Mancow Returns to Chicago Airwaves

By Prescott Carlson in News on Oct 23, 2008 6:00PM

It's official -- the Cow is now... returning to Chicago radio. WLS 890 has announced that the radio personality everyone loves to hate, Mancow Muller, will begin broadcasting October 27th in the 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. slot, currently filled by conservative host Jerry Agar. In our interview with Muller last year he had some pretty harsh words for FM radio, so it's not surprising that he eventually wound up on an AM powerhouse. He also said at the time that offers had been coming in weekly and he could "be on [in Chicago] tomorrow" -- so the question is, if that's true, did he wait too long?

Mancow Muller has certainly had a lot of success during his stint in Chicago radio. He arguably rescued Rock 103.5 when he came on the scene in 1994, and at the time of his surprise removal from Q-101 in 2006, when he was replaced by an ensemble cast the "Morning Fix" (who never caught on and finally flamed out for good last summer), Mancow certainly still had an audience, ranking high among men ages 18 - 49, and bringing in significant revenue for the station. But while his increasingly right wing tirades on venues like Fox News might make him seem like a good fit to precede Rush Limbaugh (WLS general manager Mike Fowler is touting Mancow as a "younger version of Rush"), his style and "shock jock" persona seems to have fallen out of favor in this market. Howard Stern is off in the satellite hinterland, Steve Dahl -- as Robert Feder pointed out with one final zinger -- has fallen off the ratings map. Is there a significant number of former fans that are going to make the trek to the AM dial? We can't imagine many listeners of the decidedly more genteel Don Wade & Roma will stick around past the 9 o'clock hour. Guess we'll find out next week. [Trib, S-T]