{"id":11599,"date":"2016-06-09T17:20:23","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T22:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=11599"},"modified":"2016-06-09T18:16:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T23:16:44","slug":"dan-mcneil-exits-the-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2016\/06\/09\/dan-mcneil-exits-the-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan McNeil exits The Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dan<\/a>

<\/a> Dan McNeil<\/p><\/div>\n

Dan McNeil, the veteran Chicago sports radio host whose talent and temperament never quite meshed with a music station\u2019s morning show, is out after 16 months at Hubbard Radio classic rock WDRV FM 97.1.<\/a><\/p>\n

John Gallagher, vice president and market manager of Hubbard Radio Chicago, announced Thursday that McNeil had decided to step away from The Drive and had been released from his reported $250,000-a-year contract, which ran through March 2017. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Gallagher said McNeil was free to accept employment elsewhere, effective immediately.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

McNeil, 54, had been on a collision course <\/a>with management for weeks. Since returning from a 10-day time-out, he had been cut out as morning co-host and relegated to delivering a three-minute sports report once an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the term is something of a cliche, but in this case, it just really was a 'bad fit,' \u201d Gallagher said of McNeil\u2019s brief tenure. \u201cDan brought a lot of value, but it wasn\u2019t the expectation that the audience had for the station.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pete McMurray, who had been teamed with McNeil on The Drive since February 2015, will continue hosting mornings solo, along with producer Scott Miller and news anchor Kathy Voltmer, Gallagher said. Additional changes to the format of the show are in the works.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very amicable separation, and nobody\u2019s mad at anybody,\u201d McNeil said in an interview Thursday. \u201cThe audience has indicated to us that they\u2019re there for the music, and it makes all the sense in the world for the radio station to respond to its customers. That means a little less of a couple of guys flapping their gums every morning. So with a reduced role on the show, it was time to press the reset button on this and just go our own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNeil said he knew the stakes at the outset. \"It\u2019s always an experiment when you tweak a station,\" he said. \"This was the first time in the The Drive\u2019s rich history that it was trying something a little bit different. You always know there\u2019s a risk involved in that.\"<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for Danny Mac? \u201cI\u2019m going fishing \u2014 muskie fishing. That\u2019s in my near future,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m also going to finish a book I started two years ago, and I\u2019m going to entertain conversations with people who might be interested. . . . I\u2019ve still got a good 10 years [in radio] left in the tank.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he didn\u2019t rule out working for another music station, McNeil clearly hopes to return to sports talk radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe timing on this for me is uplifting because we\u2019re right on the verge of football season, and I\u2019ve gone two consecutive football seasons without having a format for my favorite game, my passion,\" he said. \"More than anything, I love talking about the NFL \u2014 the Bears and the entire league. The last two years have been really, really difficult to grind my way through. The idea of a football season around the corner is very exciting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNeil would not confirm that he already has reached out to one of his former stations, CBS Radio sports\/talk WSCR AM 670,<\/a> about a comeback. Other sources said he has.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan did a great job for us,\u201d Gallagher said in a statement. \u201cHis knowledge of sports combined with his passion for classic rock was an inspiration to our team. We expect that Dan will thrive in his future endeavors. He is a knowledgeable and talented radio host.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said program director Rob Cressman: \u201cWe look forward to what lies ahead for The Drive. Pete McMurray and the team have assembled a strong foundation. Our plans include a search for the chemistry and content mix that our audience has clearly requested. The considerable research and appraisal that accompanied the former incarnation of The Morning Drive will continue to determine where future opportunities exist to super-serve Chicago\u2019s classic rock enthusiasts in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Nielsen Audio ratings released Tuesday, mornings on The Drive ranked 12th overall with a 2.6 percent share and cumulative weekly audience of 329,300.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan McNeil, the veteran Chicago sports radio host whose talent and temperament never quite meshed with a music station\u2019s morning show, is out after 16 months at Hubbard Radio classic rock WDRV FM 97.1. John Gallagher, vice president and market manager of Hubbard Radio Chicago, announced Thursday that McNeil had decided to step away from... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11599"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11605,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599\/revisions\/11605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}