{"id":23954,"date":"2019-12-30T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=23954"},"modified":"2019-12-30T06:00:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T12:00:12","slug":"final-fade-cltv-leaves-chicago-poorer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2019\/12\/30\/final-fade-cltv-leaves-chicago-poorer\/","title":{"rendered":"Final fade-out for CLTV leaves Chicago poorer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> CLTV<\/p><\/div>\n

At precisely 6 p.m. Tuesday \u2014 just six hours before a new year begins \u2014 CLTV<\/a> will sign off the air forever.<\/p>\n

Paul Lisnek's \"Politics Tonight\" <\/a>will be the last program viewers see before Nexstar Media Group pulls the plug on the 24-hour cable news channel. Lisnek, who taped the final show last week, said he closes with a farewell statement.<\/p>\n

With that, a 27-year piece of Chicago broadcast history will come to an end \u2014 the victim of a changing media landscape, a proliferation of digital news sources and out-of-town owners <\/a>who took over parent company Tribune Media earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Chicago Sun-Times (January 4, 1993)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Cable News Debut Appears Promising\" was the headline of my Sun-Times column soon after CLTV premiered early in the morning of January 1, 1993, in 600,000 households wired for cable in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n

\"Despite inevitable glitches and a dearth of real news over the New Year's weekend, Chicago's first 24-hour local cable news channel got off to a promising start,\" I wrote.<\/p>\n

\"Much of what passed for news during the premiere weekend consisted of endlessly repeated canned features and decidedly non-local wire stories. But in a glimpse of its true potential, ChicagoLand [CLTV] served up live pictures of the 40-car pileup on the Kennedy Expressway near Addison on Saturday \u2014 hours before other newscasts hit the air.\"<\/p>\n

In that review I also singled out a rookie reporter named Dina Bair as a \"rising star to watch\" on CLTV. (Bair now co-anchors the Monday-through-Friday \"WGN Midday News\" with Steve Sanders on Nexstar Media WGN-Channel 9.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dina Bair<\/p><\/div>\n

Five days later, the firing of Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka put CLTV on the map for its marathon breaking news coverage.<\/p>\n

\"We made our first splash as a station because we were able to cover the story for hours on end while the local stations were saddled by network obligations,\" recalled former CLTV sportscaster Lance McAlister in a farewell tribute<\/a> to the channel dubbed \"Children Learning Television\" in its early days. (McAlister now hosts a sports talk show on Cincinnati radio.)<\/p>\n

Despite that auspicious start, CLTV rarely lived up to its potential as the Chicago area's go-to source for extended coverage of live events and in-depth reporting, as its founders envisioned.<\/a> In recent years it served mainly as a farm team for talent and as an outlet for cheap programming (including simulcasts of radio shows on Nexstar Media news\/talk WGN 720-AM) and reruns of WGN newscasts.<\/p>\n

Still, as the outpouring of fond memories<\/a> from current and former employees attests, the demise of CLTV leaves Chicago media a little poorer and 2019 a little sadder.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s comment of the day:<\/a> J.S. Childs:<\/strong> This is a response to a comment a few days ago by a poster who noted that WBBM Newsradio is the All Mancari All the Time station. A few months ago, I emailed WBBM and said that every time that ad came on, I turned off the radio. I also emailed [Mancari's Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram of Oak Lawn] and told them this and asked if yelling really sold cars. I don't know if I can take credit for this, but a month or so later, the volume on the ads was noticeably down. But since then, every time they make a new ad, it gets a little louder. They are yelling again.<\/em><\/p>\n