Jack Ryan

You may not be familiar with 22nd Century Media, but you probably remember Jack Ryan, the former investment banker who once ran as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Illinois.

From the bitter disappointment of his aborted bid for public office in 2004, Ryan turned his media ordeal into a business opportunity. The following year he founded a hyperlocal publishing company on the premise that there’s more “positive news” out there than people were getting from traditional sources.

Today Ryan’s 22nd Century Media publishes 12 weekly newspapers and websites mainly in the southwest suburbs and on the North Shore. With the launch in February of a Highland Park edition up in Lake County, the company will reach an estimated 170,000 Chicago area households. That would put it on track to overtake Sun-Times Media as having the second-largest circulation statewide (behind only the Chicago Tribune). Continue reading →

Virtual Tom Skilling

Tom Skilling has never played games when it comes to his forecasts. But now everyone’s favorite weatherman is about to become a game himself.

The Chicago media superstar and chief meteorologist for Tribune Broadcasting WGN-Channel 9 will appear as a cartoon image in “Tom Skilling’s WGN Weather Challenge,” a smartphone game app designed by Chicago-based Cubicle Ninjas. Continue reading →

Charles Thomas

When Charles Thomas tweeted the other day that he’d lost his mustache in a “weekend shaving mishap,” I’ll admit I was skeptical.

I’ve always known the dapper ABC 7 political reporter to be meticulous about his appearance, so my journalistic instincts — to say nothing of the public’s right to know — demanded full disclosure. Continue reading →

Judy Markey, Steve Bertrand and Kathy O'Malley

There’s more good news at WGN AM 720 as bosses of the Tribune Broadcasting news/talk station continue to get the band back together.

Starting this weekend, news anchor Steve Bertrand will be reunited with Kathy O’Malley and Judy Markey, the former midday duo who returned to WGN last September to host a weekly show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Continue reading →

Jim Corno

Jim Corno, a beloved, admired and respected broadcast executive who led Comcast SportsNet Chicago and its predecessors in Chicago for three decades, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. He was 66.

“When it came to Chicago sports television, no one worked harder and had more passion for delivering these events to us night after night than Jim,” Jeff Nuich, senior director of communications for Comcast SportsNet, wrote in an online tribute. “Simply put, every regional sports network this city has ever known — SportsVision, SportsChannel, Fox Sports Net and Comcast SportsNet — has been run by only one individual: Jim Corno.” Continue reading →

Terri Hemmert and Lin Brehmer (Photo: Anne Ryan)

For Terri Hemmert’s 40th anniversary on WXRT FM 93.1 to pass unheralded here would have been unforgivable. Allow me to correct that oversight now.

From the moment she signed on at the fledgling progressive rock station in November 1973, Hemmert made WXRT and radio infinitely better. She went on to make history in 1981 when she became the first woman to host a morning drive show in Chicago. Continue reading →

Chicago’s last pure adult-contemporary radio station has fast-forwarded out of rewind.

After more than three years as “Chicago’s Rewind 100.3,” Hubbard Radio’s WILV FM 100.3 has dropped the moniker “Rewind” to become simply “Chicago’s 100.3.” Whether perceptible to listeners or not, the move reflects the addition of more current music to the station’s playlist, according to program director Marty Bender. Continue reading →

One year after its debut as a hyperlocal news website, DNAinfo.com Chicago has launched a print publication targeting one of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods.

Forty thousand residents of Lincoln Park this weekend received the first edition of what is intended to be a weekly print version of DNAinfo’s online coverage of the community. Delivered to every household by U.S. Postal Service, the inaugural issue is 14 color pages in a format that’s slightly taller and marginally wider than a tabloid, but narrower and shorter than a broadsheet. Continue reading →

Chicago’s go-to place for business news is raising its political profile, too.

Just in time for the 2014 election cycle, Crain’s Chicago Business is boosting its editorial staff and increasing its coverage of government and politics. Clearly taking aim at the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times, the expansion will enhance the franchise of Greg Hinz, now in his 18th year as Crain’s star political columnist and blogger. Continue reading →

Maybe it was the return of its branding as “Eyewitness News” after a 17-year lapse. Maybe it was the spiffy new opening and graphics package. Or maybe it simply was the 15 percent boost in its lead-in ratings at 9:45 p.m. (Yeah, that’s probably it.)

For whatever reason, ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7 showed the biggest late-news growth in November, widening its lead in total viewership at 10 p.m. over NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 and CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2. Continue reading →