The day will come when people think it strange that “WGN” ever meant Cubs

Soon to be a historic relic

Some things about Chicago are eternal – such as the idea of the Chicago Cubs who have been in the National League ever since it started play back in 1871.

But when it comes to how many Cubs fans follow their favorite ball club, there are going to be some serious changes. The idea that one tunes their radio or television to WGN (720 AM, Channel 9) to catch a ballgame every afternoon is going to become a piece of history.

JUST LIKE THE Stevens Hotel, Riverview amusement park or the International Ampitheatre.

It was in recent days that it became learned that WGN radio was letting Cubs broadcasts go – even though they’ve been on that radio station since the days when Al Capone’s gangs terrorized Chicago.

Cubs games will shift to WBBM-AM radio, with some speculation that games eventually will shift to the sister station owned by the company, WSCR-AM – the station with the sports-talk radio format.

That station currently carries Chicago White Sox broadcasts, but there’s the chance that the team may move on to another broadcast alternative in another year or so. The White Sox radio channel could soon be the preferred alternative for the Cubs.

AT LEAST ON those occasions when a new generation of people actually bothers to listen to a radio.

It seems that the new generation of people that doesn’t want to read news or books on printed paper also doesn’t think much of listening to a ballgame on a radio. They want it on whatever portable devices they carry with them.

Also likely to become history

So I’m sure that from the Cubs’ perspective, not having their games on WGN radio any longer isn’t so bad. It is a relationship that served its purpose all these decades, but also ran its course.

Even though the rhetoric is that it is WGN that wasn’t interested in keeping Cubs games, at least not at the same rate the station was having to pay the ball club.

PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL TEAMS increasingly want to be paid big bucks for the rights to carry their games. Either that, or they want to have their own channels where they can control every aspect of a broadcast – and all the advertising revenue that goes along with it.

It’s also why I’m sure the Cubs will not lose sleep over the fact that WGN America, the cable television version of our local television station that people across the country get to see, is willing to let Cubs baseball go.

Will Santo disappointment live on?

Those fans around the country who really care about the Cubs (and I don’t doubt there are all those rural Iowa, Illinois and Indiana bumpkins – the great-grandchildren of Three Eye League baseball fans – who do care) will find other options.

The time will come when only Chicago residents will get to see Cubs games on a “WGN” channel. At least until the day we get Cubs TV (channel 364, or whatever, on our television channel lineup), which will offer us constant games, rebroadcasts, historic clips, and sports talk shows around the clock.

WHO KNOWS? JUST as the old television program “This Week in Baseball” in its final years gave us a digitally-created version of host Mel Allen after he died, perhaps Cubs TV will give us Ron Santo recreated.

Santo redux could give us introductions, before young 20-something broadcasters who look cute on camera tell us about how badly the Cubs blew their latest ballgame.

And just think, there could be a touch of the past, too. That Brant Brown-inspired Santo cry of “Oh noooooooooooo!” could live on whenever the cubs do something bad. And Cubs fans will lap it all up.

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“WGN America” programs have little, if anything, to do with Chicago

I remember back the seven years I lived in Springfield, Ill., and had much of my focus centered around the Statehouse scene. I’d make the semi-regular trips back to Chicago when I could.

It's changed a lot since the early days

But much of the way I kept in touch with what was happening officially in Chicago was through WGN-TV.

THEY WERE STILL the “superstation” back then whose broadcasts were carried to remote parts of the nation (and the globe) through cable television and satellites. From a purely parochial perspective within the news business, WGN-TV had a certain significance.

They were the one Chicago-area television newscast that was carried across the entire state of Illinois.

People at the Statehouse could see the Channel 9 news on a regular basis – as opposed to the Channel 2, 5, 7 or 32 newscasts that could only be seen locally. Although I should admit that I remember Springfield residents who had satellite dishes rather than cable television programs would get our very own WFLD-TV for a local Fox affiliate.

Yes, people in Springfield got a little bit of exposure to the concept of Walter Jacobson, 1990's style – and I remember having to explain his significance and influence in Chicago. They just didn’t get the appeal.

BACK TO WGN, which gave the Chicago Cubs national exposure and made their losing ways seem cute (because the Tribune broadcast types knew how to make the overall atmosphere of the ballpark seem more important than a winning ball club). They also gave us exposure to the local newscasts.

But no more!!!

Or can we?

For WGN officials have let it be known that the local news we think of as being a natural part of 9 p.m. will no longer be carried on their broadcasts outside of the Chicago market. Only us in Chicago and the number three media market will see it.

WGN officials say the rest of the country that tunes in to WGN broadcasts will get to see the “Rules of Engagement” program (which I must confess to not having a clue what exactly that is).

THIS SEEMS TO be offending many people, some of whom actually went so far as to create a “Bring Back WGN News at Nine” page on Facebook – and one I actually indicated I “liked.”

Would these programs be too local?

Which I did so because I remember how often I made a point of tuning in to WGN news at 9 p.m. (followed up by WCIA-TV out of Champaign at 10 p.m. -- which doesn't even air in the capital city any longer). But I’m not under any delusion that the people in positions of authority are going to be swayed.

They seem to think that anybody who’s tuning in to WGN in other parts of the world (actually, they’re watching WGN America, not WGN-TV proper like we are) has little interest in Chicago proper, and views anything about Chicago as “too local” for the larger audience).

Personally, I think that WGN America is a little too generic. The times I have been outside the Chicago area and tuned into the channel, I found programming that could have aired anywhere. It seemed like the WGN label was somehow being misapplied.

I READ SOMEWHERE that someone wisecracked that it was becoming the equivalent of the Hallmark Channel. That may actually be a step up in programming quality.

So what will happen in those other parts of the country where there were some people who were counting on WGN to give them a little taste of where it is they come from? They’re going to have to adapt to whatever it is the news broadcasts in their current locale give them.

Perhaps something along the lines of that opening scene from “Broadcast News” (which I happened to be watching while writing this commentary) where Holly Hunter’s “Jane Craig” news producer character rants on and on about a story about a domino maze, while the people she speaks to love every second of it. And probably think the people demanding to keep a Chicago newscast on a national-focus station is somehow stupid.

So what should we think? Maybe, in a sense, this serves those people right for leaving this wonderful city on the shores of southwestern Lake Michigan. Although the punishment seems a bit steep, to me at least.

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