Longtime Chicago radio personality Steve Cochran is relaunching his podcast today on an array of new platforms — with a little help from two of the most successful local broadcasters of all time.
Ron Magers, who retired in 2016 as Chicago’s top-rated TV news anchor, and Felicia Middlebrooks, who retired in May as Chicago’s top-rated morning radio news anchor, will be featured as Cochran’s guests this week on “Live From My Office.” (Here is the link to subscribe.)
Since March Cochran has hosted about 100 shows in the conversation series, which he produced for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Starting this week, he’s expanding it to include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and his own website, cochranshow.com.
New episodes are uploaded each Tuesday and Friday (with occasional bonus shows on other days).
“It’s just time to make it a full-fledged podcast — plus by law, apparently everyone must have a podcast in 2020,” Cochran told me Monday. “I've always been known as a real rule follower.”
Cochran, 59, has been off the air since December when his contract was bought out as morning host at Nexstar Media Group news/talk WGN 720-AM. Since then he’s received offers from stations in other cities, he said, “but this is home and where I want to be.”
Each episode of “Live From My Office” opens with a monologue by Cochran followed by uninterrupted chats with guests, many of whom were regulars from his WGN show, drawn from the worlds of politics, sports, medicine, law, entertainment and media.
"The best thing about no-break interviews is you never kill the groove you're in with the guest," Cochran said. "It allows you to get the best from who you're talking to.
"The normal way is like standing at a party talking to someone and he's telling you he's getting a divorce. Suddenly you say, 'We need a quick break for a White Claw . . . it's a wave of pure refreshment!' When you come back, the conversation is never the same after that."
Cochran's interview with Magers will debut today. "To hear him open up on things he never could have talked about before is very cool," Cochran said.
And his conversation with Middlebrooks (whom he'd never met before) will debut Friday. "Felicia has an amazing life story and really hasn't spoken about it and what she'll do next," he said.
Monday's comment of the day: Marc Davis: Do editors review what a columnist has written prior to publication? If so, would those editors have been responsible for pointing out issues with the narrative, as described in the Chicago Tribune Guild letter, and possibly preventing this controversy from occurring?