Feature: The Sound of Silence (II)

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Anatomy of the Kill

Here's how the death of WMAQ-AM happened: Thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, large broadcast corporations were allowed to gobble up to as many as eight stations in one market.  A radio station buying frenzy ensued; as the number of stations under singular corporate control bloated, a significant merger of two radio giants occurred.

On New Year's Eve 1996, CBS bought Infinity Broadcasting for $4.7 billion. In doing so, the company ended up owning and operating more than 100 radio stations nationwide, including the maximum of eight radio stations in Chicago - which included both all-news outlets, WMAQ and WBBM.

All of the CBS/Infinity-owned stations combined capture more than a quarter of Chicago's radio listeners every day.  But since it now literally 'owned' the radio news niche in the market, there was no sense in having two of its stations competing with each other...

Meanwhile, another other mega-player in Chicago, ABC/Disney (who owns four stations), was kicking CBS/Infinity's butt in the sports broadcasting arena.  ABC/Disney had the advantage of owning ESPN; plus, their Chicago spots station (WMVP, AM 1000) had a better signal to cover the market.

CBS/Infinity executives decided to move its own sports station, WSCR, over to WMAQ's frequency. 670 AM in Chicago now belongs to "The Score," and WMAQ radio officially no longer exists. The official changeover took place at 6:00 AM August 1, 2000.

Now WSCR will better compete with WMVP for the sports radio listenership in Chicago and the Midwest - the 50,000 watts of 670 goes a long, long way.

The stockholders of CBS/Infinity, I'm sure, will be happy. But now the five million people that live in Chicago metropolitan area have only one all-news radio station to turn to. Who needs perspective when you've got profits?

Profits be damned: on a very personal level, the industry I planned to devote my professional life to has taken away my touchstone. It is not easy to swallow.

However, it's reinforced my beliefs about media activism. I forced myself to listen to the last day of WMAQ. It was rough - on both me and the people on the air. But the sentiments you are about to hear were definitely shared among us all.

Next Page --> Saying Goodbye --> Page 1, 2, 3