WGN Radio

Ryan Burrow, news anchor and reporter at Cumulus Media news/talk WLS AM 890, has been hired as a multimedia journalist at Tribune Media news/talk WGN AM 720.

Todd Manley, vice president of content and programming at WGN, said Burrow joins the station as part of a shared talent agreement with ABC News Radio, as it establishes a Chicago-based Midwest bureau for the network. Under the arrangement, Burrow occasionally will be dispatched by ABC to be on the scene of major regional stories. Continue reading →

Chicago Public Media

Chicago Public Media has announced the hiring of a new chief digital officer to lead the company’s wide-ranging plans to build a “transformative digital experience” for listeners.

Named to the newly created post Monday was Michel Ballard, who most recently was senior vice president of consumer health and wellness for Everyday Health, a digital media company that owns websites and produces content on health and wellness. Continue reading →

Clark Weber

On the eve of his self-imposed retirement, Chicago radio legend Clark Weber has been named to the Illinois Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

Weber, 84, will be inducted June 16 at a dinner opening the group’s annual state conference at the Bloomington-Normal Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. Continue reading →

Chicago Sun-Times

In his headier days as chairman of Wrapports LLC, Michael Ferro often touted the delivery of high school sports content as a potential billion-dollar business. Now his company’s one remaining daily newspaper is shrinking its coverage of high school sports — and Ferro has disappeared from the masthead to boot.

Free-lance reporters were notified last week that the Sun-Times no longer would cover prep sports as extensively as in the past, starting with softball and other spring athletics. Continue reading →

Newton Minow

The only thing missing is the proclamation declaring it “Newton Minow Week” — and that’s probably on the way.

Window to the World Communications, parent company of public television WTTW-Channel 11 and classical music WFMT FM 98.7, will mark its 60th anniversary this week with a gala salute to its former board chairman, who’s also the subject of a new hourlong documentary.

Minow, 89, is the prominent Chicago lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission famous for calling television “a vast wasteland” in a 1961 speech. As WTTW board chairman a decade later, he is credited with recruiting William J. McCarter, the visionary leader who served as president and CEO for 27 years. Continue reading →

Bill Bellis at Draft Town

The May sweeps opened with a bang on WFLD-Channel 32 Thursday when an intruder dropped an F-bomb live on the air.

During a remote from Draft Town at Grant Park, meteorologist Bill Bellis was delivering a seven-day forecast at the end of Fox 32’s 9 p.m. newscast when an unidentified man rushed up behind him and said: “F— her in the p—.” Continue reading →

Bill Kurtis

Correspondents Ellee Pai Hong and Kerry Sayers will join host Bill Kurtis when “Through the Decades” debuts May 25 on a new digital network being launched by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting and CBS Television Stations.

Hong, former morning news anchor at NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5, and Sayers, former update anchor at CBS Radio sports/talk WSCR AM 670, will serve as reporters on the one-hour daily series being promoted as the centerpiece of the Decades network. Continue reading →

NBC Tower Chicago

The creation of two new positions in the WMAQ-Channel 5 newsroom marks an ambitious expansion of the management team at the NBC-owned station.

At a time when others are cutting back on news resources, the latest postings for managing editor and news production manager reflect the commitment of parent company Comcast/NBCUniversal to strengthen their local operations, according to NBC 5 bosses. Continue reading →

Dick Orkin

Dick Orkin, the creative genius who hatched “Chickenman” and hundreds of hilarious radio commercials, is winging his way back to Chicago.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications will host An Afternoon with Dick Orkin June 27. Bob Sirott will moderate the event, which is open to the public. Continue reading →

Fahey Flynn and Bob Sirott (1969)

Forty-six years after their first auspicious meeting, Chicago television luminaries Fahey Flynn and Bob Sirott are about to be inducted into the same class of the industry’s prestigious Silver Circle.

The two are among 10 broadcast veterans who’ll be honored May 8 by the Chicago/Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Carol Marin, a 2002 Silver Circle inductee, will emcee the event at Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago. Continue reading →