Chicago Radio: WBEZ Parent Company Announces 12 Layoffs

Chicago Public Media, parent company of WBEZ 91.5 FM, has announced 12 layoffs Tuesday and said WBEZ will no longer produce “Sound Opinions,” but the station will still air the weekly music program as it becomes an independent show, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Co-hosts and show owners Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot will produce new episodes on their own after the Aug. 28 episode. The show will still be distributed by PRX and will air on nearly 150 public radio stations, including WBEZ, and as a podcast.

“Initially our thoughts are that this is going to be a seamless transition. There obviously is going to be some logistics on our end, in terms of just where we record the show, things like that, that we’re going to have to figure out in the next few weeks,” said Kot, who was the Tribune’s pop and rock music critic until he accepted a buyout from the company in February.

DeRogatis and Kot

Kot said Steve Edwards, WBEZ’s chief content officer and interim CEO, broke the news a few days ago, “which was a surprise” because he and DeRogatis had talked with Edwards “numerous times about the status of the show and going forward and everything seemed fine up until the last week.”

Chicago Public Media said in its Tuesday announcement it is facing an overall revenue decline of 20 percent in the fiscal year that begins July 1, leaving a deficit four times larger than the deficit experienced during the 2008 financial crisis. “Sound Opinions” — which began in 1993 on WLUP FM 97.9 with DeRogatis, then the Sun-Times pop music critic, and Bill Wyman, then the rock columnist at the Chicago Reader — has been attached to WBEZ since 2005.

Kot said “Sound Opinions” has been taping remotely during the coronavirus pandemic, and people have been reaching out to help the show go independent, including offering recording space. Kot said he and DeRogatis had considered going independent “for a number of years.”