TOC’s own Jake Malooley spoke live last night with a presenter on BBC 5 about Oprah’s imminent departure from broadcast television. Best moment: When they asked Jake if Oprah might go into politics and become a U.S. ambassador, he said no, because she’d have to take too big of a pay cut. Listen to the segment above.

When we put out a call last month for marathon runners to submit pictures of themselves along with a brief statement in order to have a shot at being included in this week’s marathon issue, we received an overwhelming number of responses from folks involved with an organization called Team M3. Among these emails was one from the Executive Director of MGRF (the overarching organization that runs the program Team M3), Vesna Stelcer, explaining what exactly it’s all about: pairing adult mentors in the community with Chicago Public High School students to train and run the Chicago marathon or half-marathon.

We feature a few Team M3 members in The Get this week discussing everything from their new favorite body parts to the biggest sacrifices they’ve made during the training season. Tomorrow at 10am you can hear about this amazing organization on WLUW’s Outside the Loop as I interview Stelcer about the history of Team M3, the participants and how you, too, can get involved.

Josh Andrews, the director of Internet strategy at WBEZ Radio until a round of layoffs in December, has launched Radio Public, a site covering—wait for it—public radio. At first, RP seems like “just” a news blog covering, but it’s also a one-stop resource for live streams of public radio stations, and recent stories. This is why Josh Andrews is a much smarter person that I am. If I’d been laid off I would have just started nprcanbiteme.blogspot.com and been done with it.

Also laid off from ‘BEZ was reporter Shawn Campbell, formerly of community radio station WLUW. Campbell’s been continuing her efforts with CHIRP, the Chicago Independent Radio Project, which is seeking to start a new community-focused arts and music radio station in Chicago. The station will launch its online site, CHIRPradio.org, early this year. In a recent e-mail Campbell said the group continues “to work at the federal level to change the law that currently prohibits new low-power FM radio licenses from being granted in large cities. We’re optimistic that Congress will move to change this law early in the new session. Once this happens, we will work to secure a broadcast signal as well.” (You can read more about the low-power FM movement at Prometheusradio.org.)

If you’d like to get involved with CHIRP, its next volunteer meeting is January 14 at 7pm. Or you can donate to the cause via PayPal. Radio transmitters don’t come cheap.

Per my friend and yours, Michael Miner, comes word that WBEZ and Vocalo.org both got hit with layoffs today—WBEZ lost nine staffers, Vocalo two. A couple weeks ago I wrote a profile of Torey Malatia, the CEO of both stations, and mentioned a portion of his legend that now seems particularly apropos. The story, as told to me several times, tells of a Malatia that, after getting fired from WFMT many years ago, became extremely reluctant to terminate anybody or anything. When I asked Mr. Malatia about this he admitted he had a certain reluctance, but was fairly adament in noting that he had indeed let people go in the past, and would, if need be, again. I didn’t think about it at the time, but now it seems likely that there was a nagging piece of confidential information motivating his remarks.

This is going to go against everything you’ve heard about Vocalo (89.5 FM) up to now, but…it might be better than you think. Just in time to take advantage of its upgraded tower.

I realize this sounds like I’m breaking my arm to give them a backhanded compliment, but I’m comparing Vocalo not just to other talk-based radio formats, but also to its previous sound. Having tuned in before, the station’s much better than it was before, falling somewhere between a rough-but-produced college radio show and a formless-but-insightful discussion at a local bar that just happens to have a jukebox full of hip-hop and jazz that someone drops a dollar in once in a while.

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WBEZ launched a blog  - with pictures of an impromptu workplace fire drill, no less! -  a couple weeks back, with news about Chicago Public Radio goings-on, and some interesting original reporting. Natalie Moore is blogging the ridiculousness of the R. Kelly trial there, and her posts are worth a look.

They’re also giving away a pair of tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie. Deadline for entry is Wednesday at 2pm.

Longtime Chicago radio personality Wally Phillips has died at the age of 82. Phillips’s work at WGN Radio 720 was responsible for innovations like live listener phone calls and humorous drop-in sound effects that became staples of almost every personality-driven show on radio.

