{"id":2262,"date":"2014-02-09T17:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T23:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=2262"},"modified":"2014-02-09T17:01:24","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T23:01:24","slug":"when-jimmy-decastro-threw-wgn-for-a-loop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/09\/when-jimmy-decastro-threw-wgn-for-a-loop\/","title":{"rendered":"When deCastro threw WGN for a Loop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"780\" height=\"585\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LvNQqrVhFEs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Twenty-five years ago a <a href=\"http:\/\/mediaburn.org\/video\/radio-faces-8\/\" target=\"_blank\">public television documentary<\/a> captured Chicago\u2019s hottest radio station at its absolute zenith.<\/p>\n<p>The station was WLUP AM\/FM 1000\/97.9, its biggest stars were Jonathon Brandmeier, Steve Dahl, Garry Meier and Kevin Matthews, and the man at the center of it all was a brash 35-year-old executive named Jimmy deCastro. After eight years as ringmaster of the Loop, he was openly gunning for top-rated WGN AM 720.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re taking on \u2019GN to a certain extent,\u201d deCastro told documentary producer Tom Weinberg as cameras rolled. \u201cI would say that most of WGN\u2019s audience is so old that I don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be a lot of comparative listening. Sixty-some-odd percent of WGN\u2019s audience is over 50 years of age. . . . I have a lot of respect for\u00a0\u2019GN. They\u2019re the old guard. The Loop is the station on the horizon.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2264\" style=\"width: 182px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/09\/when-jimmy-decastro-threw-wgn-for-a-loop\/\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2264\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2264\" alt=\"Jimmy deCastro\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Jimmy-de-Castro-172x300.png\" width=\"172\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Jimmy-de-Castro-172x300.png 172w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Jimmy-de-Castro-150x261.png 150w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Jimmy-de-Castro-200x348.png 200w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Jimmy-de-Castro.png 204w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 172px) 100vw, 172px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2264\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/a> Jimmy deCastro<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Today deCastro is president and general manager of WGN, where he\u2019s<a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/2013\/08\/20\/its-showtime-for-jimmy-decastro-at-wgn\/\" target=\"_blank\"> leading a renaissance<\/a> of the Tribune Broadcasting news\/talk station with the same energy and passion he brought to the Loop a quarter-century ago. And today WLUP is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/2014\/01\/03\/cumulus-buys-merlins-chicago-stations\/\" target=\"_blank\">just another spot<\/a> on the FM dial. Let the exquisite irony sink in.<\/p>\n<p>The 5\u00bd-minute YouTube excerpt above is from <a href=\"http:\/\/mediaburn.org\/video\/radio-faces-8\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cRadio Faces,\u201d<\/a> a one-hour documentary that aired Jan. 25, 1989, as part of John Callaway\u2019s \u201cWTTW Journal\u201d series on WTTW-Channel 11. It profiled more than a dozen radio personalities and executives with unusual candor and intimacy. (Disclosure: I served as project consultant on the documentary.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Radio Faces\u2019 captures Chicago radio in all of its variety and competitive complexities,\u201d the Tribune\u2019s Rick Kogan wrote in his\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/articles.chicagotribune.com\/1989-01-24\/features\/8902280049_1_radio-faces-radio-personalities-brain-surgery\" target=\"_blank\">review.<\/a> \u201cIts camera is probing and active, its subjects articulate and amusing. The insights one gains from this hour go beyond the faces behind the mikes. . . . [I]t gives a sense of the business itself, as full a portrait as one could imagine getting in an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2265\" style=\"width: 130px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Tom-Weinberg.png\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2265\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2265\" alt=\"Tom Weinberg\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Tom-Weinberg.png\" width=\"120\" height=\"208\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2265\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tom Weinberg<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What few could have predicted then was how radically radio was about to change \u2014 and all for the worse. As deCastro and other entrepreneurs led the charge for consolidation, stations were bought and sold like commodities, creating behemoths like Clear Channel that would suck the life out of everything. \u201cRadio Faces\u201d became an epitaph for an age.<\/p>\n<p>Weinberg, who now runs the nonprofit<a href=\"http:\/\/mediaburn.org\" target=\"_blank\"> Media Burn Independent Video Archive, <\/a>views the production in a different light now.<\/p>\n<p>\"We knew it was timely when we produced it, but like lots of our documentaries, they can be even more relevant many years later,\u201d Weinberg reflected the other day. \u201cWith all the stories and subjects, it's completely unpredictable. We had no way of knowing that it was the end of an era in radio when we did this. That's part of the fun.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twenty-five years ago a public television documentary captured Chicago\u2019s hottest radio station at its absolute zenith. The station was WLUP AM\/FM 1000\/97.9, its biggest stars were Jonathon Brandmeier, Steve Dahl, Garry Meier and Kevin Matthews, and the man at the center of it all was a brash 35-year-old executive named Jimmy deCastro. After eight years... <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/02\/09\/when-jimmy-decastro-threw-wgn-for-a-loop\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&#8594;<\/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\/2262"}],"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=2262"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28591,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262\/revisions\/28591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}