I don’t know the guy, but have listened to him for years.  I’ve always had a love for radio and I grew up having to sneak listening to Steve and Garry back in the day since my mom thought they were a little too risque for a 14 year old.  I just thought they were funny and cool.Anyways, I have to be honest and tell you that I really haven’t listened to Steve Dahl regularly as of late.  For that matter, I haven’t listened to “radio” for quite a while (other than my local NPR and college station).  My afternoon commute has changed (for the time being) and I love my podcasts and nothing is going to change that for me, but I digress…

I was catching up on some news today and saw that Steve Dahl was hopping across radio stations.  I guess 105.9 FM WCKG is going to an all-Spanish format and Steve is moving over to 104.3 FM which is now the Chicago outpost of those “Jack-Format” stations (and not the home of Dick Biondi like I remember since I was a kid).  If radio wasn’t dead already, a giant stake went right through it’s heart with this news. If these “Jack” stations weren’t bad enough (they remind me of the homogenization of chain restaurants throughout the USA since they are corporate-owned/programmed and there is nothing “local” about them other than the occasional news blip and commercials), here is what I would consider a local legend who I’m guessing is stuck in a contract (multi-million dollar but that’s another story) and has to serve out the rest of his contract BEING THE ONLY HUMAN PERSONALITY on a completely automated station that is being programmed by CBS corporate in New York.

Obviously, I’m not Steve nor do I know him so maybe he’s ok with the change.  It just seems like it’s something he’s being pushed into doing because of contractual obligations.  I’m also interested in seeing what (if anything) happens to the rest of the crew who was on WCKG. Steve’s old counterpart, Garry Meier, had started working the morning shift there a few months back as well as long-time friends of the show, Stan & Terry and also Steve’s son, Matt Dahl (who has some information on his site about their unfortunate/forced “hiatus”).

Who knows, I may be way off on my thoughts and am anxious to hear what he has to say when he starts up in the morning of November 5th on 104.3 FM in Chicago.  I just know that radio has been in a death spiral lately and things just started spinning a bit faster with this news.