Wally Phillips at WGN Gold (with audio archives)
Wally Phillips Radio Hall of Fame page
The dedication of Wally Phillips Way
Wally Phillips on the Illinois Central commuter train disaster in the book 100 Years, 100 Voices  

As has been reported here and elsewhere, WLUW 88.7 FM, the community radio station out of Loyola, is being reclaimed by the university to be used as a teaching tool. As a result, some former WLUW staffers are leaving the station for other work and projects, one of which is the Chicago Independent Radio Project (the MySpace page for which is wittily soundtracked with The Hold Steady’s "Stuck Between Stations"). According to the group’s press release, CHIRP is composed of "WLUW volunteers, staff, and friends who do not want to see community radio in Chicago come to an end." The group intends to acquire a low-power FM license to start a new radio station in Chicago. Unfortunately, low-power FM licenses aren’t yet available here, as licenses were limited to rural areas in 2001. The bipartisan Local Community Radio Act of 2007 would make these licenses available in urban environments. In order for the FCC to issues these licenses, Congress must approve the measure. The bill is currently in committee in the House of Representatives. The Prometheus Radio Project has an FAQ on low-power licenses, as well as how interested parties can contact their legislators to express their support for the bill. FreePress also has some info. Low-power licenses aren’t cheap, so CHIRP is holding two fundraisers this weekend. The first is tonight at Double Door with Canasta, Plane, May or May Not and Driftless Pony Club. Cover is $10, the show starts at 9pm and it’s 21+. Leaving aside the good feeling one gets from contributing to a good cause, that’s a damn fine bill for the money. Also on tap for this weekend is what’s being billed as a "family-friendly jamboree" outside the Montrose Saloon (2933 W. Montrose) with bands galore from 12-7pm. Admission is $5 with kids under 12 admitted free, though you might think about tossing a couple bucks per head their way for karma’s sake.

I’ve been reading and reflecting on Steve’s posts about comedian Pat Brice who passed away, and am reminded that two years ago on July 14, Chicago lost three talented musicians: Michael Dahlquist from Silkworm; John Glick from the Returnables; and Doug Meis from the Dials and Exo. At the Pitchfork Festival, we sat down with Dan the Fan—who has been a friend and healer to many in Chicago’s rock scene—and he shared these words with us. (FYI, in the beginning, the tree he mentions is one that was planted for John Glick in Palmer Square near his old house; and the court case is regarding the girl who hit them, who survived the crash.) He reminds us that people who we lose in our lives are still with us in many ways. It’s the loss of artists who have helped make Chicago what it is, that puts some of the city’s other casualties in perspective. Filter is now closed, but will hopefully resurrect itself in another part of the city, to start another chapter in another neighborhood. This kind of change is a trend in big cities—as much as we may not like it. I hope the same for Hothouse—also formerly housed in the Flat Iron, like Filter—which closed Monday in the South Loop, and was a platform for the city’s diverse world, experimental and jazz music scene. Faced with a budget deficit, Hothouse’s new board of directors (who ousted the club’s founder Marguerite Horberg last year) pursued this action in order to settle a longtime dispute with the landlord, making the space just one more integral club that to get the boot from what is now College-and-High-End-Residential Central. And I’m confident that the DJs and managers at WLUW—who have been so committed to providing both an arena for independent music, and programs that serve ethnic and cultural communities throughout Chicago—will continue to do so in whatever manner possible, whether on the same radio waves once Loyola takes over, as the new format possibly could retain some existing programming, or through other projects in the works. It’s the people who make a scene, not just the physical space, right? So I guess you have to roll with the changes, appreciate everyone and everything that’s still with us, and be optimistic that energy is never created or destroyed, it just transforms.

On the same weekend that Chicago hosted the country’s largest independent music festival, radio station WLUW-FM 88.7, the city’s biggest broadcast radio outlet for “independent thought and expression” was stunned to learn that operations of the station would revert from its community radio partner WBEZ-FM 91.5 to the station’s license holder, Loyola University, leaving the future of its programming in question.

Since 2002, the station’s day-to-day operations, along with its fundraising, hiring and volunteer program have been run by WBEZ, the Chicago Public Radio outlet, in a joint agreement with Loyola University, which controls the station’s license and assumes all responsibility for transmission of the station’s signal. Either the university or WBEZ has the right, under the operating agreement, to terminate the relationship, with nine months notice. On Thursday, notice was given to WBEZ and WLUW by the university. An FAQ on the change was later posted on its website.

In an interview, John P. Pelissero, Vice Provost, Division of Academic Affairs, said that Loyola terminated the operating agreement because it is “looking at utilizing WLUW as an instructional piece for students in the communication field.” The decision was made by Michael Garanzini, the university president, in consultation with Provost John Frendreis, who left the university in June. The station will continue to operate under the current agreement, with no change in programming, until May of 2008 when the university will assume control. A report about the change appeared in the column of Chicago Sun-Times TV/radio writer Robert Feder the next day. Pelissero speculated that a member of WBEZ leaked the information to Feder.

When asked whether Loyola would retain any current WLUW staffers or programming after it assumes control of the station, Pelissero said that “nothing has been determined at this point.” A group comprised of faculty within the communications department and those within the office of academic affairs is currently meeting to determine what changes in programming and staffing will occur to accommodate this change. “We want to find a way to integrate [the students’] learning with aspects of WLUW,” he said. The decision to terminate the agreement was not a “judgment about the content or format. It’s an academic decision that we’re making.”

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