Noticiero Telemundo Chicago
Robservations on the media beat:
Chris McDonnell
Spanish-language news viewers will have an additional choice this fall when Telemundo Chicago WSNS-Channel 44 debuts a half-hour local newscast at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Chris McDonnell, president and general manager of Telemundo Chicago, confirmed the September 26 launch date but said news anchors and other personnel have not yet been finalized. Noticiero Telemundo Chicago now airs at 4:30, 5 and 10 p.m. Owned by NBCUniversal, Telemundo Chicago was one of 14 stations in the company to announce news expansions Tuesday.
Chet Coppock
Ending a 10-year run on Cumulus Media news/talk WLS AM 890, Notre Dame football and men’s basketball are returning to ESPN Radio sports/talk WMVP AM 1000. The multiyear deal, announced Tuesday, begins September 4 when The Fighting Irish kick off the 2016 football season against the Texas Longhorns. Notre Dame previously aired on ESPN 1000 from 1999 to 2005. The move away from WLS was expected after the station’s recent addition of White Sox baseball and Bulls basketball, which would have resulted in conflicts. No one was sadder than sportscaster Chet Coppock, who tweeted: “That's show biz. . . . My 10 year run as host of N.D. football is history.”
Bruce Sagan
Sure, Michael Ferro still may have designs on bringing the Sun-Times into the tronc fold, but that doesn’t mean the paper’s current chairman is waiting for that to happen. “I see a future in which that’s possible, yes. Do I think it’s going to happen? No,” Bruce Sagan told Justin Kaufmann in an interview Monday on Tribune Media news/talk WGN AM 720. But if Gannett succeeds in its effort to acquire tronc, that probably would kill USA Today’s content partnership with the Sun-Times, he conceded. “I would be unhappy because the Gannett thing is very efficient on national and international news, where we no longer have bureaus all over the world,” Sagan said. “I’d be sorry to lose it. But we would replace it.”
Beto Carreto
Beto Carreto, a 26-year veteran of Spanish-language broadcasting in Chicago, has moved up to mornings at 97.5 FM Poder, iHeartMedia Chicago's Mexican regional music station programmed by Show Time Media. El Show De Beto Carreto airs from 5 to 8 a.m. Monday through Friday, leading into the syndicated Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo from 8 a.m. to noon. Since Poder 97.5 launched in February, Carreto was on from 7 p.m. to midnight, a shift now held by Cristian Ramos. Carreto previously hosted mornings on WLEY FM 107.9 and the former WNUA FM 95.5.
Michael Savage
Michael Savage, the syndicated radio talk show host, is marshaling fans to vote him into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Savage is one of four nominees in the Spoken Word On-Air Personality category, with voting open to all who text to 36500. "SAVAGE BELONGS IN THE RADIO HALL OF FAME TO SPREAD HIS MESSAGE OF BORDERS LANGUAGE CULTURE,” read a post on his Facebook page. Voting continues through June 30, and inductees will be announced July 11. In Chicago “The Savage Nation” airs from 9 p.m. to midnight on WLS AM 890.
Jack Fuller
Newspapers colleagues around the country are paying tribute to Jack Fuller, former editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, who died Tuesday of lung cancer at 69. Fuller, who joined the Tribune as a 16-year-old copy boy and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, retired in 2004 as president of Tribune Publishing, where he oversaw the ill-fated $8 billion acquisition of the Los Angeles Times parent company. “He revered the unspoken contract this news organization has with its readers,” columnist John Kass wrote of his longtime friend and former boss. “He understood how much we owe our readers, our city, our state. And he knew how easily we could destroy that relationship if we forgot about principle and integrity.”