WCKG Throws Rover Right Over

By Scott Smith in News on Aug 1, 2006 7:56PM

Sometimes dogs are man’s best friend. And sometimes they just whine and pee all over your leg. Metaphorically speaking, the WCKG radio personality known as Rover was more of the latter as of late.

Shane “Rover” French was given the thankless task of helping ‘CKG retain Howard Stern’s audience after the King of All Stripper-Related Media left for Sirius Satellite Radio. No sane person would have expected Rover to retain all or even a sizable portion of Stern’s audience, but station bosses likely expected more than a 0.3 percent of market share for his target audience. After spending most of his last show blaming station management and a lack of promotion for his lack of success, WCKG sat the Chicago audience down and told them that their dog Rover was being sent to a farm in the country where he can play with lots of other dogs.

WCKG’s general manager is now bringing in Opie and Anthony to fill the daypart and notes the team brings a “full arsenal of weapons to the Chicago morning battlefield.” Apparently, said weapons are so highbrow that they require the listener to be quite culturally astute. To that end O&A provide a link on their website to “films to watch to get the jokes on the show.” We’re rushing out to rent Rambo, Junior and Mondo Topless now so we can share in the fun.

Feder and Rosenthal’s columns make hay of the lack of local connection that Rover had here despite his suburban upbringing and a professed love of the Cubs and the team’s accompanying chapeaus. And yes, there’s an anti-transplant streak that runs through many Chicagoans, but it didn’t help that Rover was less funny than a groin pull.

While ‘CKG may have wanted Rover to become an integral part of Chicago radio (the new studios and choice daypart would suggest both), Rover always seemed more intent on using Chicago as a stepping stone to more success in syndication, which probably accounts more for his failure here than anything else.