Chicago Radio: WGN 720 AM Shuffles Line-Up

Wendy Snyder, Bill Leff

Garry Meier

John Williams will return to middays and Garry Meier will lose his afternoon slot in a new weekday program lineup to be unveiled Wednesday at WGN 720 AM, according to Chicago Media blogger Robert Feder.

Williams, a mainstay of the Tribune Broadcasting news/talk station for 15 years before he left in December 2012, will be heard from 10 a.m. to noon on WGN, starting Tuesday.

He’ll broadcast from Minneapolis, where he continues to host afternoons at WCCO 830 AM.

John Williams

Meier, who has occupied afternoons on WGN since 2009, is being reassigned to WGN.fm, the “freeform media” online streaming portal, where he is expected to fulfill the remaining year and a half of his contract.

Replacing Meier from 3 to 7 p.m. on WGN will be the duo of Bill Leff and Wendy Snyder, who currently co-host from 9 a.m. to noon.

Meier, 64, a suburban Chicago native, was one-half of the legendary radio team of Steve Dahl and Garry Meier before they broke up in 1993. Meier later worked with Roe Conn at WLS AM 890 before severing that partnership in 2004. Since then he’s been working solo, including the past five years on WGN.

Although Meier will continue to be the highest-paid personality on WGN’s payroll, his move off the 50,000-watt broadcast station can only be seen as a demotion. According to Feder, he was given the news by deCastro and Manley when he got off the air Tuesday, which turned out to be his last show for WGN.