Posted by Bud on May 06, 2010 at 13:31:49:
Courtesy of Robert Feder at Vocalo:
"The future of Chicago�s progressive talk radio took an unexpected turn Tuesday with the resignation of Jeff Chardell as interim vice president and general manager of WCPT-AM (820). He doubled as director of sales at the Newsweb Radio station.
Chardell�s exit follows the late-February departure of Harvey Wells, who had been vice president and group station manager of Newsweb Radio for six years. While he�d carried the interim title for two months, Chardell was believed to be vying for Wells� job permanently.
The 30-year veteran of Chicago media sales and management confirmed Tuesday that he�s leaving, effective May 11, to accept a new position as director of health care marketing and sales with Tribune Health Care, a national sales initiative integrating broadcast, print and online platforms of Chicago-based Tribune Co. Of his tenure at Newsweb, Chardell said:
�It was a very good opportunity for me at the time. They�ve been very good to me. They�ve got an exclusive, niche format that I truly believe in. It�s a format that really, really works for our clients and our listeners. They listen for long periods of time and they love what we do.�
A Chicago native and University of Illinois at Chicago graduate, Chardell worked for a variety of radio groups and was director of new initiatives for Sun-Times Media before joining Newsweb as director of sales in 2008.
His move comes just days before the Federal Communications Commission is expected to approve Newsweb�s bid to upgrade WCPT from daytime-only to 24-hour broadcasting (although its nighttime signal will reach only a limited area in the south and southwest suburbs). WCPT continues to simulcast on WCPY-FM (92.5), WCPT-FM (92.7) and WCPQ-FM (99.9), all owned by Newsweb.
Still unfilled is the vacancy created by the resignation of Jake Hartford, who�d hosted Saturday mornings for two years on WCPT before rejoining Citadel Broadcasting news/talk WLS-AM (890) earlier this month. Hartford was among a handful of local personalities on a station whose weekday lineup consists exclusively of syndicated programming.
In the latest Arbitron quarterly Portable People Meter survey, WCPT and its simulcast outlets had a combined audience share of 0.5 percent � good for 36th place among listeners age 12 and older."