newscast.

On Monday and Tuesday night, the ABC-owned station dropped two commercial breaks from its late news, postponing its first interruption until 10:21 p.m. It’s a maneuver designed to retain audience ratings by discouraging viewers from channel surfing. Continue reading →

Lori Rackl

By the time Lori Rackl accepted a buyout from the Sun-Times last February, she’d earned a solid reputation as an insightful TV critic and a seasoned travel editor.

Now making her mark as an independent journalist, Rackl has combined both interests — television and travel — in a smart new website.

TVtrippin.com officially debuted this week with a review of Sunday night’s “Mad Men” series finale and a feature on a “mystery man” who tracks TV series and movies filming around Chicago for a Twitter account.

Rackl calls her new blog “a work in progress” that she has been fine-tuning with Web designer Rex Chekal. In the meantime, she is continuing to write free-lance travel pieces for the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe, among other publications. Continue reading →

Jorge Enrique De Santiago

Jorge Enrique De Santiago, a news anchor and reporter from the Telemundo station in San Antonio, Texas, has been hired as a general assignment reporter at WSNS-Channel 44, the Spanish-language network’s station here.

While working for KVDA-TV in San Antonio, De Santiago made headlines in 2014 when a murder suspect he was interviewing at an apartment complex opened fire on his news crew. Continue reading →

Amy Guth

Amy Guth, one of the most prominent women in Chicago media, is quitting her day job to pursue on-air television ambitions and other projects.

Guth announced Monday she voluntarily was resigning as general manager/publisher of RedEye Chicago and Metromix, effective at the end of the week. No successor at the Tribune Publishing newspaper and website has been named. Continue reading →

Rob Stafford and Allison Rosati

With three days to go in the May sweeps, all eyes are on Chicago’s late-news ratings race, where there could be an upset in the works.

NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 appears poised to overtake the market’s perennial front-runner, ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7, among viewers between 25 and 54 at 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. That’s a key demographic driving local stations' advertising revenue. Continue reading →

Robin Robinson at WVON

How long can Robin Robinson work as a no-nonsense news anchor on one radio station and as an opinionated talk show host on another? We’ll soon find out.

The Chicago broadcast news veteran started this week as a part-time host on urban news/talk WVON AM 1690. Her “Robin’s Nest” talk show airs from 6 to 9 p.m. Mondays under an arrangement that allows her to sell advertising sponsorships, according to Melody Spann-Cooper, president and general manager of the Midway Broadcasting station. Continue reading →