Biondi vows to give WLS overnights ‘everything I’ve got’

Dick Biondi

When Dick Biondi’s bosses called him in before his WLS-FM (94.7) evening show last Thursday, he wasn’t sure how to react to the news that they wanted to move him to later hours on the Cumulus Media oldies station.

After all, if 60 years in the business had taught the Radio Hall of Famer anything, he knew that what bosses said and what they meant were sometimes two different things.  In this case, the 79-year-old Biondi was being asked to work from 11pm to 2am (and host a new one-hour weekend show) to make way for John Records Landecker, 64, who was being brought on to work from 6 to 11pm.

Was this a plot to ease Biondi out? Or was it, as his bosses insisted, a move to strengthen the station’s lineup and extend Biondi’s tenure well into the future? Above all, was this any way to treat a man revered as “the last in the original cast of American rock and roll disc jockeys” still working fulltime on the air?

Rather than give them an answer right away — and risk saying something he might be sorry for later — Biondi told his bosses he needed time to think it over. Pro that he is, he went on the air and did his regular show Thursday without saying a word about what he’d been told. The next day he accepted the reassignment like a trouper. 

“I’m going to go into the new show and give it everything I’ve got,” he told me in a phone interview Sunday. “I hope that management will allow me to still be the crazy Dick Biondi.”

What means the most to him is the opportunity to be on in the city that he loves. “I’m thankful that I’m still on the air. There’s no place else in the world that I want to work except Chicago,” he said. “I still want people to listen and like me.”

After news broke here Friday about the change, comments on this blog, message boards and Facebook pages quickly filled with jabs at the station for what was perceived as a slight to its legendary superstar and his fans. Nevertheless, Michael Damsky, president and general manager of WLS, considers himself one of Biondi’s biggest fans.

“It is an honor to work with Dick Biondi, and extending his legendary career on WLS has always been my highest priority,” Damsky said.

“In his new timeslot, Dick will no longer have to compete for listeners against primetime TV and evening sports events. This move will allow his longtime fans to experience Dick as they first did — in bed, under the covers — but hopefully without having to hide the radio from their mothers!”