{"id":5889,"date":"2014-12-07T20:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T02:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=5889"},"modified":"2014-12-07T20:41:32","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T02:41:32","slug":"the-man-behind-the-blaze-gets-in-the-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/12\/07\/the-man-behind-the-blaze-gets-in-the-groove\/","title":{"rendered":"The man behind \u2018The Blaze\u2019 gets in \u2018The Groove\u2019 with new jazz station"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chris<\/a>

<\/a> Chris Devine<\/p><\/div>\n

Twenty-three years after he put \u201cThe Blaze\u201d on the air, Chris Devine is back in business on Chicago radio.<\/p>\n

With the flip of a switch at 9 p.m. Friday, Devine launched a contemporary jazz outlet on 103.9 FM, a broadcast translator licensed to Windy City Broadcasting. The signal also is carried on Hubbard Radio\u2019s WTMX 101.9 HD2, the secondary digital audio channel linked to the modern adult-contemporary station.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fun having an association with a Chicago station again,\u201d Devine said in an interview Sunday. \u201cIt\u2019s the first new frequency that\u2019s emerged in the market in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Describing his role with Windy City Broadcasting as advisory, Devine has assembled a team that includes veteran Chicago radio programmers Dave Logan and Rick O\u2019Dell and sales executive Robert McAuliff. To accommodate the move, the company has leased the HD2 channel from Hubbard Radio that previously carried O\u2019Dell\u2019s SmoothJazzChicago.net.<\/a> O\u2019Dell serves as operations manager for the new station.<\/p>\n

For the first three weeks on the air, Devine said, the station will be airing \u201cjazzy Christmas\u201d music 20 hours a day. In addition, it will feature spoken-word programming promoting the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital from 6 to 8 a.m. and from 5 to 7 p.m. daily.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all leading up to the station\u2019s official debut December 26. \u201cWe\u2019re going to launch more of an urbanized-type contemporary jazz,\u201d said Devine, who identified the target audience as adults between 25 and 64. \u201cIt won\u2019t be quite as sleepy or soft as [O\u2019Dell\u2019s smooth jazz] format has been. We\u2019re going to call it \u2018The Groove.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Initially broadcasting from atop the John Hancock Center at 15 watts, the station is expected to increase its power to 99 watts, according to a petition Devine plans to file next week with the Federal Communications Commission. The boost should expand the station\u2019s coverage throughout the metropolitan area within 90 days.<\/p>\n

Led by John Bridge, a real estate investor from west suburban Sugar Grove, Windy City Broadcasting acquired the construction permit for the translator at 103.9 W280EM for $1 million last July.<\/p>\n

Devine, a New Jersey native who grew up in Chicago, first came to prominence here in 1991 when his Major Broadcasting Corp. acquired the former WFYR FM 103.5 for $19 million and transformed it into WWBZ, a hard rock outlet known as \u201cThe Blaze.\u201d Two years later he sold the station for $32 million to Evergreen Media Corp., which rechristened it WRCX.<\/p>\n

He later ran Marathon Media for aging multimillionaire C. Robert Allen, investing in a variety of broadcast entities, special events and other interests. But the company dissolved after Allen\u2019s heirs sued Devine for racketeering, fraud and embezzlement. \u201cIt\u2019s all been settled and put to bed,\u201d Devine said, dismissing reports of criminal charges against him as \u201cuninformed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Devine most recently has headed GeoBroadcast Solutions, <\/a>a company he founded in 2009 to market technologies that help radio broadcasters target commercials to specific segments within their signal areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-three years after he put \u201cThe Blaze\u201d on the air, Chris Devine is back in business on Chicago radio. With the flip of a switch at 9 p.m. Friday, Devine launched a contemporary jazz outlet on 103.9 FM, a broadcast translator licensed to Windy City Broadcasting. The signal also is carried on Hubbard Radio\u2019s WTMX... 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\/5889"}],"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=5889"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5896,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889\/revisions\/5896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}