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16 illinoisentertainer.com october 2019
ext year will be Rob Hart’s 20th year
on the radio in Chicago, and he has
worked at several stops along the
way, including WGN, News 101, and the
Loop. But now he’s manning the anchor
desk at the dream destination for any radio
newsman: NewsRadio WBBM 780.
“It’s a great radio station,” he says. “The
people I work for and with are really good.
I’m incredibly comfortable there, and I like it
a lot.”
Rob is Chicago born and bred, and while
most people his age (within sniffing distance
of 40) grew up listening to rock stations, he
had a slightly different upbringing.
“Everyone has their Chicago radio origin
story. In my case, I grew up with a steady
diet of WBBM. One of my earliest radio
picked it up, and took it home. “
That history, he finds, offers an insight
into radio’s present. “I appreciate the history
of it, because in many ways, what you’re
experiencing today is similar to what they
experienced then. Nothing is necessarily
new. One of the books I enjoyed reading was
Larry Lujack’s Superjock, which was written
in 1975 at the height of his fame. It’s a fasci-
nating look at what the industry was like
then. We look at that time as the good old
days of radio, but he was talking about how
the industry didn’t really pay unless you
were in one of the biggest markets, and even
when you did get there, there was an enor-
mous amount of instability. He joked about
needing an adding machine to keep track of
all the different former colleagues that came
Rob Hart
memories is going to the auto show and
watching Dick Helton and Kris Kridel
anchor the afternoon news. Kris and I later
worked together and were co-anchors in the
midday. She thought it was kind of neat that
a kid who watched her back in the day even-
tually came to work at that same radio sta-
tion.”
Rob is steeped in the station’s history.
“When we were doing the 50th anniversary
of the radio station (2018), (program director)
Ron Gleason was sitting in his office listening
to old stingers and jingles and bumpers.
You’d hear these hour openers from the '80s
that I hadn’t heard in twenty-five years, and
they totally triggered memories for me. It’s
really exciting to be a part of this station’s
history. Everyone came from different places
and backgrounds, but when you get here,
you really respect what people built for you.
WBBM is a big deal, primarily because of the
work
of
John
Hultman,
Felicia
Middlebrooks, Kris Kridel, Sherman Kaplan,
Dale McCarron, Rich King, Alan Bickley, and
all of these anchors that came before you.
You want to continue that professionalism.
You want to respect the work they did. It
keeps you in line.”
Anyone who follows Rob on Twitter
knows that his interest in radio isn’t just lim-
ited to WBBM history. He’s really into
Chicago radio history in general. “I have a lot
of memorabilia and stuff in the basement,
and I’m trying hard to make sure no-one
throws it away. When I was working at the
Loop a few years ago, they were cleaning out
a promotions closet, and there were all sorts
of stuff that had been sent over from the
Hancock to the Merchandise Mart when the
station moved, including that iconic pool
playing poster with Steve & Garry, Kevin
Matthews, and Johnny B. I saw all of that,
and went at his stations. And those were the
good old days. It’s just important to remem-
ber that it’s always been this way. We’ve
been through this before, and it always
worked out okay.”
In his current role, Hart anchors
Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, and
reports on Thursdays and Fridays. “I’m glad
I can do both,” he says. “The anchoring is fun
because it’s a complex format and you have
to pull it all together, and hit all the elements
on time. You have to be precise when you get
to breaks. On the other hand, I’ve covered
some great stories, including the White Sox
World Series in 2005 (with WGN at the time).
As a Sox fan that was incredible. It was the
first story I covered for WGN. And in 2016, I
was out there in Wrigleyville all night for
Game 7, and I’ll never forget it. After Rajai
Davis hit the home run to tie it up, I was talk-
ing to a CBS cameraman, and he said,
‘Listen, if this goes bad, and they start riot-
ing, you can hide out here in our van if you
need to. We’re all CBS employees when push
comes to shove.”
That was probably the most historical
moment he has ever covered. “I really
thought about the history of that moment as
it was happening. In 1908 there weren’t any
electronic reporters covering the Cubs. It
didn’t exist yet. That meant I was in the first
group of electronic reporters that ever got to
do this. Some people lived their whole lives
and never got the opportunity. Think of
Ronald Reagan. He was born in 1911 and
worked as a Cubs announcer in the 1930s,
eventually went on to become president, and
lived a long life, and never saw the Cubs win
the World Series.”
Rob reports history every day on WBBM-
AM 780 and 105.9 FM.