By Rick Kaempfer
GROWING, BUILDING, EXPANDING
B
ob Sirott and his wife Marianne
Murciano are on the air together every
afternoon (Noon – 3pm) on WGN Radio
(720 AM). That sounds like the kind of
arrangement that could strain a marriage, but
you have to remember how Bob and
Marianne met.
"We met sitting at the anchor desk,"
Marianne recalls of their days at Fox Thing in
the Morning (WFLD in Chicago). "We had a
relationship working professionally before we
had a personal relationship. The only relationship we had was on the air, and it was a weird
relationship at first. Bob would not speak to
me unless we were on the air. During the commercial breaks I would want to tell him about
something that happened to me, and he
"It's taken me a long time to get to this
point," he admits. "I probably couldn't or
wouldn't have done a show like this five or six
years ago. Doing it with Marianne helps. She
pulls me in to talk about subjects I never used
to talk about. It's part of the maturing process
too. We're growing up with the listeners.
Instead of doing jokes about pickup lines on
Division Street, we're talking about things like
chauffeuring the kids around. That's our reality now, and it's the reality of the listeners
too."
Another reality is the totally different perspectives they bring to the table, despite the
fact they are married. "We're very different in
every possible way," Bob concedes. "In personality, background, and interests. Marianne
Bob Sirott and Marianne Murciano
would say 'Save it for the air'."
Bob smiles at the memory. He knows how
it sounds, but it's really broadcasting 101. "It's
never as good when you try to recreate a
moment," he says.
"As soon as I realized what he was doing,"
Marianne concurs, " I thought, OK this is brilliant. I get it now. I was the same way when I
was doing an interview with someone as a
television reporter. I didn't want to meet them
or talk to them beforehand because it was
never as good the second time around. I wanted that all to happen on camera."
Obviously now that they're married they
talk off the air all the time, but they still work
at keeping that spontaneity during the show.
"More memorable moments come out of these
unplanned organic segments," Bob says, "than
the planned segments with guests or written
material. To me there are several models that
have proven this approach over the years.
Tom Snyder (NBC late night host) used to
open his show by just talking to you, and then
ended the show the same way. That was
always the best part. The first segment of the
Steve (Dahl) & Garry (Meier) show (on the
Loop and WLS) was the best for the same reason – they had nothing planned. The opening
chat with Regis & Kelly is another. It just
keeps it honest, genuine, and real. "
And Bob believes it's one of the reasons
people tune in every day. "The spontaneity is
a big element of our show, but obviously so is
the fact that we're married. People can relate
to the issues we're talking about on the air."
Sirott has been on the air in Chicago in one
form or another for more than forty years
now, but even with all that experience, this
show is breaking new ground for him. For the
first time in his career, he's digging a little
deeper into his own personal life and sharing
things he was previously reticent to share.
20 illinoisentertainer.com april 2014
keeps me honest, and keeps me from being a
little too inside or self-aware, and if I make
Marianne laugh – not only does she have a
great laugh, but then I know that maybe we're
reaching everybody."
Bob thinks the show is filling a void. "I
used to listen to Stan & Terry on my way in to
work," he says of the midday talk show starring Stan Lawrence and the late Terry
Armour on the former WCKG (105.9FM).
"They were fun, smart, and really had their
fingers on the pulse of what was going on.
When that went away, I struggled to find a
replacement. it was either all news or all
sports or all political yelling. That sense of
general fun Stan & Terry brought was
nowhere to be found."
Fun is something that is not only encouraged at WGN these days, it's part of the management team's DNA. "The environment that
(Larry) Wert, (Jimmy) deCastro, and (Todd)
Manley have created, doesn't exist anywhere
else," Bob says. "If you're on the same general
page as they are, you can really do whatever
you want. Play to your strengths, play to what
WGN is supposed to be, but have fun! Go
with it. It's an unbelievable environment if
you think about where the rest of the business
is these days. We're growing, building,
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