By Rick Kaempfer
PETE'S EVENING ENSEMBLE
U
ntil recently Pete McMurray was
holding down the fort overnights at
WGN-Radio. When the talent lineup
was shuffled a few months ago, he found
himself doing the 7-11pm shift. That has been
a great development for the well-traveled
McMurray, although there is a downside.
"I hate that I get tempted by to go out after
the show," he admits about the 11pm ending
time. "I have a family, I need sleep, I'm weak,
and I can't be tempted! It's like the scene in
Animal House – producer Scott's (Miller) on
one shoulder saying 'go out, let's have some
fun' My wife on the other shoulder saying
'you need to come home,' wake up early and
take your son to school.' So many tough decisions. It's rough, man!"
someone's family room having great conversation and laughs.
McMurray makes a point of including the
entire ensemble cast as much as possible.
"I get bored very easily. One person talking
bores me to tears. And, it bores most people.
I ALWAYS look at my show as an ensemble. I
look at the greatest sitcom in the history of
television. The title was 'Seinfeld', but the
show got laughs and story lines from every
character. Seinfeld gets the credit, but it's the
cast that made the show. Ours is similar. I
drive the bus, but there's someone on our
show on any given day that anyone listening
can relate to."
And no subject is off-limits. "We'll throw
it ALL out there," he admits, including dis-
L to R: Scott Miller, Jill Urchak, Pete McMurray, Rob Martier
The WGN listeners that had been accustomed to the evening sports-talk of David
Kaplan et al, are now getting a regular diet of
talk about music or food or pop culture, and
it's definitely skewed toward a younger
demographic. McMurray says the listeners
have handled the change pretty well.
"If you listen to our show we get all ages
because we can relate to everyone. We'll hear
from the grad student going to Berkeley listening online; Marty, the 72 year old woman
listening in her living room; Dan, who listens
on his app at work and sends us texts messages throughout the show. We have high
school students calling in! I'm not kidding;
we're all over the board! We get the content
out there on the radio, video, online, the app
and especially on social media. We're all over
social media and constantly pushing pictures, videos and audio to drive people back
to the show."
McMurray is enjoying every minute of
this ride. He's doing a high-profile shift, on
the highest of profile stations, and it seems
like he's meeting some of his heroes on a
nightly basis.
"Who doesn't love Billy Corgan playing a
new song?" he asks rhetorically. "Or, Wayne
Newton playing guitar and talking old
Vegas? Buddy Guy, JY from Styx all played
for us. Joan Rivers, Mark Wahlberg, Bob
Costas, the Mayor was just on...all were great!
If I'm excited to talk with some celebrities,
that's why we have them on," he says. "If we
get excited, the listeners will get excited too.
Scott R. Miller (producer and co-host) talked
to one of his idols on the show, Aretha
Franklin. We were all excited for him until he
tried to ask her out! It's fun talking to celebs,
but what I really enjoy most is when we talk
amongst the show – Scott, Rob, Jill and
myself. Then, the listeners chime in. That's
my favorite part. It's like we're sitting in
20 illinoisentertainer.com august 2014
cussions of their personal lives. "What you
hear, is EXACTLY what we are. We're just
like our listeners: taking care of kids, jugg [