April 27 Daily Herald TV/radio columnist Ted Cox writes:
It’s always a pleasure to talk with someone who’s passionate about what he or she does for a living, and the instant I get on the phone with Chuck Schaden I’m sorry it’s been five years since we’ve talked. Yet that, in part, is what anniversaries are for, to reconnect and reassess, and Schaden celebrates the 30th anniversary of his old-time radio show Those Were the Days at 1 p.m. Saturday on WNIB. This weekend …Schaden sets aside his tapes of old-time programs for a collection of highlights from the 30-year history of Those Were the Days. The highlights format also points up Schaden’s contribution to the scholarship on old-time radio. He hasn’t just preserved and promoted shows. Through interviews with the stars, voice talents, special-effects artists and writers, he’s helped show how radio was and is a craft all its own.
Listeners surprise Chuck.
April 29 Those Were The Days Thirtieth Anniversary. From the Radio Hall of Fame studio in the Museum of Broadcast Communications at the Chicago Cultural Center, there are many moments of TWTD nostalgia from the program over the years. The TWTD Radio Players present a live re-enactment of “The Maltese Falcon” from the Lux Radio Theatre. Ken Alexander portrays Sam Spade, Caspar Gutman and Joel Cairo. “Live” organ music is provided by guest Paul Renard, an organist from the radio days. A surprised Chuck is overwhelmed when his five grandchildren march up to his microphone, bringing with them mailbags filled with cards and letters from listeners who conspired with his daughters and Ken Alexander (while Chuck was away on vacation earlier in the year) to express their feelings about TWTD on the program’s special occasion. The couple who got engaged on the TWTD broadcast of June 12, 1999 — Edward Brodizky and Jillene Mittleman — stop by to invite Chuck to their wedding on August 13, 2000.
May 6 As TWTD begins its 31st year of programming, it has been on the air longer than two very long-running classic shows from radio’s Golden Age: One Man’s Family (28 years) and Voice of Firestone (30 years).
APRIL 29, 2000 Edward Brodizky and Jillene Mittleman, who became engaged on the air during a 1999 TWTD broadcast, stop in during the 30th Anniversary program to invite Chuck to their upcoming August wedding.
May 20 First TWTD broadcast in Cyberspace as WNIB, Chicago begins streaming on the World Wide Web. Almost immediately, old time radio fans outside of the Chicago area begin responding with gratitude.
June 10-17 TWTD presents “Radio and the Korean War,” a three- part, three-week series commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Korean Conflict.
July 30 Chicago Sun-Times carries the article, “WMAQ Signing Off and Call Letters Retired After 78 Years” by Chuck Schaden. Excerpt:
Chicago’s oldest broadcast institution is being forced into retirement, another victim of merger, consolidation and downsizing. There’s no golden parachute, no gold watch, no retirement party, hardly a testimonial from its peers. With the stroke of a pen and the strike of a clock, radio station WMAQ, a fixture in Chicago since 1922, will be gone Tuesday.
WMAQ was originally called WGU and was owned by the Fair Store. The license was issued March 29, 1922. The first broadcast was April 12, 1922. Later that year, the Chicago Daily News took an interest in radio and on September 29, 1922 became co-owners of WGU with the Fair Store. They applied for and received new call letters for the station. On October 2, 1922, WMAQ went on the air.
In 1927, WMAQ became an affiliate of the National Broadcasting Co. in a relationship that lasted only eight months, when the station joined the Columbia Broadcasting System as a charter member of the network. In 1931, NBC purchased WMAQ …increased power to 50,000 watts and … operated WMAQ as its Midwest flagship station.
In 1985, RCA, the parent company of the National Broadcasting Co. was sold to General Electric, and in 1988 GE sold WMAQ to Westinghouse. Purchases, mergers and ownership management changes have taken place since that time. As a result, after 78 years, the historic WMAQ call letters are being retired, along with the legacy of the thousands of people who gave voice to one of the nation’s great radio stations. Goodbye, WMAQ.
August 5-26 TWTD presents a Mid-Summer Festival of Radio Comedy, a month -long, four-week series of nothing but vintage comedy programs.
September 9 Those Were The Days marks 25 years on station WNIB, Chicago, with 1,306 programs to date.
October 10-24 TWTD sponsors a listener trip to France with Chuck and Ellen Schaden for a visit to Omaha Beach, site of the D-Day invasion and other World War II sites, tours of the French countryside, Paris with the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, wine tastings, the show at the Moulin Rouge, and even, during a ride on the Metro subway, being treated to a Parisian accordion player’s spontaneous rendition of the song, “Those Were the Days.”
November 29 The owners of WNIB announce that their radio station has been sold and all current programming — including Those Were The Days — would be discontinued at the time of the actual ownership change, which would be “sometime in February, 2001.” New ownership means a totally new format for the station, which had been operating under the original ownership for more than 45 years and had been the home of TWTD for the past 25 years.
November 30 Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder writes:
In the biggest radio blockbuster of the year, WNIB-FM is changing its tune after more than four decades as a classical music station. Bill and Sonia Florian, who have owned and operated WNIB as a labor of love since its inception in 1955, said Wednesday that they have agreed to sell the station together with far north suburban simulcast sister station WNIZ-FM. Bonneville International Corp., the Salt Lake City-based broadcast division of the Morman Church, will acquire the two outlets for $165 million —a staggering return on Bill Florian’s initial investment of $8,000 to launch the station. Pending government approval, the deal could be finalized by Feb. 1. No word on the fate of WNIB’s staff, music library or Those Were the Days, Chuck Schaden’s Saturday afternoon showcase for old-time radio.
