'Cow Sent Out To Pasture

By Scott Smith in News on Jul 12, 2006 9:12PM

Thanks to the Sun-Times splashy headline on Tuesday, a best-of show, stories in the dailies and assorted blog posts*, anyone who still cares that Mancow was still on the air at Q-101 already knows he no longer is.

The Trib and Sun-Times delve into the reasons why: lack of local flavor in a show increasingly targeting a syndicated audience, a disconnect between Mancow’s audience and the demos that Q-101 targets throughout the rest of the day and larger and more frequent FCC fines for jocks of Mancow’s ilk (though Marv Nyren, vice president and general manager of Emmis Radio Chicago, tells Phil Rosenthal that Mancow hasn’t incurred a fine in over 18 months).

Frankly, we’ve never understood exactly what Q101 got out of having Mancow as their morning drive time anchor. While he garnered decent ratings and headlines for a while, his show seemed to run counter to Q-101’s recent efforts to change their format. So it was little surprise that the station announced plans for a music-oriented morning show to coincide with their Summer of Shuffle (just in time for August!).

Right around now is the time someone will jump up and say something along the lines of “Who listens to the radio anymore? It’s totally dead.” Feel free to tell that to all these people. This argument never carried any water with us since the whole reason people turn to satellite radio and iPods is because they seek more personalized content, a connection to the content. Events in Chicago radio over the last year have told us that people still had that connection but that station owners are doing everything they can to sever it.

* Seriously, why do MySpace users have such a fascination with the dude?