Dan Miller to step in as host of ‘Beyond the Beltway’ on TV

Dan Miller

Dan Miller

“Beyond the Beltway,” Bruce DuMont’s long-running political talk show, temporarily will split into two versions — one for radio and one for television — with veteran Chicago journalist Dan Miller hosting the TV edition.

DuMont, who launched the show in 1980, will continue to host “Beyond the Beltway” on radio. It airs live from 6 to 8 p.m. Sundays on Cumulus Media news/talk WLS AM 890 and 35 other stations across the country.

Bruce DuMont

Bruce DuMont

Starting January 4, a separate TV version, focusing on the 2015 Chicago municipal elections and the start of Bruce Rauner’s administration as Illinois governor, will air for 10 weeks at midnight Sundays on WYCC-Channel 20, the public station owned by City Colleges of Chicago. It also will air at 11 p.m. Mondays and other times throughout the week on Comcast Channel 100.

"Dan Miller will demonstrate his energy, wit, solid journalistic integrity and a rapid-fire interrogation style for viewers to enjoy each week," DuMont said of his longtime friend, who’s been a frequent guest on “Beyond the Beltway.” DuMont is stepping away from his TV role while he spends the winter in southern California.

An inductee in the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, veteran of the Chicago Daily News and former business editor of the Sun-Times, Miller helped launch Crain’s Chicago Business in 1978 and was its editor for 10 years. He also served five years as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission and was publisher and executive vice president of The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based non-profit think tank. He co-founded the Chicago Innovation Awards with Tom Kuczmarski to celebrate and connect innovators.

Recalling his long association with DuMont and his appearances on the show dating back to 1983, Miller said: “It’s just a real honor to move into Bruce’s well-worn chair.”

In addition to the usual format and lineup of guests, Miller will be joined each week by Mike Fourcher, Jimm Dispensa and Ramsin Canon of Aldertrack.com, who’ll help analyze aldermanic races in the city’s 50 wards. “There’s a lot going on at the ward level and we’re excited to share those stories with a bigger audience,” Fourcher said in a statement. “It’s the aldermanic campaigns that have always made Chicago politics a great spectator sport."

DuMont began his weekly political roundtable as “Inside Politics” at Chicago Public Media WBEZ FM 91.5 in 1980. The program went national in 1991 and shifted its home base to WLS the following year. Renamed “Beyond the Beltway” in 1995, it also airs on Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s POTUS Channel 124.

Except when DuMont is out of town, the program originates from the Museum of Broadcast Communications, 360 North State Street, which DuMont founded and heads.